“We’re doing all of those things, and we want to do more,” West Contra Costa Unified School District board member Charles Ramsey said during an often heated public meeting Wednesday night of the district’s safety subcommittee. “People have to understand we are trying to do everything we can. This school has a lot of needs.”

But many of those who attended the board’s safety subcommittee meeting, made unusually popular after Saturday’s rape of a 15-year-old female student, argued that the district has long neglected their requests.

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Now they are asking that at least 98 more volunteers from faith-based organizations provide their fingerprints to the police as well in order to help at local schools.

Shumake, president of the Richmond Improvement Association, announced plans for the school volunteer campaign at a news conference organized by several religious leaders Monday, following the recent rape of a 15-year-old on campus during a homecoming dance that had no volunteer chaperones.

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St. Cornelius parishioners at mass.

On Sunday, eight days after the rape of a 15-year-old girl put Richmond in the spotlight, religious leaders at local churches denounced the crime and offered prayers for those involved.

Across the city, church leaders and congregations discussed healing, the community’s moral compass and ways of addressing the crime with church youth groups.

Pastors of several churches met earlier this week to plan the themes they would address this weekend. Pastor Jim Heden of Hilltop Community Church, an Assembly of God congregation located at 3118 Shane Drive, said the discussions prompted tears from some of the pastors.

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Reflecting on Saturday’s two-hour rape of a 15-year-old student at Richmond High School, nearby neighbors said they were appalled.

“This is more than violence. They stepped over the line,” said Eraclio Lopez, 23, who lives one block from the crime scene near the intersection of Hayes Street and Emeric Avenue.

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News media have been waiting outside the school for the last two days, and a team of psychologists has been making the rounds at Richmond High classes after the incident, which made headlines around the Bay Area and the country. What attracts attention is not just the brutality of the assault, but the indifference of on-lookers, who failed to intervene and allowed the rape to continue as long as two hours.

Some students are asking whether greater safety measures around the campus might have prevented the attack or shortened its duration. One student is asking whether something like better lighting around the campus might have allowed the attack to be discovered sooner.

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In additon to winning their first homecoming game in nine years, the Oilers won the Richmond Cup for beating cross-city rival De Anza.

With 5.2 seconds left in a home game against De Anza High School Friday, the Richmond High School Oilers scored a winning touchdown, but the team achieved much more.

For the first time in nine years, the Oilers experienced what it’s like to win a homecoming football game.

“I’m excited.  I feel wonderful–this is the first homecoming game we won,” said Richmond High senior Shannen Edwards, a wide receiver who won co-offensive player of the game. “We’re a bunch of great guys and got the right coach now.”

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Phon Chanthanasak, a Khmu Richmond native, talks to 300 about reducing youth violence in Richmond.

“I am not a high school dropout. I am not a drug dealer or a gang banger. I am not the negative of Richmond, California,” said Chanthanasak at the Sixth Annual Youth Stopping Violence Summit on Saturday.

But Chanthanasak, a Khmu youth now a student at  San Francisco State University, told the crowd inside the Richmond Auditorium he could have easily fallen into any of those descriptions. Mentors from Richmond’s South East Asian Young Leaders (SEAYL) program, which organizes the summit every year, are responsible for encouraging him not to, he said.

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In 2009, police have recorded 41 homicides in Richmond (as of Oct. 5), a total that already surpasses that of all of 2008.

The homicide data reveals some stark facts: Gun violence accounts for almost all deaths, less than a third of the crimes have been solved, over half of the homicides occurred over the summer and the victims are disproportionately under the age of 30.

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Welcome to a consumer culture that’s becoming increasingly comfortable with short-term and partial ownership, and to a world of businesses taking advantage of this booming market.

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