Lakeside Apartments District, Oakland, California - Violent Crime

Violent Crime

The neighborhood has a reputation among some in the Oakland Blogosphere in recent years as being a "dangerous area." Notable incidents of extremely violent and heinous crimes have occurred in the nearby downtown edges of the neighborhood to include a June 2011 shooting outside a nightclub at 13th and Webster that seriously wounded three men, to include a man in a passing car who was hit by a stray bullet. A shooting murder and robbery occurred at 19th and Webster in July, 2010. In this case a man leaving a nearby professional office building was shot three times, "for no apparent reason," police said, after he handed over $17.

In April 2008 several men staged a firearm takeover robbery of a restaurant and its customers at "Pho 84," 17th and Webster. On December 30, 2007, a man was shot in the 300 block of 14th near Webster "after leaving a downtown nightclub." A fatal shooting occurred in January 2004 at "El Reventon," a former nightclub at 14th and Webster when a dispute between two groups inside ended in a scuffle outside on the street and the shooting death of a 23-year-old Oakland man. On the afternoon of December 31, 2003, a man was shot to death in broad daylight in front of the Bank of America branch at 300 Lakeside Drive. On the afternoon of Saturday March 2, 2002, A murderer fatally stabbed a man several times in the face and head with a knife at 14th and Franklin in broad daylight after chasing his victim, a man in his 50s, down the street after an argument. The murderer broke his leg after trying to flee on BART, and was apprehended by police thereafter.

Nonetheless, serious and heinous acts of familial and random violence occur periodically, directly within the interior of the neighborhood. The neighborhood lies completely within Oakland's Police Beat 4x, one of 35 across the city. In recent months of 2009, violent crimes, as reported by the Oakland Police Department, included five burglaries, twelve robberies, and multiple assaults during the summer of 2009.

A bomb scare occurred on Madison Street in May, 2006 Strongarm carjackings have occurred in the neighborhood to steal a 1990 Cadillac Deville at 1428 Alice Street on April 22, 2005, a 2003 Chevy minivan on February 26, 2006 at 14th and Harrison, and a 1978 Ford in front of the Essex condominiums at 1 Lakeside Drive on November 27, 2007

On the evening of Saturday, July 8, 1989, a seven month-old Oakland girl died after an 85-foot, seven story plunge down the central stairwell of the Hillcastle Hotel. The baby girl's father, a restaurant worker in his twenties, allegedly slapped the baby's mother; the blow jarred the infant from her mother's arms and over the waist-high stairway railing on the seventh floor of the building where she had moved only a week prior. The girl's father was charged with involuntary manslaughter.

In August, 2005 a man was found stabbed to death in his Harrison Street apartment near the downtown edge of the neighborhood. In September, 2005, a victim reported a panhandler stabbed him in the chest in the 1500 block of Lakeside Drive after he refused the panhandler's requests for money. On the morning of Saturday March 3, 2007, a man wielding an 11-inch samurai sword stabbed a 43-year-old man in the lower stomach and beat him on the head with the sword's scabbard in the 300 block of 17th Street near Harrison.

A fatal stabbing at the Hillcastle Hotel on Jackson Street occurred in January, 2009.

On March 19, 2009, an armed, 21 year-old man and an unknown armed accomplice robbed "Gourmet Market" at 1549 Jackson in the heart of the neighborhood. The pair shot a 30-year-old clerk and two customers. Despite sustaining gunshot wounds, the customers and clerk fought back, commandeered one of the robbers' guns, and beat him down with improvised weapons to include an iron dumbbell. While one of the robbers escaped, the subdued robber was later indicted for felony gun charges by a federal grand jury.

On March 25, 2009, a man suspected of breaking into cars on Jackson Street fled to the same Jackson Street market to take refuge. The same clerk who had sustained a gunshot wound to his neck the previous week locked the door to the market to detain the man, and fought with the suspect until police arrived. In late 2009, the neighborhood police beat, "4x," leads the city in the incidence of auto burglaries ranking in the top six out of thirty-five police beats throughout Oakland.

On December 1, 2010, a 26-year-old unemployed security guard attempted a firearm robbery at 15th and Madison, shooting another 26-year-old man man at least twice in an attempt to rob the victim of his iPhone before fleeing. The victim was rushed to Highland Hospital and survived his gunshot wounds. The shooter was apprehended by police and booked into jail on suspicion of attempted murder and attempted robbery.