Homeless man crushed to death during Vallejo encampment clean-up was star athlete with troubled past

VALLEJO – A homeless man who was crushed to death during a city encampment cleanup in December was a star athlete in his youth who struggled with drug addiction and served time in prison for manslaughter.

The Solano County Coroner’s office identified the man as 58-year-old James Edward Oakley II. An autopsy determined that his death was caused by “blunt force trauma likely sustained accidentally by heavy equipment.” 

Oakley was found dead on Dec. 24 when city workers tasked with cleaning up an illegal dump site on the 2300 block of Broadway Street noticed Oakley’s body among construction debris that they were moving with a hydraulic loader, according to initial statements from City Manager Andrew Murray and city staff members in December.

The initial city statements said that it was unclear whether he was deceased prior to the refuse pick up or was injured as part of the process. But on Tuesday, the city said that the man had been crushed by the heavy machinery and a Vallejo police investigation  “determined that there was no indication of any person having an intent to cause harm, bodily injury, or death.” 

According to the city, the Solano County District Attorney’s Office found there was insufficient evidence to file criminal charges. 

Oakley was living in a small shed adjacent to a vacant commercial building that formerly housed a Da Vita dialysis clinic, according to friends.  But one day neighbors noticed that his things had been moved out of the shed onto the street where city debris clean-ups took place. 

Two longtime friends said that the way Oakley was found was out of character from his usual practices. “He would never sleep in a pile of trash like that, it’s just something he wouldn't do,” said Anthony Aitchison, who had known Oakley since childhood.

Aitchison said that “Oakley had a good heart” but faced a series of difficult circumstances that plagued him throughout his life.

Oakley had grown up in American Canyon and he attended Vintage High School in the early 1980s where he was a star athlete and played football, baseball, basketball and wrestling, according to long-time friends and articles in the Napa Valley Register.

In 1990, Oakley was convicted of manslaughter for the 1989 shooting of Rickey Lee Hasten. The two men had gotten into a dispute on the corner of Broadway and Arkansas in Vallejo after Oakley had confronted Hasten for selling him fake crack cocaine, according to an article in the Napa Valley Register.

According to the article, Hasten had been shot in the back with a shotgun at a distance of 25 to 40 feet. Oakley’s attorney argued he had acted in self-defense after Hasten threatened him with a four-pound beer bottle. 

Oakley claimed that he was an informant for the Napa County Special Investigations Bureau and that officers had given him the shotgun for protection. He also claimed that he thought that the shotgun was loaded with a less-than lethal round, according to the Napa Register.

Officials admitted that a Napa County Sheriff’s deputy had given Oakley the shotgun but denied that Oakley was working with them at the time of the murder, the Napa Valley Register reported.

Long-time friend Robert Curtis said that after serving time in prison, Oakley moved to the Sacramento area. According to a 2013 appellate court case, he was convicted of multiple drug charges including transportation of methamphetamine and sentenced again to 11 years in prison. He later moved back to American Canyon.

Curtis, who played weekly poker games with Oakley before his death, said, “I love the guy, but that’s what addiction can do, it took over and changed the direction of his life.”

Curtis said that, when he was a kid, Oakley had taught him wrestling moves to help him defend himself because he was badly bullied.

Residents of neighboring encampments who live in the area said that although Oakley was distant at times, he also looked after others and was regularly seen with a broom tidying up the block where he died.