Commentary

Jendayi Arrest Raises Community Concerns Regarding Sheriff’s Chain of Command

Judge Sandra K. Bean ordered a legally inherited home to be taken from beneficiary Jendayi, citing “undue influence,” and gave it to Court Administrator Phillip Campbell, who Jendayi believes will quickly sell the house and pay himself more than $600,000 in court fees. The disinherited sisters will get the remainder of the proceeds of the sale.

Published

41 minutes ago

October 13, 2026

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Supporters continue to gather outside the home of Zakiya Jendayi a week after sheriff’s deputies boarded up doors and windows, changed the locks and fenced off the property. Photo by Lindsay Imai Hong.

By Tanya Dennis

Last Thursday, Zakiya Jendayi parked on the side of the René C. Davidson Courthouse in Oakland to file an emergency stay request in what Jendayi asserts was the “legal” theft of her home of 13 years by a court administrator in her ongoing battle for her rightful inheritance in a probate battle.

But before she could fully emerge from the car at 12th and Oak streets, she was arrested by Alameda County Sheriffs for disobeying a court order and obstruction.

According to observers who have read the transcripts, the Hamlin v. Jendayi case, now in its sixth year, has resulted in what they describe as a gross miscarriage of justice.

Dr. Laura Dean Head named Jendayi as the beneficiary and executor over her estate after Jendayi took care of her during the last months of her life. Head’s disinherited sisters, Della Hamlin and Helaine Head, challenged the validity of Head’s will and trust, despite not being able to recognize Head in a photo during the trial, and Della stating she hadn’t spoken to her sister since 1997 or 1998 and would not have taken care of her during her hospice.

The appellate court upheld Bean’s ruling, which Jendayi asserts was based on a failure to fully consider the transcripts. “They never read the transcripts because if they had, they would have seen the truth,” Jendayi said.

Accompanied by Alameda Couty Sheriff’s Department deputies, Campbell arrived unannounced at Jendayi’s home on Oct. 1 – at the same time Jendayi was being arrested – to change the locks, board up the windows, and place a fence around the property.

Neither Jendayi, nor her supporters who had been in touch with Alameda County leadership and the Sheriff’s Department and been given the impression that nothing would happen without warning had been told Campbell was coming.

“I went to the courthouse to file an emergency stay document, and while getting out of the car, a sheriff immediately approached me and put handcuffs on me before I could stand up,” Jendayi said in recounting the events of Oct. 1. “I asked him if he had a warrant. He said ‘yes,’ and seven other officers immediately approached and surrounded me, with an additional three sheriffs standing back observing.

“I asked why it was necessary to have 10 officers to arrest me. They would not answer. I asked if the sergeant was there and asked if I could speak to him, but the sergeant refused to approach while another officer started taunting me over and over, stating, ‘I was at your house. I was at your house when you refused to surrender. We got you now.’

“The officer put the handcuffs on tight. I asked him to please loosen them. He refused and said they weren’t too tight. Then a Black, female deputy named Lewis, came over and asked him to loosen the handcuffs. Three times the white male officers were overly aggressive with me, and each time Deputy Lewis would step up and they would fall back. They said I was under arrest for refusing to surrender the house on Aug. 25.

“I asked them if I could file my paperwork, and they said, ‘No.’ Several officers asked me if I was on drugs. I felt like my life was in danger. I asked to speak to Deputy Lewis, and she came. I said, ‘Please tell my mother and Joyce Gordon that I would never kill myself.’ I did not want to end up like Sandra Bland, who was murdered by police officers in a Texas jail.”

Zendayi said they then took her to a section in the basement of the courthouse, placed her in a holding cell, and confiscated her belongings around 3 p.m. “They went through everything, took both cell phones, and asked if they could turn off my phones. I said ‘no,’ so they placed them in airplane mode.”

Then she was taken in a van to Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, which, because of traffic took almost two hours. “They asked me if I was on drugs and asked me to give a urine sample. I refused. They took a mug shot, and I was told it would be Monday before I could go to court. They put me in a cell with feces on the wall.

An hour after being detained, a deputy asked Jendayi if she knew someone who worked for the county and then asked if knew someone from the Sheriff’s Office and answered ‘no’ to both questions. He said, “You must know someone because we received orders to release you immediately. You’ll be out of here in about 40 minutes.”

“Rev. Raymond Langford of the Oakland Private Industry Council has been helping me to negotiate for more time to stay in my home,” Jendayi said. “I have an appeal with the Northern District Court of Appeals, where I’ve been promised they will review my case based on its merits. I was hoping to stay (in my home) until they reached a determination.

