Alicia Melero says she’s spent the last week in a daze, half-believing that her 19-year old son will walk through the door, tall, handsome and smiling, the way he appears in his 2007 graduation photos. She says she still can’t fully grasp what happened last Saturday night. She was preparing dinner when one of her son’s childhood friends called. “I don’t know how to tell you this”, she recalls him saying, “Tomas has been shot. They’re taking him to Highland [Hospital].”
Tomas Melero-Smith was standing with two friends outside one of their homes in the 2100 block of 94th Avenue when a man pulled up in a white car, got out, and demanded to know if Melero-Smith and his friends were gang members, said Oakland Police Sergeant Randy Wingate. The three said no, and ran. But, the gunman fired anyway, and hit Melero-Smith in the back of the head. The shooter wore a black bandanna, said Wingate, and is thought to be a member of the Border Brothers street gang. He added that police do not believe Melero-Smith had gang ties.
Alicia Melero remembers thinking that her son’s injuries could be minor as she and two grown daughters sped to the hospital. “He could have been shot in the arm, “ she said. But, in the emergency room, Melero learned that a bullet had penetrated her son’s skull. She watched as doctors labored unsuccessfully to save him. “They tried to do everything, but the damage was too much,” she said.
A June graduate of St. Joseph Notre Dame High School in Alameda, Melero-Smith planned to attend Diablo Valley College in the fall. He coached sports and mentored children at the Carmen Flores Recreation Center near his home.
As Tomas Melero-Smith’s body lay in an open casket at a San Leandro funeral home, a standing room only crowd of mourners gathered to remember him. Some wore homemade T-shirts bearing Melero-White’s image, his nickname, “Mas”, and the dates of his birth and death. His brother, Martin Sanchez said, “was the quietest kid in the house. His friends are saying he was the most popular kid.” Addressing himself to Melero-Smith’s former classmates, he said, “You guys better do the right thing, and come up, and live for my brother’s memory. This family’s taken the biggest blow it’s ever going to take, and we need your support forever.”
No arrests have been made in Melero-Smith’s killing. Sgt. Tony Jones, of the Oakland Police Department’s homicide unit was tight-lipped about the probe saying only that the shooter is believed to be a short, young Hispanic male. “We don’t want to put out a lot of information,” said Jones. “The dude who did it reads the newspaper, and he’ll know what we know.”
Melero-Smith was one of three people shot to death within a four-block radius last Labor Day weekend. His was Oakland’s 90th homicide of 2007.
“He was a good kid”, said Jose Ortiz, whose son and Melero-Smith were childhood friends. The two young men spent hours together producing rap music in Ortiz’ basement recording studio. “I want to give my son everything”, said Ortiz, his voice breaking, “but I can’t give him back Tomas.”
In the days following the shooting, Ortiz was among friends and family members who stopped to pay their respects at Alicia Melero’s two-story blue stucco home in Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood.
Some expressed anger because they said police investigators had contacted the family just once, and had failed to inform them about the probe. Alma Martinez, Melero-White’s cousin, argued that the fact he was killed in a high crime neighborhood is another strike against him. “The assumption is that you’re not innocent,” she said, – “because you’re there.”
Sgt. Jones said his lack of phone contact with the family hardly means he’s not working. In his office on a Sunday evening, Jones said he was trying to get a handle on the six new homicide cases he and his partner caught in the past week. “When you have people shot every four or five hours, it’s hard to stay at your desk making calls. Not that we’re insensitive, but we’re trying to find out who did it.”
However, Melero-White’s family is already pressuring city officials to step up the investigation. They’ve collected nearly a thousand signatures on petitions aimed at Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums and other city officials, said Alicia Melero. The family wants police to bring Melero-Smith’s killer to justice, and take action to combat Oakland’s exploding murder rate. They are also trying raising money, Melero said, to increase the reward for those who have information about her son’s murder, but who may fear coming forward. “Maybe if they have enough money, they can move out of the area,” she said.
Alicia Melero said her children are also urging her to leave Oakland after 40 years in the city. Her son’s is the second murder to touch her family. Melero’s son-in-law was killed seven years ago as he filled his gas tank at a local service station. But she said she has mixed feelings, “You don’t want to run. I don’t want them [criminals] to drive me out. I want to drive them out.” Continue reading →
Oakland – The “Men and Boys of Color in Crisis” summit drew Bay Area and national advocacy group leaders to East Oakland last week to discuss the sharp challenges facing the country’s minority males. 
BERKELEY—A nine-year-old boy was found dead this morning in a Berkeley apartment in what police are calling a “mysterious incident.” The boy’s mother was also found in the apartment with cuts on her arms and neck, but her connection to her son’s death remains unclear, police said.