Bay Area news roundup

A roundup of Bay Area stories making news today.

Unionized city employees protesting layoffs and wage reductions marched from San Francisco City Hall to Market Street this afternoon, blocking off a busy intersection during rush hour.

A circle of demonstrators was blocking the intersection of Market and Eighth streets at 6 p.m.

Service Employee International Union Local 1021 officials say the city intends to lay off 500 city public health and school district employees and that the layoffs could be prevented by a budget appropriation to be considered by the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.

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A protest in the lobby of University of California President Mark Yudof's office in downtown Oakland ended peacefully this evening with no arrests.

UC Berkeley senior Marika Goodrich, who helped lead the protest, said about 75 students and union members entered the president's office at 1111 Franklin St. at about 3 p.m. to try to talk to Yudof about a 32 percent student fee increase approved by the UC Board of Regents last Thursday.

Goodrich said protesters also wanted to talk to Yudof about what they allege was a violent response by police officers to the occupation of UC Berkeley's Wheeler Hall by students and union members last Friday.

However, Yudof wasn't at his office today because he's on a short furlough Office of the President spokesman Peter King said.

In Yudof's place, UC Interim Executive Vice President Nathan Brostrom and UC Interim Provost Larry Pitts agreed to come to the lobby from their upstairs offices and meet with the protesters, King said.

There was "a peaceful dialogue" for about two hours, he said.

At the end of the impromptu meeting, Goodrich told Brostrom and Pitts, "I hope you see how passionate we are and how committed we are."

Speaking to her fellow protesters, Goodrich said of Brostrom and Pitts, "They were put in this position (of meeting with the demonstrators) because President Yudof wasn't here to do his job even though three days ago students were brutalized and had their bones broken."

Pitts said, "I appreciate the peaceful interchange."

Goodrich told the protesters, "Everybody knows what you're doing is for the public good" but then said to Brostrom and Pitts, "I know we don't feel like we got the truth today."

When the protest ended just after 5 p.m., there were about 40 protesters inside the lobby and about 30 outside the building. A large contingent of Oakland police officers helped UC police monitor the protest.

Oakland police closed two lanes of Franklin Street between 11th and 12th streets, which meant that only one lane on that block was open to traffic during the protest. But traffic continued to flow fairly smoothly.

Earlier today, UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau, Executive Vice Chancellor George Breslauer and Provost and Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Harry Le Grande issued a statement saying that "students, faculty and the staff are justifiably angered by the fee increases, by layoffs and by other difficult decisions necessitated by the state budget reductions."

The UC Berkeley administrators said videos of the aggressive response by police officers to the occupation of Wheeler Hall "do not reflect our values and those of our entire campus community and may not accurately reflect the whole sequence of events."

They said, "We truly regret the incidents that brought physical and emotional injury to members of our community."

The administrators said the UC Police Department has begun an operational review of the protest and they are calling for an independent investigation by the Campus Police Review Board, which includes representatives of students, faculty and staff.

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Oakland has the third-highest crime rate in the U.S. and Richmond has the 14th-highest, according to an annual crime report just released by CQ Press.

Camden, N.J. has the country's highest crime rate, according to the report, "City Crime Rankings 2009-2010: Crime in Metropolitan America," based on statistics compiled by the FBI.

The rankings for cities and metropolitan areas include incidents of murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and auto theft. The rankings include all cities of at least 75,000 residents that reported crime data to the FBI in those categories for 2008.

CQ Press has acknowledged that its annual crime rankings are considered controversial by some law enforcement agencies and that the FBI, police and many criminologists caution against rankings according to crime rates.

Law enforcement agencies state crime levels are affected by many factors including population density, the concentration of youth in the population, economic conditions, cultural factors, education levels and crime reporting practices.

Accordingly, the crime rankings are often deemed "simplistic" and "incomplete", CQ Press said.

"However, this criticism is largely based on the fact that there are reasons for the differences in crime rates, not that the rates are incompatible," CQ Press said in the release.

Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums was quick to issue a statement refuting the report.

