A scary incident that occurred at San Leandro High School on Friday tops this week's look back at events in San Leandro.
Campus security at the high school deftly defused a potentially dangerous situation Friday morning by removing a student from a classroom and then discovering a loaded hangun in the student's possession. The student was arrested.
The incident began at about 10:45 am Friday morning when a teacher sought help from campus security after a student refused to turn over a cell phone.
After the student was led away from the class room, a search of the student turned up the loaded weapon and some suspected marijuana. A parent was notified and the unidentified student taken to Juvenile Hall.
The incident was handled so quietly that students were unaware late Friday. Expect more buzz Monday as word gets around.
In other crime news, police said they had arrested one man who is suspected of being part of the trio that robbed a Washington Manor family at gunpoint in their own home on August 25.
The suspect, 27-year-old Frank Scott, was arrested in Oakland over the Labor Day weekend after forensic evidence at the crime scene led authorities to him.
Neighbors along the quiet Washington Manor street where the August incident occured plan to revive a Crime Watch group that had fallen into disuse. Police continue the hunt for other suspects as prosecutors press charges against Scott in connection with the event.
The hottest story in terms of Patch comments was a unanimous decision by the San Leandro City Council to extend a current moratorium on marijuana businesses until September 30, 2012.
After reading more than three dozen comments in a spirited debate, it's no wonder that council members decided to kick the can down the road for now and see how neighboring cities handle the issue.
And while most San Leandrans were enjoying the Labor Day weekend, a graffiti attack marred a long swath of 31 businesses along East 14th Street. But city workers quickly painted over or cleaned the mess to lessen the impact.
Tim Orr, street services supervisor for San Leandro Public Works, offered this summary of the response:
We sent one employee out on Sunday to start and prioritize the cleaning process.
More was cleaned up on Monday by one of our street sweeper operators who was working that day anyway.
Tuesday a 3 man crew worked on it all day . . . As of the end of the workday on Tuesday all the clean up and removal had been completed.
We have a zero tolerance policy here in the city regarding graffiti. Our policy is to remove graffiti within a day of it being reported or seen by our crews.
There was considerable reader interest in the story, likely owing to the extent of the attack. Chamber of Commerce CEO Dave Johnson praised the city response.
"Removing the visual blight of graffiti as quickly as possible is very important," he said. "It sends a message to taggers and the community at large that we all care a lot about the appearance of our city."
