News & Events: Community War Zone

KPIX 5 (Oakland KCBS) reports on the prevalence of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) among young gunshot victims, a phenomenon typically linked to soldiers of war:  After Emergency Room doctors patch up a young gunshot victim, the patient is given time to recover from the physical wound. While time may heal, there is still the mental wound that lingers according to Anne Marks, the executive director of Oakland-based Youth Alive—an urban violence prevention organization. Many young gunshot victims are experiencing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), something that was initially [...]

Missionlocal.org reports on a story entitled "The Gang War That Wasn't" in which representatives of the San Francisco Wraparound Project played a critical role in averting violence after angry members of rival gangs converged on SFGH's Emergency Room. Did the Mission avert a gang war? At a community meeting last week at Mission Police Station, Capt. Greg Corrales for the first time offered details on the fatal shooting of Aldo "Trigger" Troncoso - the neighborhood's first homicide of the year - and the aftermath. Stories of violence averted are not often told, but that's the story Corrales [...]

The San Francisco Examiner reports on the increase in violence from gunshot or stab wounds in patients admitted to SFGH: The number of victims with gunshot or stab wounds admitted to San Francisco General Hospital has climbed over the last five years, with more than 440 patients either shot or knifed in 2007. The percentage of patients who die as a result of the wounds, called "penetrating injuries," has dropped slightly, with trauma surgeons, doctors and nurses saving 79 percent of shooting victims last year, compared with 76 percent in 2003. "Unfortunately, the sad part of having so much [...]