Berkeley Police Lt. Dave Frankel has informed the Planet that the victim of the murder last night at the corner of Shattuck and Emerson has been identified as Kenneth Warren, who worked at Don's Headquarters, a popular neighborhood barber shop at the same location, as well as at the Port of Oakland. -more-

A man was shot and killed on Emerson Street near Shattuck in Berkeley tonight. This account, author unknown, was forwarded to the Planet from the neighborhood watch group:

"My husband just finished talking to the police. We heard a group of shots (maybe 10?) and then a pause, then a few more shots (maybe 5?), then a pause, then another group of shots (maybe 10?). I went and called the police. My husband went to the window and saw a man with dark skin (maybe African American) get into a dark grey Honda (Accord?) and drive off heading east on Emerson without his headlights on. My husband walked outside and there was smoke in the air. We thought it was firecrackers and he was looking for a burn mark on the pavement or something to indicate firecrackers. He went back inside the house and got a flashlight and then saw bullet casings on the pavement but didn't see anyone injured. The police arrived and other neighbors came out. Other people came by and were screaming. Someone screamed, "Oh my god it was Donnie! Oh my god oh my god! No!" It was really terrifying as this was in the apartment building [near] our house. The paramedics came and did CPR on someone on the balcony of the apartment building. The victim was on the second floor. The paramedics took him away and we don't know if he was alive or dead. The police are now going door to door taking statements. I believe the officer used the word 'homicide.' "

Berkeley Police confirmed at midnight that the shooting did take place as reported, and that the victim has died. Comments on the Berkeleyside website indicate that the victim may have been the nephew of Don Warren, the owner of Don's HeadQuarters barber shop on Shattuck, a well-regarded fixture and a stabilizing influence in the neighborhood for decades, including the eight years when the Planet office was located next door. -more-

[Editor's Note: Reader Florian Charread sent the Planet this video which he made last night at the scene of the shooting which took place at the corner of Emerson and Shattuck in Berkeley.]

Shooting aftermath-Berkeley from manaovisual on Vimeo. -more-

Police are responding to a fatal shooting in Berkeley tonight, police said.

Officers responded to the 3000 block of Shattuck Avenue and found a male victim suffering from multiple gunshot wounds near an apartment building at the corner of Shattuck Avenue and Emerson Street, according to police Sgt. Mary Kusmiss.

The victim was taken to a trauma center where he was pronounced dead.

"The evidence suggests that this was not a random shooting," Kusmiss said. -more-

[Editor's Note: This is the second part of a two part series. Part One can be found here.]

Progressive observers treat the Tea Party’s forays into land use planning as the work of paranoid reactionaries. The March-April 2011 issue of Mother Jones ran an article by Stephanie Mencimer that portrayed Tea Partiers as “nutters” whose opposition to increased density and mass transit is rooted in “a hostility to what it sees as elites” and a pro-sprawl, suburban lifestyle. Last December, the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy’s Anthony Flint riffed off of Mencimer’s piece in a post on the Atlantic magazine’s “Urban Wonk” blog that decried Tea Party disruption of planning efforts from California to Maine to Florida.

The truth is more complicated. Pace Rosa Koire, to attack smart growth as part of an international plot guided by the U.N.’s Agenda 21 really is to espouse conspiracy theory. To denounce “human-caused global warming” as a myth, as does the East Bay Tea Party, is to indulge in perilous denial. But to claim that land use planning is often run by unresponsive elites is to tap reality. Flint himself intimated as much: “Some might wonder,” he wrote, “whether there’s some truth” to accusations that “planners have draped the public process with the trappings of citizen input, while in fact all the decisions to promote smart growth have been made.”

Some do more than wonder, and they’re not all members or even “fellow travelers” of the Tea Party—for example, longtime Berkeley community activist Doug Buckwald. Speaking at the Dublin open mike, Buckwald assailed Plan Bay Area for discriminating against dissenters from smart growth doctrine. He said that a friend had tried to register for a workshop online at 7:30 am the day that registration opened, only to be told that the meetings were filled, and that she would be placed on a waitlist. She never got a confirmation from MTC, but she did receive letters from Greenbelt Alliance urging her to sign up and hold the line against opponents to the process who were poised to flood into the meetings. -more-

When I recently went to Alta Bates hospital for surgery, I discovered that legal procedures take precedence over medical ones. I had to sign intimidating statements about financial counseling, indemnity, patient responsibilities, consent to treatment, use of electronic technologies, and the like.

One of these documents committed me to the following: “The hospital pathologist is hereby authorized to use his/her discretion in disposing of any member, organ, or other tissue removed from my person during the procedure.” Any member? Any organ?

The next day I returned for the actual operation. While playing Frank Sinatra recordings, the surgeon went to work cutting open several layers of my abdomen in order to secure my intestines with a permanent mesh implant. Afterward I spent two hours in the recovery room. “I feel like I’ve been in a knife fight,” I told one nurse. “It’s called surgery,” she explained.

Then, while still pumped up with anesthetics and medications, I was rolled out into the street. The street? Yes, some few hours after surgery they send you home. In countries that have socialized medicine (there I said it), a van might be waiting with trained personnel to help you to your abode.

Not so in free-market America. Your presurgery agreement specifies in boldface that you must have “a responsible adult acquaintance” (as opposed to an irresponsible teenage stranger) take you home in a private vehicle. I kept thinking, what happens to those unfortunates who have no one to bundle them away? Do they languish endlessly in the hospital driveway until the nasty weather finishes them off? -more-