"While the FBI has questioned the validity of these rankings and the U.S. Conference of Mayors says this report is both 'misleading and a disservice to the public,' Oakland's own data says that our city is making progress in bringing peace to our streets," Dellums said.

In his State of the City address on Jan. 1, Dellums challenged the city to reduce crime by 10 percent.

"I am proud to say Oakland has answered the call and implemented a comprehensive strategy that has seen a 17 percent drop in homicides and a 13 percent drop in overall crime -- versus a drop of only 4 percent nationwide," Dellums said.

"While I understand we have a long way to go until out goals are realized, I am proud of the work our city has done and am encouraged by our collaborative efforts," Dellums said.

The mayor cited nine components of the city's Prevention, Intervention, Enforcement and Sustainability, or PIES, strategy to reduce crime.

They include putting more officers on the streets, dividing Oakland into three public safety districts to bolster accountability and provide a more effective command structure, and deploying street outreach workers to address street-level violence by connecting high-risk individuals with opportunities to stay off the streets.

The city also has enhanced weekend and evening law enforcement, Dellums said.

The City Crime Rankings is one of five annual reference books published by CQ Press that analyze and rank cities and states in various categories.

CQ Press is based in Washington, DC, and is a division of SAGE Publications, an independent academic and professional publisher.

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Public officials are holding an open house celebration in San Francisco today to announce the opening of a local census office in the city's Potrero Hill neighborhood.

The U.S. Constitution requires that everyone in the country be counted every 10 years. In March, the census bureau plans to mail a census form to each household for the April 10, 2010 census.

The bureau will be opening two local census offices in San Francisco, which will employ up to 3,000 people during the peak time.

Census data is used to determine the boundaries for state and local legislative and congressional districts. According to the bureau, more than $400 billion in federal funds are distributed each year based on census data. That money pays for programs and services such as free lunch programs for low-income students, vocational training, road construction and emergency services.

Officials expected to attend today's 2 p.m. opening include Congresswoman Jackie Speier, state Sen. Leland Yee, state Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and San Francisco Supervisors Carmen Chu and David Campos.

Other participants were to include the Rev. Amos Brown, president of the San Francisco chapter of the NAACP; Ana Perez, executive director of the Central American Resource Center; and Ralph Lee, regional director of the U.S. Census Bureau.

The office is at 1550 Bryant St., at 15th Street.

All census information is confidential and cannot be accessed by any other government agency, including the FBI, the IRS or immigration services. Courts and local law enforcement agencies are also barred from accessing census information.

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Firefighters have contained a two-alarm blaze at a home on Cape Horn Drive in San Jose this afternoon.

The fire was reported at 2:53 p.m. at 1915 Cape Horn Drive. As of 3:50 p.m., 25 firefighters had contained the blaze to the second floor of the home, fire Capt. Scott Kouns said.

One resident was home when the fire started, but managed to escape, Kouns said.

Police evacuated the house next door to the burning house. The fire is expected to be fully controlled by 4:30 p.m., Kouns said.

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An Alameda County Superior Court jury recommended the death penalty today for Oakland resident Christopher Evans for murdering two people at a hair salon eight years ago.

Jurors deliberated for the equivalent of two full days before delivering their verdict against Evans, 36.

On July 16, jurors convicted Evans of one count of first-degree murder for the death of hairdresser Tina Marie Rose, 28, and one count of second-degree murder for the death of Tommy Lee Brown, 41, in a shooting at Rose's salon near the corner of 85th Avenue and International Boulevard in Oakland on April 27, 2001.

Jurors also found Evans guilty of the special circumstance of committing multiple murders.

Evans' attorneys, William DuBois and Alex Selvin, told jurors that Evans suffered from "post-concussion syndrome" and didn't know what was going on when he killed Rose and Brown because Rose's brother had punched him in the head and knocked him out in a confrontation a short time before he opened fire.

But prosecutor Michael Nieto told jurors that although Evans may have been shaken up when he was punched, he knew what he was doing when he shot Rose and Brown.

Nieto said Derrick Rose punched Evans a short time after Evans searched Rose's pockets as he walked down the block.

Evans testified that the "pocket check" was a routine prank played all the time on the streets of East Oakland.

