An inspiring story in Oakland’s Ongoing Crime Drama ---
A drive-by shooting in Oakland five years ago forever changed the life of a young Latina and her family. The shooting didn’t change Oakland, though – it was just another example of the city’s violent reality. Crime in Oakland and the shooting of Caheri Gutierrez are the focus of a captivating new book, entitled ‘Until You Bleed’.
The book shares the life story of Gutierrez, who was shot in the face while sitting in a car at the intersection of 98th Avenue and San Leandro Street. Eighteen year-old Gutierrez almost died that night and spent a month recovering in Highland Hospital. She had numerous surgeries to rebuild her face, which she admits defined much of her life before the shooting – doing modeling work and living a party lifestyle. As the book relates, Gutierrez’s physical and mental recovery took her on a new life path for which she is now grateful.
The book’s author, James O’Brien, sees Gutierrez’s story as part of Oakland’s story. “Like Gutierrez, Oakland is beautiful and wounded, unable to let go of its past and uncertain about its future,” he writes. In the book, O’Brien provides an overview of the history and transformation of Oakland, and a critical commentary of violent crime in the city. He analyzes and discusses crime and the crime trauma with which Oaklanders live. He offers a very thoughtful look at life in Oakland and while detailing the efforts and failures of the people and city leaders to make any progress on violent crime.O’Brien refers to the shooting of Gutierrez as an example of what he describes as ‘the new Code of the West, which in no way prohibits or even frowns upon the shooting of unarmed women or children.”
The book includes comments from Oakland Police Captain Paul Figueroa about the failures of police in the most violent parts of the city. “There’s this sense that police come in, they stop guys, they don’t find anything, and the dealers are still out there. So there’s this real sense of ineffectiveness.”
Figueroa grew up in East Oakland, near High Street, thirty years ago. “It hasn’t changed that much,” he says of the area and its crime.
Gutierrez grew up in ‘Deep’ East Oakland. Despite living in a tough neighborhood, she became a student leader who won academic awards and was on the path to a college scholarship and gaining a valuable higher education. She was also a star athlete at high school, but by the time of the shooting, Gutierrez had been expelled from school and leading an aimless party life.
“When you’re young and you’re in Oakland,” says Gutierrez, “it’s a trend to be bad, it’s a trend to smoke, to, you know, just not care, I don’t know, it’s stupid. You want to be tough; you want to hang out in the streets. I would cut school, go home, hang out, just chill, I used to smoke a lot of pot, not do much.”
Gutierrez’s story is inspiring and important not just because she overcame a terrible injury to lead a productive life today. Her honesty about how her personal choices helped place her in the line of gunfire is what makes her story so valuable for young people.
In the book, Gutierrez attributes her taking a bad turn in life to having too much freedom, too much time on her own, away from a mother who worked full time as a waitress in a Mexican restaurant. She admits living a life that was careless and irresponsible, and not caring about other people or herself. She admits being rude to her mother, not going home or to school much. She was not honoring the mental and physical talents she was given and had already demonstrated with great success.
In the hospital, reflecting on her lost face, and her life, Gutierrez says she felt a desire to return to her days of accomplishment.
“I’m hella smart,” she said. “I’ve achieved a lot of things in my life, but my face, that part of my life was over, that partying, that modeling, that hanging out.”
Gutierrez got crucial help from the non-profit Youth ALIVE!, which provides emotional and practical support to young victims of violence, usually starting right at their hospital beds. Based in Oakland, Youth ALIVE! believes that urban youth have the capacity to stop the violence in their communities. The organization nurtures leadership and life skills of young people affected by violence as a means to save lives.
Tammy Cloud, an intervention specialist with Youth ALIVE!, was assigned to help Gutierrez, who calls Cloud her “guardian angel.” When a job opened at Youth ALIVE!, Cloud suggested Gutierrez apply. She got the job as a Violence Prevention Educator and helps train East Oakland students as leaders and peer educators. Gutierrez has found purpose in being the students’ mentor and guide.
Now 22, Gutierrez is still working with Youth ALIVE!, and was recently offered paid opportunities as a public speaker. On her blog, she bravely writes that she thanks her shooter for helping her get back to a successful path in life. With her mature acceptance of the violent act, she may consider the shooting as not a random event, but a very firm act of the universe to get her back on a life path upon which she could realize her full potential and impact the world in a meaningful way.
Gutierrez currently lives in Hayward, but returns to East Oakland regularly, even to the street where she was shot, to work with students.
“Over there,” she says, “I feel like I’m at home, I feel comfortable. I love Oakland, because it created a strong person.”
