Baghdad by the Bay

Richmond police put SWAT teams on the streets today after two more people were shot, bringing the number of shootings in the city since Tuesday to 11.

The violence, which investigators believe is the product of a gang war, has claimed the lives of three people.

Two people were wounded, one critically, at 10:17 a.m. today when someone fired 30 rounds from a small-caliber pistol at Gertrude Avenue and Filbert Street just across the border from unincorporated North Richmond, police Lt. Mark Gagan said.

I confess that I have become intrigued by the city, a place I generally steered clear of for most of the two decades or so I have lived in the Bay Area (an attitude that is widespread in these parts - Richmond has an image problem). But Richmond offers a fascinating blend of port and industrial facilities, hard core ghetto, and new middle and upper-middle class residential and commercial development along the shore and inland, much this of utilizing land once occupied by railway yards, warehouses, and factories. There is also the very charming enclave of Point Richmond, the original pre-railway and pre-industrial settlement.