Features

Arrests made in Faison murder 

Berkeley police made two arrests in connection with the June 20 murder of Charles Faison, 39, on Emerson Street.  

At 10:20 a.m Monday, homicide detectives serving a search warrant in East Oakland arrested Deontae Faison, 20, in connection with the death of his step-father, Charles Faison. Faison, arrested in a 33rd Street residence, was charged as an accessory to murder. He was booked into Santa Rita Jail in Dublin. 

Around 5 p.m. Monday, a 15-year-old Berkeley resident turned himself in to Berkeley police. He was charged with the murder of Charles Faison and booked into Juvenile Hall.  

Charles Faison, a private security guard, nightclub promoter and father, was found dead on the afternoon of June 20 with at least one gunshot wound to the head. Faison’s death was Berkeley’s seventh homicide of 2008. (There have now been nine murders this year in Berkeley.)  

Berkeley Police said “gunpowder residue” led to both arrests. Further details were not available because the case is still under investigation, said BPD Spokesman Andrew Frankel. 

Eggs thrown and bullets fired 

An Oakland man out for some early morning fishing Sunday was shot once in a encounter at the Berkeley Marina, after confronting a man who threw eggs at his car.  

BPD Spokesman Andrew Frankel said the wound was “not life-threatening.”  

The victim had been fishing with two other family members at the marina and was heading home when his car was struck by an egg. He got out of his car and confronted a man in his 20s who appeared to have thrown the egg.  

Words were exchanged, and the man whom he suspected of throwing the egg pulled a pistol from his pants and fired repeatedly at the fisherman, who fled to his car, drove away, and flagged down UCPD officers at Allston Street and Shattuck Avenue. 

Man robbed in scam 

An elderly would-be Samaritan was scammed out of $1,100 after offering a ride to a stranded stranger last Friday afternoon. While the 77-year-old man was sitting in his car in a parking lot just north of San Pablo and University avenues, he was approached by a heavyset man in his 50s.  

The man said he was stranded in the East Bay after taking a $400 taxi ride from San Francisco. He showed the driver a bag that appeared to be full of money, claimed he was trying to give the cash away before catching a flight to South Africa, and asked for a ride. The stranger also had the driver speak over his cellphone with another man he claimed was his lawyer.  

Worried for the man’s safety, the elderly driver drove the man to a Catholic Church in Oakland, where they picked up the stranger’s “lawyer,” then drove to another location in Oakland. When asked for “good-faith” money, the driver handed over $300 in cash and a government assistance check for $800. In return, the stranger gave him the bag full of cash. 

Only after dropping the two men off did the driver realize the bag contained tightly rolled bits of worthless paper, not money. 

Drowning in Aquatic Park 

A homeless man drowned in the Berkeley Aquatic Park Friday evening. The 36-year-old man slipped beneath the water shortly before 7 p.m., according to a friend with whom he had gone swimming.  

Police and Fire departments were summoned to the scene. The man was fished out and taken to Alta Bates Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.