OAKLAND — As if the grief over Oakland artist Casper Banjo's sudden death last week was not enough sorrow for friends and family, there is the weight of unanswered questions about how he died.

This much is known: On the evening of March 14, the 70-year-old Banjo was surrounded by armed officers outside the Eastmont Mall police precinct commanding him to relinquish the cast-iron 9-mm Berretta replica pistol he was holding. He did not.

Police said they demanded he drop the pistol for several minutes. Instead, Banjo raised his head and the pistol toward police. An officer shot and killed him with a bullet to his chest. It was shortly before 7 p.m.

The question burdening those who knew him is how Banjo — by all accounts a talented printmaker and peaceful person — came to be standing in front of police with a fake firearm at sunset on 73rd Avenue.

South East Arizona Fine Art And Photography Show Judges

The South East Arizona Fine Art and Photography Show is proud to announce the 3 judges for the April 18-20 show at the Willcox Elks Club, 247 E. Stewart Street in Willcox.All entries must be postmarked by March 31.The 2 judges for the fine art division are Manuel DeLeon and David Aguirre:Manuel DeLeon has been in art since 1942 when he was in Norman Rockwell's class at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles. His early training included every art institution in Southern California, and he spent the mid-fifties living and teaching in Europe where he pursued extended study in art history, drawing and painting at the San Fernando Academy in Madrid, the University of Poitier (France), the Florentine Academy (Italy), and the Stadt Akademie in Munich (Germany). Manuel also spent time in Mexico with Tomas Coffeen and Jose Maria de Servin at the University of Guadalajara.

Pain 'boot camp’ - Program treats three fronts to lessen hold on sufferers’ lives

Gayle Parseghian, a 55-year-old ballet teacher from Toledo, Ohio, goes through stretching exercises at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago during a four-week "boot camp" program to relieve her chronic back pain. Before starting the program, Parseghian tried herbal patches, vitamins, injections, prescription narcotics and a battery-operated device that sends electrical impulses to the body to block pain. She said nothing worked.
Photo by M. SPENCER GREEN/Associated Press .

In the Line of Fire: A Memoir

On Sept. 19, 2001, as the ashes of the World Trade Center still smoldered, a shaken Gen. Pervez Musharraf went on national television and radio to explain an unpopular decision to his countrymen. He had agreed, under intense American pressure, to throw Pakistan's support behind the effort to crush the Taliban, al Qaeda's Afghan host.