Shoshana Walter/The Bay Citizen

The view of Octavia Street from behind a black metal fence, which have become common in the neighborhood

Another spate of shooting incidents in Oakland this weekend has underscored a grim reality: gun violence is so common it seldom draws attention beyond the city’s bloodiest neighborhoods.

Two shootings took place Friday in broad daylight; in one, a 22-year-old man who had been shot in the thigh crumpled to the ground in East Oakland's Allendale neighborhood, where neighbors came upon him with blood trickling from his blue jeans into the street.

One block away, a 25-year-old man lay bleeding on Penniman Street. The two apparently had been shot while sitting in a car outside a liquor store at 35^th and Allendale.

Then, late Friday night, a gun battle broke out in the 2300 block of 63rd Avenue. Two homes were sprayed by gunfire, and police found a variety of shell casings amassed around a bleeding 22-year-old Hayward man.

Though none of the suspects died, the incidents were part of Oakland’s panorama of rising violence. The city, which had 38 homicides in the first 18 weeks of 2011, averages 10 shootings a week, according to Oakland police, which have been decimated by budget cuts.

Few media outlets covered Friday’s violence, and the Oakland Police Department did not provide a news release detailing the events. The shootings are so frequent, and so difficult to solve, that police seldom send out releases unless there is a death, according to spokeswoman Holly Joshi.

The backlog of cases in the department’s nine-person homicide unit has grown so large that some detectives from the robbery unit -- without training in murder investigations -- have taken on some of the assignments. With only 50 percent of last year's homicides cleared, cases are piling up, and the rate of those that are solved remains low.

Some police believe that criminals are becoming increasingly brazen. A prominent Fruitvale merchant, was gunned down outside his restaurant early last month. Two weeks later, assailants sprayed a restaurant near Jack London Square with an automatic assault rifle. Neither case has been solved.

In the city’s historic Allendale neighborhood, where Friday’s shootings occurred, some residents are putting up five-foot wrought-iron fences. Neighbors say they frequently hear gunfire and witness pursuits, and the fences deter young men from running or hiding in their backyards or homes, drawing in the assailants or police.

On Friday, Rosalie Lira walked onto her porch and saw the man splayed on the ground. Lira, whose family has owned the house for more than 40 years, said she was asleep when the shooting occurred, and felt lucky she was not outside enjoying her usual cup of coffee with a cigarette.

Her house is scarred by bullet holes. Last year, when her terrier Kirby burst into a fit of barking, she discovered a man had hopped a fence and was hiding in her backyard. She called police.

“Sometimes they jump over the fence like monkeys,” she said. “I don't want to be here and I don't feel safe here, but I can't afford to move.”