They were about to leave for church from their home at 73rd Avenue and Fresno Street when two rival gangs started fighting nearby. One opened fire, then the other.

Grisham’s daughter was shot first. Her son, Christopher LeVell Jones, ran to the car to get his niece but was fatally shot. He was 17 years old.

Since then, Grisham has become one of Oakland’s most vocal voices, speaking out against violence and corruption as she seeks justice not only in memory of her son but also for the hundreds of families who lost loved ones on the crime-filled streets of Oakland. She became an advocate for victims and their family members and became a thorn in the side. Pamela Price, Alameda County District Attorney side.

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“My interaction with Prosecutor Price, even in March, regarding the way she was speaking to certain families was appalling,” Grisham told the Washington Examiner. Grisham said Price pushed her family members aside and was too busy to listen to their concerns.

“She chose to disrespect these families in my presence, then she attacked me and never apologized,” Grisham added. “I expected her to change course and come and apologize to the mothers but that never happened. This continued and continued, and the disrespect continued.

In fact, there is so much tension between Grisham and Price that Grisham’s name is first on the dismissal petition against the new prosecutor.

Like Grisham, business owners, residents and visitors in Oakland and other areas of Alameda County say they don’t feel safe in their community and blame Price. Most want her to leave office.

Alameda County voters will have the power to do that Tuesday when they vote on whether to recall Price.

The outcome constitutes a pivotal moment for the future of how criminal cases will be prosecuted in California’s liberal county, which was described in Washington Examiner as “a land of anarchy” and “the new Detroit of the 80s” by resident Javier Jones.

“There’s more dysfunction and corruption here,” Jones said. “That’s just how it was in Detroit. Price doesn’t know what she’s doing and has gone from inept to dangerous.

Price is a former defense and civil rights attorney. She had never filed a lawsuit when she was elected to this prestigious position. On the campaign trail, she promised criminal justice reforms and a “new era in the DA’s office” if elected. She received a big financial boost from the billionaire Democratic megadonor George Soros and Laurene Powell Jobs, widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, when she first ran for the position in 2018. She lost that race but ran again in 2022 and beat out Terry Wiley, the county’s chief deputy prosecutor.

Soros, who has invested more than $5 million in his fundraising PAC, Justice and public safety in Californiafrom 2018 to 2020, turned off the money spigot to Price and the Los Angeles County district attorney George Gascon this election cycle. Both are deeply unpopular, facing recall and facing expulsion from office.

It would be a tough fall for Price, the first-ever Black woman to serve as Alameda County’s top prosecutor. When she was sworn in, she was very clear about her liberal agenda, and enthusiasm began to build.

She pledged to overhaul the way the DA’s office conducted its business, including banning the use of sentencing enhancement, a tool used by prosecutors to increase the sentence for a crime by adding time to a basic sentence. She also sought to punish criminals sentenced to long prison terms, end the practice of charging juveniles as adults, and crack down on police misconduct.

Price said his leadership would ensure progressive justice for diverse and often disenfranchised communities. But less than a year after she was sworn in, residents (tired of her handling of crime) began the recall process.

The challenge to Price marks the second recall effort in two years from a liberal Bay Area prosecutor. The first took place in 2022 with the recall of Chesa Boudin, San Francisco District Attorney.

If Price’s recall succeeds, it would be a major blow to the type of criminal justice reform championed by Price, Boudin and Soros. If Price is able to defeat the recall, it would send a powerful message that Alameda County voters still agree with the progressive agenda despite all the problems.

“I’m not in favor of recalls in general because I think it costs too much money and time, but Price has to go,” George Latvilla told the television news. Washington Examiner. Latvilla has lived in Oakland for four decades and said leadership, city services and crime have collapsed under Price.

Edward Escobar of the Coalition for Community Engagement/Citizens United supports the recall. He said Price prioritizes the rights of criminals over victims and ignored his promise to fight for minorities, particularly among Oakland’s Asian American population, which has seen an increase in hate crimes.

“She talks about reforming the criminal justice system, but it’s her version that’s dysfunctional; it’s defective,” he told the Washington Examiner. “She says, ‘Oh, perpetrators are victims too.’ I’m sorry, but you don’t say that to real victims of crime. I agree with her that the criminals are the victims of the socio-economic injustice that has occurred, but that is not her job. She serves as a guinea pig for people to make a social experiment.

Escobar said he took issue with Price’s willingness to drop gun enhancement charges.

“Remember the phrase “Get a gun, go to jail”? Now it’s ‘Use a gun and hey, you might be more successful and there won’t be any consequences,'” Escobar said.

Representative Eric Swalwell (D-CA) also lent his support to the recall efforts.

“Pamela Price has failed the people of the East Bay and we stand together to call for her removal from office,” said the California Democrat, who accused Price of being too soft. “Cops catch and Price frees.”

Price’s office has also been criticized for missing filing deadlines on more than 1,000 misdemeanor cases that have been gathering dust on his desk. THE Chronicle of San Francisco, In his approval of the recall, called his inaction a “staggering miscarriage of justice” that “left victims hanging and eliminated rehabilitation and accountability for offenders.”

Since Price has been in office, she has been accused of punishing her opponents, hiring allies with questionable credentials, including her own boyfriend, ignoring public disclosure laws, and being abusive. ‘a level of incompetence that is in its own league, according to these. who were the target of his anger, Grisham said. Most recently, Price was accused of trying to extort money from a political rival.

Before taking the oath of office, Price had never filed a lawsuit. She promised voters she would be ready to hit the ground running on day one and boasted of hiring an elite team with “a proven track record of justice reform” to support her.

His team included Royl Roberts, a man who passed the California bar just six months before being hired by Price. The other chief assistant she hired was Otis Bruce Jr., who was recruited by the Marin County District Attorney’s Office when he was under investigation there. The results of this investigation revealed that he had demonstrated gender bias, made derogatory remarks and often intimidated young women. Then there was Eric Lewis, a former deputy chief of the Oakland Police Department who was given the option to retire or be fired in 2021. Price then hired his boyfriend, Antwon Cloirdas a senior program specialist, offering him a six-figure salary for a position that was never publicly announced.

Price pushed back against assertions that she was unfit for office and blamed the pressure to oust her on special interest groups and outside billionaires.

“Alameda County is not for sale,” she said, emphasizing its progressive roots. “This is the home of Earl Warren and the Black Panther Party. We are the Democratic Party of Barbara Lee.

Last week, she and about 100 supporters held a rally outside the Alameda County Courthouse.

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“We are in the middle of a resistance that is stronger than massive,” she said, adding that the recall against her “weaponizes people’s grief and pain” and seeks to silence the voices of supporters of criminal justice reform.

Emeryville City Council member Kalimah Priforce acknowledged that Price “does not use a single maximum sentence for each case approach” but instead “seeks to address the root causes of crime.”