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.
$6,000: Average national price of a funeral. That includes transporting the remains, embalming, dressing, chapel services and the coffin.
- $799: Lowest price of a casket ordered through Costco.
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.
IN 2008, so much blood spilled on MacArthur Boulevard between 74th and 82nd avenues that people took to calling the eight-block stretch in East Oakland "the killing fields.
For many on the streets of Oakland, violence has become so commonplace, death so expected, there exists a sense of chilling resignation. An almost sinister acceptance of violence persists, leaving generations inflicted with symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder...
