Oceanview killings prompt cop call
By Alison Soltau | Staff Writer
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Reeling from a recent spate of homicides and a gruesome driveby shooting at a gas station, residents of the Oceanview district rallied Thursday to demand more policein their neighborhood.
After the murder of teacher's aide Omari Ford, 23, some 20 residents called for foot and car patrols of trouble spots such as San Jose Avenue and Broad Street.
"We need those beat cops and we need a presence," said Richard Hopson, a member of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, which organized the rally.
The largely working-class Oceanview-Merced Heights-Ingleside neighborhoods, in The City's southwestern corner east of San Francisco State University, have struggled with violence and occasional gang warfare.
Residents met with Taraval police district Captain Keith Sanford in August to request a cop to staff an office at 101 Broad St. It is a space a local group offered to cops in 2001 as a substation but is rarely occupied, Hopson said.
Police spokesman Dewayne Tully said that after meeting with residents, Sanford planned to devote seven police officers to foot patrols across the district.
On Oct. 27, he directed a beat cop to patrol Ocean Avenue and make daily stops at 101 Broad St., Tully said.
The neighborhood has seen a series of violent events over the past two months. An unknown assailant gunned down and killed Ford, a former Visitacion Valley Middle School teacher, at San Jose Avenue and Broad Street at 2 a.m. a week ago Saturday.
On Oct. 20, a 38-year-old father of two was the victim of a driveby shooting on 19th Avenue. The man is fighting for his life in the hospital, said his aunt, Cathy, who declined to give her last name.
"This area is changing. It's so scary that I don't go out at night and I don't let my grandchildren out in the daytime," she said.
On Oct. 11, Angelo Johnson, a 19-year-old Skyline College student, was shot and killed at the corner of Randolph and Head streets around 9 p.m. His killer is also still at large.