alan blueford eighteen year old senior about to graduate skyline high school, only four classes and six weeks away from a graduation (earning two As and two Cs). well then it was saturday night and alan had a curfew but his mother let him go watch the mayweather fight with his friends and well he ALWAYS carried his wallet with his identification and the license he just got. well that night he and his friends were in their neighborhood near 90th and birch when two police vehicles descended upon them with the lights out and their guns drawn. alan, a very athletic slender boy, ran, nearly two blocks, until he reached a light post. he then turned around and an four shots were fired by officer miguel masso, one at his own foot, and three at alan blueford, fatally wounding and killing him. paramedics never attended his body and he lied in his own pool of blood for nearly four hours. police initially released a report that the subject had fired a weapon at officers before being gunned down by police. at the scene of the crime, a weapon was found thirty feet from alan’s body; after further investigation it was determined that alan never fired a gun. police did not notify the family of his death. one of the young man with him, after being detained over two hours by police, was the person who called the family to inform them of alan's demise. although alan is known to have faithfully carried his identification on him when family arrived at the police department, asking to know if alan had been shot and killed, they were left alone in the waiting room for two hours before someone attended their request. the family expected his wallet and id to be in his property, but were told by police that suspects often throw their id to evade identification. alan was on juvenile probation for a burglary but this information was not known to officers at the time of his shooting and the criminalization and demonization of our youth take place after the fact.
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AuthorDebra Mendoza has been intimately connected to the youth in the Bay Area for over fifteen years in her role as a Juvenile Probation Officer and Oakland public school Teacher. An Alameda County Probation Officer for ten years, in this capacity Debra served as a Court Officer in every Delinquent Court, supervised youth released to the community, and conducted hundreds of in-depth investigations and social studies for youth involved in high-profile cases, such as homicide, rape, carjacking and armed robbery. Debra has worked as a consultant for the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights around prison reform and organizing families of incarcerated youth, as well as providing alternative sentencing options for private and Court appointed attorneys in contested sentencing cases. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in English from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and graduated in Spring 2011 from the Violence Prevention Strategies Program at Peralta College. Debra is a long-standing member of the OUSD Interagency Gang Prevention Collaborative, who credit themselves with developing the district gang prevention and intervention handbook and making policy recommendations to the city of Oakland. A mother of two school-aged children, Debra believes is is imperative that we examine our systems through a racial and socio-economic lens, so that we can begin to make the sweeping changes necessary to reform our criminal justice system, protect our most vulnerable populations, and develop our communities to be increasingly safe, healthy, and thriving for all members. Archives
September 2013
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