COMMUNITY ACTIVISM IN OAK PARK: COMPETING AGENDAS ...

professor, who was also a Neighborhood Association board member, was firebombed
with Molotov cocktails after she tried to discourage drug activity in front of her house.
Also, during that year, a pipebomb was thrown into the home of a twenty-five year-old
Sheriff’s deputy who worked as a Sacramento Court bailiff. Right after the attack, some
community leaders speculated that the attack was the result of tensions between drug
dealers who work the area and newer more affluent residents who want their streets safe.
The deputy’s house was located just a few blocks away from the home of the CSUS
professor.
Many of the deputy’s neighbors, who were long-time residents, stated they did not
feel nervous about the attack and would go on with their daily business in their usual
way. A neighbor stated in response to the attack that he “felt zero nervousness about the
attack and that their neighborhood was tight-knit” (Ranganathan 2006). But across the
street, another neighbor, who had lived on the same street her whole life, stated that lately
young professionals were buying up Oak Park’s low-priced houses as real estate prices
soared in the region, but also confirmed that the street had never been unsafe. “When its
Oak Park, people make a big production about crime” she said, “but this is the best kept
secret anyone could want and I’m not afraid to go anywhere.”
Activists in the Oak Park neighborhood were divided over the significance of the
attacks. The city Mayor stated that “the event was not a reflection of the neighborhood
and Oak Park was really improving as a neighborhood.” A board member of the
Neighborhood Association, however, saw the attack as an event “unique” to Oak Park
and explained that,
97