Second Hand

I'm sitting there, still groggy, my morning coffee hadn't kicked in yet, and it was early. He approaches me and bends over so that he could look up at my face.

"Good morning"

"Oh hey, good morning" I force a smirk.

"I said, good morning." He emphasizes the 'morning'

"Good Morning." I full on smile. He half laughs and walks away. He always brought the energy, the kind of guy you look forward to seeing everyday.

We set up the scaffolding, pulling out the brushes and paints,  and start on the wall just like we did everyday. It was almost 9.

About an hour and half into full on painting there was a loud noise, almost like a crash, unidentified, in the moment it was hard to process against similar noises in my memory bank. I was preoccupied painting, zoned in my own world when the blare startled me out of it. I first thought the scaffold had fallen or someone fell from it, but I looked over and the scaffolds were all upright.

Then I hear "He shot me!" from the far end.

Almost like an echo another person yells over and over again "He shot him! He shot him!"

I instinctively run over as fast as I could, I was the furthest away, painting on the opposite end of the wall about 150 feet away, but some how I was the first upon him. I look up for a moment and notice a figure walking away, his back towards me, crossing the street, confident strides, no hurry.

I found him on the ground fully aware, talking. But going in and out of consciousness.

"He shot me."

I quickly scan for a wound I don't see anything but as I simultaneously feel under his shirt I feel it in his lower left abdomen - moist and irregular. Quickly I put my hand over it and apply pressure, that's the only thing I can think to do. I reach behind him but I couldn't find an exit wound, there isn't one. I know from watching movies that blood loss is the biggest concern so I try to prevent that.

There was one other guy who was painting further than me and he comes up red faced. Feels like moments later.

"What happened?!!"

"He was shot."

He hands me his phone for some reason. No one's thinking straight. I know instinctively what to do. I dial 9-1-1

"Hi, my friend was shot, we're at 35th St and West, the freeway underpass, send someone right away!!"

"Sorry, could you please repeat that?"

"I said my friend was shot, we need someone here right away!!"

"This is the highway patrol, I'll need to connect you to local law enforcement."

"Ok, whatever! Do it!"

Riiiiing riiiiing riiiiing riiiing

"What the fuck...!!"

In frustration I forceably throw the phone back into the other painter's hands.

I look back towards the ground, he says.

"How come no one is doing anything? Do something!" Angrily

I try to calm him and reassure him.

"We are, we called 9-1-1, the ambulance is coming and I'm here."

Then he seems to be losing consciousness. I thought we were going to lose him right then. I lightly slap his face. He comes back immediately.

"How come no one is doing anything? He shot me."

Then his consciousness wanes. I again slap his face to keep him awake.

"You gotta say with me. You gotta stay awake. Don't go to sleep."

He goes in and out of consciousness, we repeat this game over again.

"How come you're sitting on my stomach?"

"I'm not, it's just my hand, I'm putting pressure on the wound."

It seems like so much time had passed at this point. I don't really recall anyone else. I do remember another painter pacing back and forth in anger, almost yelling "He shot him, he shot him."

And I see someone crying nearby. Another was just standing staring. One was panicking but she was there helping me. There were others but I don't know where they were or what they were doing.

"It's been so long, where the hell is everybody!! Why isn't the ambulance here!? We need to get him to a hospital.

He starts foaming from the mouth.

Some black girls nearby almost taunt us.

"This is West Oakland, no police is gonna come. " In that moment for some reason that felt true. We had to act. We couldn't wait for the police that might not come.

"Let's move him to the back of the truck! We gotta take him to the hospital now!"

So we pick him up, I brace the back of his neck and we carrying him to the back of the truck.
He want's to puke so we turn him to his side. He pukes.

I recheck the wound there's surprisingly no blood. And still no exit wound, which I know means he's a mess inside. The urgency suddenly hits me.

"We gotta take him now!!!"

The same girls try to be helpful...

"There's a hospital like 6 blocks in that direction, it's really close."

"Are you sure!? Where exactly? What's it called?"

The last thing I want to do is to be driving around lost looking for a hospital while he's dying in the back of the truck. I was strangely calm until then, my mind started to race and I couldn't decide what to do. This decision could save or kill a life...

