Cost of Oakland bloodshed overwhelms police, social services It's hard to put a price on death. But 124 times in Oakland last year, homicides forced someone to perform this perverse calculation. Tragic circumstances can compel individuals, neighborhoods and cities to put a dollar amount on the cost of killing.
At his sentencing in the first DNA Cold Hit Unit prosecution case in Alameda County, Bennie Lee Alder demonstrated how terrifying a sexual predator can be and why law-enforcement agencies are collaborating to keep others like him off Oakland streets.
Grief groups for family and friends of murder victims are filled with mothers and daughters, wives and girlfriends. Men are grieving too, but they won't let it show. That, experts say, is bad for their health.
There are Oakland residents who've never seen a dead body on a street or sidewalk. There are those who haven't heard gunshots ring out in the pre-dawn hours or looked from their window to see a flood of red-and-blue lights flashing. To some, 124 is just a number.
