Oakland Police Massacre: A Desperate Act to Avoid Going Back to Prison

By Earl Ofari Hutchinson, New America Media. Posted March 25, 2009.

Lovelle Mixon didn't want to go back to jail and at the same time couldn't find employment that would give him another chance.

Editor’s Note: The killing of four police officers in Oakland shows the desperation of an ex-felon. Lovelle Mixon was trying to avoid going back to jail and at the same time unable to find any employment that would give him a second chance. It’s a story repeated all over America, even if it does not always end in a killing spree as it did in Oakland.

A general consensus is that it was a deadly mix of panic, rage, and frustration that caused Lovelle Mixon to snap. His shocking murderous rampage left four Oakland police officers dead and a city and police agencies searching its soul about what went so terribly wrong. Though Mixon’s killing spree is a horrible aberration, his plight as an
unemployed ex-felon isn’t. There are tens of thousands like him on America’s streets.

In 2007, the National Institute of Justice found that 60 percent of ex-felon offenders remain unemployed a year after their release. Other studies have shown that upwards of 30 percent of felon releases live in homeless shelters because of their inability to find housing. And those are the lucky ones. Many camp out on the streets.

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