We're all in the truck, ready to go when multiple police cars pull up and almost surround us, blocking the vehicle from moving.

One of us goes up and yells at them, urging them to move so we can go. There's still no ambulance in sight.

"Get the fuck out of the way so we can go!"

It takes them it feels like 10s of minutes until finally the paramedics emerge from the around the corner. Time always slows during times of urgency. It only dawns on me later that they were there the entire time just waiting for the all clear from the police. They approach him and cut off all his clothes, except for his boxers. Then they lift him onto the stretcher and put the clear plastic oxygen mask over his face. The oxygen alone seems like it would save him. There was something about it that gave me some semblance of relief. During the commotion his boxers pulled down a few times, exposing him. He sensed this somehow and seemed to want to try and pull them up but his arms were twitching and folded in unnatural ways. Wrist bent. The way people used to do when they made fun of retarded people. So I went up and covered him with a blanket. He seemed to acknowledge that. I continued walking with him holding his hand and head to the ambulance.

"Can I let go now?" I ask the paramedics as they are about to load him in, as if I was doing something important and needed official relief.

"Yeah, you can let go."

"Can I come with you guys?"

"No, sorry, we can't have anyone inside."

"Ok, they're going to take you now." I said as I looked into his eyes.

That was the last thing I said to him. It didn't occur to me I'd never see him again. No words of comfort or inspiration. Just 'Ok, they're going to take you now" Not that words have power but they do and maybe the right ones would've kept his will going stronger, inspire a fight, provide the tiny bit needed that would mean the difference between life and death. Maybe. I can't even think of what I would've wanted to say - even now.

We got updates, he made it to surgery. The oxygen mask, then the ambulance each seemed like steps towards life. He was going to make it.

I hugged another artist and when I walked away I saw the tiny spot of blood I'd inadvertently left on the back of his shirt. That's when I look down at my palm and see a burgundy, dime sized circle.

I wanted to tell him about the spot on his back but never did.

The 95th at 17 in 2010

17-year-old Castlemont High student slain, sister wounded in shooting outside East Oakland home

By Harry Harris
Oakland Tribune
Posted: 01/01/2011 08:47:11 AM PST
Updated: 01/01/2011 06:22:54 PM PST

OAKLAND -- In what one homicide detective denounced as "one of the most cowardly acts" he has ever investigated, a 17-year-old Castlemont High School student was killed and his older sister wounded Friday night outside their home by a gunman who opened fire moments after they put the woman's 5-month-old daughter into her car seat.

The infant was not hurt, nor were two other female relatives who were present, police said.

"It was a miracle no one else was hit," homicide Sgt. Gus Galindo said Saturday. "We could very easily have had four or five people killed."

Killed was Christopher Jones, who Galindo said was a churchgoing, music-loving, "good kid who never had been in trouble." His family told police he was a senior at Castlemont who got excellent grades.

Police did not release the name of his 24-year-old sister who was wounded in the foot or any of the other family members present.

The shooting happened about 6:30 p.m. New Year's Eve outside the family's home in the 7400 block of Fresno Street not far from Eastmont mall, a half-block from 73rd Avenue.

Galindo said Jones, his sister and the others were going to drive the infant to North Oakand to the her father's home for a visit after stopping for dinner.

They never made it.

Neighbors and loved ones tied balloons with "RIP Chris" and other messages printed on them to the gate outside Jones' home Saturday. Across the street, piles of broken window glass

marked the scene of the shooting.

Galindo said police do not have a motive for the attack and no arrests have been made.

"From what we've learned so far, it appears they were ambushed" just after putting the infant inside the car, he said. "There was no apparent warning and no indication of any argument or fight."

Jones died at 7 p.m. at a hospital. His sister was treated and released.

An angry Galindo said, "This is one of the most pathetic cases I've ever had."

"Anybody who does something like this does not deserve to be a free citizen," Galindo said. "They need to be locked up. What a terrible way to end the year."

The killing was Oakland's 95th homicide of 2010. There were 110 in 2009. The city's first homicide for 2011 would soon follow, when an 18-year-old Bay Point man was shot to death in East Oakland just nine minutes after midnight.

