Oakland’s Lakeshore Avenue district, with its well-kept streets and mom-and-pop stores and restaurants, has escaped much of the city’s crime woes in recent years. But not anymore.

The neighborhood and popular business district near Lake Merritt has become a favored target of armed thieves and bandits. Residents are angry or scared — and one of them decided to take matters into her own hands last week.
…
In March, more than a half-dozen businesses on Lakeshore Avenue were robbed, including two heists at Arizmendi, a popular bakery co-op. A month later, armed street robberies started cropping up in the neighborhood — seven in a month.

And if it wasn’t clear that something was amiss, the three robberies in a two-hour period on the night before Mother’s Day were a convincing blow. Brazen, hooded bandits robbed a pedestrian on Mandana Avenue, struck another one an hour later on Perkins Street in nearby Adams Point, and yet another less than an hour later on Grand Avenue. The victims were out walking their dogs or coming from a movie, community leaders and police say.
…
Police Lt. Ed Tracey, who commands the district that includes Lakeshore and Grand avenues, told a crowd of more than 100 people that criminal crews being driven out of East Oakland by an ongoing police crackdown there are venturing into other areas of the city.

Tracey said a sustained effort to clean up a crime-ridden section of 23rd Avenue has resulted in a wave of new crime during the last 18 months in middle-class and upscale neighborhoods and retail districts that had been relatively crime-free.
…
“We have been putting a lot of pressure on 23rd Avenue, and just like the cops, the bad guys talk with each other,” Tracey said. “They are looking for easy access, people with cash on hand … when the cops aren’t around because we’re in the Highland neighborhood, or in San Antonio (district) handling another call. When that happens, it creates a gap in service and they’re taking advantage of it.”
…
Police have also identified a troubling new trend: Some of the young suspects are users of the drug ecstasy.

“They have told us in interviews that it gives them a level of bravado they don’t usually have,” Tracey said.