A recent crime surge in the last few months in downtown Oakland has prompted changes to the Police Department’s safety strategy, police said.

Police officers are working with other city departments and last weekend worked with code enforcement to close and cite multiple pop-up vendors. Officers seized alcohol and marijuana and possibly psychedelic mushrooms from one pop-up vendor, according to police.

Officers arrested two and recovered two guns from that location, police said.

The department is trying to reduce the illegal activity downtown, including shootings and killings.

For safety reasons, police are asking vendors to move their businesses off Broadway in the coming weeks. Officers will be more visible on weekends, police said.

Keith Burbank, Bay City News

Keith Burbank is currently a fulltime reporter covering Alameda County and Oakland news for Bay City News. He has also worked on the Data Points project for Local News Matters, finding trends and stories about the region through data. In 2019, he was a California Fellow at the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism, producing a series about homeless deaths in Santa Clara County. He worked as a swing shift editor for the newswire for several years as well. Outside of journalism, Keith enjoys computer programming, math, economics and music.