First Murder in Oakland 2010

(01-11) 18:36 PST Oakland -- Alvaro Ayala handed over his cell phone and his wallet to armed robbers in the driveway of his East Oakland home Sunday night. But Ayala's wallet was empty, and the two masked gunmen wanted more, family members said.

With his wife and two children standing behind him - the family had just returned home from shopping at Ross Dress for Less - Ayala made a split-second decision that apparently cost him his life.

He stepped between the gunmen and his family. The gunmen responded by fatally shooting him, said Esmerelda Acevedo, Ayala's sister-in-law.

"They knew he didn't have money," she said, speaking at Ayala's home Monday. "He put himself in front of his family, so they shot him."

Ayala, 28, died in his driveway in the arms of his older brother Eduardo Ayala, who rushed to the front of the yellow stucco home after the shooting, summoned by Ayala's 10-year-old son.

Monday morning, family and friends filled the small one-story house on the 900 block of 70th Avenue. The house, located two blocks east of the Oakland Coliseum BART parking lot, was still decorated with Christmas lights, reindeer and a Santa Claus on the roof. But inside and out, the sobs of family members could be seen and heard.

Ayala, an immigrant from Michoacan, Mexico, had one sister and was the fourth of six brothers, all of whom live in the neighborhood. All the brothers work in the construction industry, with Ayala working primarily on lead and asbestos removal.

Candles forming the shape of a crucifix burned on the driveway on the spot where Ayala died. Inside, Ayala's distraught wife and two children were being comforted by relatives.

The family was unable to see the faces of Ayala's masked killers or even provide authorities with the color of their skin. On Monday, they were too upset to talk to reporters.

Their relatives relayed details of the attack.

Shortly before 7 p.m., Alvaro Ayala returned home with his wife, Carmen Mugia, and two children, a 10-year-old son and a 5-year-old daughter. After parking their truck in the driveway, Mugia went to close the nearly 6-foot-tall metal driveway gates, which are common to many homes on the block.

But before she did, two masked men with guns barged in, said Acevedo, and the robbery and the killing happened.

We "just want the guilty ones to be found," Acevedo said. "They killed an innocent person. ... We don't want anyone else to be hurt by them."

Alvaro Ayala and his family bought the home roughly five years ago, said one of his brothers, Antonio Juarez Ayala, 31. The family had always viewed the area as safe, he said, noting that police heavily patrol San Leandro Street and International Boulevard, which bracket their neighborhood.

"There are a lot of police," he said.

Before Sunday, they had never experienced a break-in or any other problems, he said.

Ayala's family shares its home with other relatives, including Ayala's mother and his brother Eduardo, who were both home when the shooting happened.

Oakland police issued a statement Monday saying that a "preliminary investigation" revealed that the victim was killed as part of an attempted robbery. But police did not respond to numerous e-mail and phone requests for further comment.

Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums issued a rare statement on the slaying, Oakland's first homicide of the year: "First, I offer my heartfelt condolences to the wife and children of Alvaro J. Ayala, who witnessed their father and husband tragically murdered by unidentified gunmen last night. I am deeply saddened by this tragic act of violence that leaves a young family torn apart."

Chronicle Article

We're Doing Better.

Oakland man fatally shot outside downtown club
By Sean Maher and Harry Harris
Oakland Tribune
Posted: 10/25/2009 08:28:15 AM PDT
Updated: 10/25/2009 07:55:40 PM PDT

OAKLAND — A 42-year-old Oakland man was shot to death early Sunday outside a downtown after-hours club, police said.

Vershawn Baskom had been visiting the club for the first time, and was with his wife, Sgt. George Phillips said.

The couple had only been there a short time when the shooting happened about 2:45 a.m. on the sidewalk a few doors from a club in the 300 block of 12th Street, around the corner from the Tribune Tower building.

With his wife nearby, Baskom got into a confrontation with someone else on the sidewalk, Phillips said. Police said they don't know what the fight was about, but that it ended when the other person drew a gun and shot Baskom several times.

Baskom was pronounced dead at Highland Hospital.

He had been married since 2001, police said. The couple did not have children.

A nearby building was damaged by gunfire, but no one else was injured.

Police searched a building in the same block and arrested two suspects and recovered firearms.

The killing was Oakland's 93rd reported homicide of the year. Last year at this time, there had been 109 homicides in Oakland.