Yo! Youth OutLook

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On my block in East Oakland – on Crosby and Foothill, right next to 35th – when you see a dice game, you’re going to see the police. There are a lot of haters on my block who don’t like young people and any chance they get they will call the police. We could be hanging out talking about good times and next thing we know the police will come rolling by, telling us to go home. My mom started making me come in the house early because a lot of people were shooting dice and they would get loud and the police would come.

To shoot dice, you just get two dice and roll them. If you hit a seven on the first roll, you get however much money everyone is betting for. If you don’t hit a seven or eleven on first roll, then whatever point it lands on – you will have to roll again and try and hit that number again. If you do, you will get the money. If you don’t hit a seven or eleven on first roll and hit another number, and then hit seven or eleven on a second roll – you lose your money and it’s the next person’s turn. Some of the main rules are that you can’t touch the dice with both hands and you can’t use trick dice.



I remember not too long ago a bunch of people gathered and went on a dice-shooting spree for almost three weeks straight. The police would come about three times a day. Mostly the people who shoot are grown people who have been doing it for a long time or young grinders and weed smokers who have been doing it for a short while. It got real crazy to where the police told us the only place we could be was in front of our own house. The cops even told some people that they couldn’t come back to the block and they even started enforcing the curfew, which was 10 o’clock for people who were under 18.

I don’t shoot dice anymore and I never did it in big groups anyways. But I do look out for my friends who are doing it. The reason why I don’t shoot in big groups is because people are not paying attention. If people don’t see you, then they want you to shoot over again and what are the odds that you shoot the same point again? Another reason I don’t shoot is because it brings in people I don’t know and then people want to start fighting and even start shooting. When it is a big crowd, people call the police and when they come, sometimes they want to mess with us and play mind games and abuse their authority and talk shit to us.

Just about a month and a half ago, I almost went to juvenile for yelling “Five-o!” to some people who were shooting dice up the street. I didn’t know the police heard me and as I was going in the house, they pulled up and told me to get up on the wall. I asked what was going on and the cop said: “You think you’re a man, yelling five-o? Well, I’ll teach you how to be a man!” He put me in cuffs and started questioning me. I ended up being put in the back of the car. But luckily my mom came down and talked to him and I was freed. This had all happened in the process of me taking my little brother home. Ever since then my mom has been strict about me staying out late and hanging out on the streets.

Now the games have stopped happening as much and I rarely see them at all, probably because the police roll through just about every day. They don’t always come on gambling calls – it could be someone calling about too many people outside or they will come through just to harass people.

There is this certain cop who comes through named Lancaster – he looks like a retired Charles Barkley with a hat – who abuses his authority by trying to make us leave when we don’t need to or threatening to give us tickets or take us down to the station. All I have to say I that this is not the first time I’ve encountered police and been around dice games – and it won’t be the last.

Jovan Parham, 16, goes to MetWest High School but plays football for Fremont High School in Oakland.
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