Rev. Langford reached out to Alameda County Supervisor Nikki Fortunata Bas and Chief Administrator David Brown, and they’ve been in contact with Sheriff Yesenia Sanchez.

“They weren’t going to give me the time I requested, but they did say that I would have time to move my belongings and would also be notified when they were coming,” Jendayi said. “None of that occurred.”

Langford said he spoke to Brown, Fortunato Bas and Sanchez right after the first attempt to evict Jendayi on Aug. 25 as well as the Alameda County Counsel and others to negotiate a time for Jendayi to move her belongings.

“There is no truth to the statement that there was no contact [with court and law enforcement officials.] There was an obvious miscommunication between Sanchez and her officers. They don’t have to inform the public of their actions, I understand that, but Zakiya and the community were concerned after they confiscated her guns.”

(Jendayi relinquished her weapons on Aug. 25 when sheriff’s deputies came to forcibly evict her while her petition for bankruptcy was still pending and should have interrupted the eviction process.)

“The Sheriffs have their own trust issues, and they need to work on that. They are not following the chain of command. David Brown, Fortunato Bas’s chief of staff, was puzzled also. He was told they would be informed when they would be returning. He was also blindsided like all of us.”

“(The Sheriffs’ Department) can come to the supervisors and get millions of dollars, but they can’t exhibit the courtesy to inform a citizen when she needs to move.”

“We, our group, ‘Friends of Zakiya,’ took a letter to Sanchez’s office citing Zakiya’s health issues, asking for more time just last week. Sanchez was a person who ran on the platform that she would not run the Sheriff’s Department on a military strategy, which they did on an African American senior in a comfortable, safe community.

“We understand they have to do their job, but we don’t want them targeting and profiling seniors. There has to be some accountability to the community,” Lankford said.

Supervisor Nikki Bas, deeply concerned with what has occurred, is joining with Supervisor Nate Miley to request a meeting with Attorney General Rob Bonta to request an independent investigation.

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AC Transit Labor Unions Back Director Joel Young

ATU Local 192 Vice President Nathaniel Arnold stated “our support reflects confidence in Young’s leadership and experience as the longest-serving member of AC Transit’s current Board of Directors. His experience is particularly important as AC Transit confronts serious fiscal challenges while working to preserve and strengthen service.

Published

1 hour ago

October 13, 2026

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Joel Young with bus union workers. Courtesy photo.

By Post Staff

In the AC Transit Ward 3 election, AC Transit’s labor organizations have recently expressed their endorsement for Director Joel Young, recognizing his longstanding commitment to public transportation, workforce investment, and the employees who keep AC Transit moving every day.

Those unions include the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 192, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1245, and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3916.

“At a time when difficult decisions lie ahead, Young brings institutional knowledge, longstanding relationships, and a demonstrated commitment to public transportation.

“Since joining the board in 2009, Young has served in key leadership roles, including president and vice president, helping guide AC Transit through periods of growth, innovation, and change.

During his tenure, he helped AC Transit secure more than $600 million in funding to support critical transportation investments. Young has also helped advance workforce development initiatives, support transit technology improvements, expand AC Transit’s zero-emission bus fleet, and strengthen the District’s national presence on transportation policy issues.

His leadership has extended beyond the Bay Area.

Young has represented AC Transit on the national stage, including participation in the White House Roundtable on Clean Bus Manufacturing, where transit leaders and policymakers discussed the future of clean transportation and domestic manufacturing.

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Oakland Post: Week of October 7 – 13, 2026

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2 hours ago

October 13, 2026

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Black History

Ghana’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Publishes Global Circle’s Vatican Reparations Call in Special Edition Alongside Heads of State

GLOBAL CIRCLE FOR REPARATIONS AND HEALING — Ghana’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has published the Global Circle for Reparations and Healing’s submission, “From Accra to the Vatican,” in a special edition of The Ghanaian Envoy. This marks the first time a sovereign state has incorporated the Reparations Presentment to the Holy See into its official record. The 175-page edition, titled “Creating A New World,” also documents Ghana’s campaign that led to UN Resolution A/RES/80/250, which recognized the trafficking and enslavement of Africans as the gravest crime against humanity.

Published

7 days ago

October 7, 2026

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International responses to Ghana-led UN resolutions declaring the transatlantic enslavemen the gravest crime against humanity

“From Accra to the Vatican” appears in The Ghanaian Envoy Special Edition on UN Resolution A/RES/80/250 — the first time a sovereign state has carried the Reparations Presentment to the Holy See into its official record

ACCRA, Ghana / CHICAGO, Illinois — October 7, 2026 — The Global Circle for Reparations and Healing today announced that its submission to Ghana’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “From Accra to the Vatican: A Call for a Global Plan of Action on Catholic Church Redress”, has been published in the Special Edition of The Ghanaian Envoy, the official newsletter of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Ghana. The 175-page edition, titled “Creating A New World,” documents the Ghana-led campaign that culminated on March 25, 2026, in United Nations General Assembly Resolution A/RES/80/250, which declared the trafficking of enslaved Africans and the racialized chattel enslavement of Africans the gravest crime against humanity.

