OAKLAND ESCALATING

It's important to know what is happening right now in Oakland. As the city was still struggling in the wake of the brutal murder of Oscar Grant by BART police on New Years Day, parolee Lovelle Mixon shot four officers after a traffic stop on March 22. Now there are people in the community arguing that the murder of Oscar Grant legitimized the killing of the police. MC Zumbi of Zion I, in his new track "Cops Hate Kidz," is among them and I couldn't disagree more. Even if Zumi sees Mixon's crimes as linked or even retaliatory to the Grant murder, both acts should be called out as only escalating a downward spiral into more violence and more loss for Oakland.A ll due respect to Zumbi and Zion I, the message to this music doesn't hold.