But Nieto said Evans was a drug-dealer who was protecting his turf by making sure he wasn't robbed by someone he hadn't seen before. Derrick Rose didn't appreciate having a stranger check his pockets and argued with Evans outside his sister's beauty salon, Nieto said. Tina Marie Rose, who knew Evans, came outside and told Evans that the person he was arguing with was her brother.

Evans apologized, but Derrick Rose was still upset and returned about 40 minutes later with friends. He then punched Evans.

DuBois told jurors in his closing argument in the guilt phase of the case that Evans was "confused" and a friend of his put a gun in his hand.

Nieto said Evans brandished the gun inside the hair salon and shot Brown when he tried to stop Evans from shooting Tina Marie Rose. Evans then shot Rose while she was trying to run away, Nieto said.

Evans was on the run for nearly eight months after the shooting but he was arrested in Reno in December 2001, shortly before a segment on him was scheduled to air on the "America's Most Wanted" television program.

Nieto said today that jurors rejected the defense's claim that Evans suffered from post-concussion syndrome.

He said a surveillance video from a market near the shooting scene depicted Evans acting calmly and deliberately before and after the shooting.

The prosecutor said Evans has two prior felony convictions for possession of rock cocaine for sale and also has engaged in violent behavior on the street and has been involved in altercations while being held in custody.

Evans is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Vernon Nakahara on Feb. 3. He's also scheduled to appear in court on Jan. 29 for a hearing on pretrial motions, including a motion for a new trial.

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A motorist was found dead this morning inside a vehicle in a dirt turnout just south of the Sonoma County line, according to the California Highway Patrol.

A passerby reported finding the body near Red Hill Road and Point Reyes-Petaluma Road in Marin County at about 11:10 a.m.

There does not appear to have been a crash and it is believed the motorist suffered a medical emergency, the CHP reported.

The motorist was pronounced dead at about 11:20 a.m.

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Oakland civil rights attorney John Burris said this morning he will meet later today with a BART passenger who was injured when a transit agency police officer pulled him from a train at the West Oakland station Saturday night after he caused a disturbance.

Burris said the family of 37-year-old Michael Joseph Gibson of San Leandro contacted him to see if he will represent Gibson in a possible lawsuit against BART in connection with the incident, which occurred abut 5:40 p.m. on Saturday.

The officer who arrested Gibson was also injured, suffering cuts and a concussion, BART spokesman Linton Johnson said.

A video of the incident filmed by a passenger and later posted on YouTube shows the officer, whose name hasn't been released, pulling Gibson off the train and across the platform. The officer appears to shove Gibson toward a glass window, which shatters, injuring both.

Burris said he's seen the video and thinks the officer overreacted and "made no effort to de-escalate the situation."

BART police Cmdr. Daniel Hartwig said in a statement on Sunday that the arrest of Gibson "is a use-of-force case that we will thoroughly investigate."

According to BART, witnesses said Gibson appeared to be intoxicated and was yelling racial slurs and profanity at other passengers on a train. The video shows him yelling on the train, and the other passengers initially cheer when the officer pulls him off.

Johnson said the officer suffered facial cuts requiring multiple stitches and a concussion. He said Gibson also sustained multiple lacerations to his right hand, right forearm and right palm and a minor cut to his head, but that none of his injuries required stitches.

The officer and Gibson were taken to different hospitals and were released later Saturday night, according to BART.

Burris said he will meet with Gibson at the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, where he is being held on suspicion of battery of a police officer with injury, obstruction and resisting an officer, disorderly conduct and being intoxicated in public.

Burris said he thinks the officer should have made an effort to determine if Gibson was under the influence of alcohol or drugs or if he was mentally impaired before pulling Gibson from the train.

He said Gibson wasn't fighting with anyone when he was arrested.

According to BART, the officer is on industrial leave, meaning he's unable to perform his duties because of his injuries.

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Higher clouds will filter the sun on Tuesday, but temperatures are expected to run at or above normal for November. Mild conditions will continue on Wednesday.

By Thursday night look for a chance of showers as a weak system brushes the Bay Area.

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