The Global Circle’s submission, authored by Co-Convener Kamm Howard, appears in Part V of the edition, “What Repair Must Now Mean,” at page 161. It shares the volume with statements by President John Dramani Mahama of Ghana, President Joseph Nyuma Boakai Sr. of Liberia, President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah of Namibia, President Bassirou Diomaye Diakhar Faye of Senegal, President Carlos Manuel Vila Nova of São Tomé and Príncipe, President Emmanuel Macron of France, Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley of Barbados, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, Foreign Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, African Union Commissioner Amma Twum-Amoah, CARICOM Reparations Commission Chair Sir Hilary Beckles, Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, Dr. Julius Garvey, and Congressional Black Caucus Executive Director Vincent Evans, among others.

The submission traces the Global Circle’s delivery of the Reparations Presentment to the Holy See in Vatican City on July 18, 2022, the document’s subsequent use by the former Vice President of Costa Rica and the Vice President of Colombia in their engagements with Pope Francis, and the partial response contained in Pope Leo XIV’s May 2026 encyclical Magnifica Humanitas. It argues that while three of the Presentment’s seven demands have entered the Church’s official language in diluted form, four remain wholly unmet: rescission of the papal bulls that authorized African enslavement, the Church’s call upon other offending Western nations to make redress, the establishment of a joint Vatican–African Diaspora–African Papal Commission on Reparations and Healing, and a substantial financial commitment to repair. The submission asks Ghana to adopt the Presentment as the reference instrument for a Vatican track within the Accra Next Steps Commitments and to convene a first meeting of Global African reparationists toward a collective response.

“For four years the Presentment has been a civil society document carried by civil society hands,” said Kamm Howard, Co-Convener of the Global Circle and Commissioner of the National African American Reparations Commission. “Ghana has now placed it in the official record of a sovereign state, in a volume that opens with a President’s address to the General Assembly and closes by asking what repair must mean. That is not a courtesy. It is a signal to every government, every reparations commission, and every African Catholic that the claim against the Holy See belongs on the state agenda, and that the state which broke the deadlock at the United Nations is prepared to see it there.”

The significance of the publication extends beyond the Vatican file. The Presentment was created as a legal claims instrument by Howard in 2014 and first delivered to corporations and institutions in the United States, where it secured significant concessions. Its appearance in a foreign ministry’s official publication, translated and distributed in English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian, establishes the reparations presentment as a recognized instrument of international reparatory diplomacy, one that other states and descendant communities can adopt without drafting a new framework of their own. The Global Circle has described this catalytic potential as the “N’namba Effect,” after the Evanston, Illinois, reparations initiative – led by N’nanba Robin Rue Simmons – that gave municipalities across the United States the model, permission, and courage to act.

“The Vatican told us in 2022 that it moves in fifteen-year increments,” Howard added. “Ghana has just demonstrated at the United Nations that a determined state can compress that timeline to a single vote. We are asking Ghana to do for the Church what it did for the General Assembly, and we are asking Global Africa to organize behind that ask with one document, one voice, and one set of demands.”

The Global Circle has written to President Mahama and Foreign Minister Ablakwa to express its gratitude and to propose that its Vatican and Interreligious Actors Working Group lead the first meeting on a collective Vatican response under the auspices of the Government of Ghana. The Global Circle has also formally advised the Congressional Black Caucus of the publication in connection with its pending request that the Caucus recognize the Presentment as the foundational document for reparations engagement with the Roman Catholic Church and join the Government of Ghana in this global call to action.

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About the Global Circle for Reparations and Healing

The Global Circle for Reparations and Healing was convened in 2022 to help build united global reparations front across Africa and its worldwide diaspora. In July 2022 the Global Circle delivered the Reparations Presentment to the Holy See in Vatican City. It co-organized Accra Summit I in August 2022 with the Government of Ghana and the Africa Transitional Justice Legacy Fund, and led the organization of Accra Summit II: Centering Healing Across Global Africa in March 2025 in partnership with the African Union. The Reparations Presentment to the Holy See is available in English, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish at gcrh.org.

Media Contact

Global Circle for Reparations and Healing

Kamm Howard, Co-Convenor

Kammh369@gmail.com 773 520 0369

gcrh.org