OPD does it almost every time there’s a murder: holds a press conference at headquarters on Seventh Street. It’s the same routine every time: the press gathers, sets up their equipment, then someone—usually Chief Armstrong—arrives, talks about the murder, and takes a few questions. Then everyone departs, and the day goes on.
Yesterday was the same, but different. Four murders in one day in Oakland. This time, it wasn’t Chief Armstrong at the podium, but Deputy Chief James Beere. His voice weary and sad, he told us what he knew, and what he didn’t know. In addition to the killings, “There was a tremendous number of other crime calls last night,” he said, stressing how tightly stretched OPD is because the City Council won’t allocate enough money to hire more cops.
Unusually, Nikki Bas was there, just two seats down from me. I’ve been to a lot of these murder press conferences at OPD and I’ve never, ever seen a member of the City Council attend. But there she was, assiduously taking notes. I didn’t talk to her, but I was very glad to see her. As everyone knows, the Coalition has been tough on Nikki Bas, as well as on her colleagues Rebecca Kaplan, Carroll Fife and Sheng Thao, for their assaults on OPD, including their repeated attempts to defund it, and for the disrespect they’ve constantly heaped on the thin blue line that protects us. I don’t know why Bas came. Of course, she’s in a tough re-election campaign and her opponent, Harold Lowe—who is the Coalition’s choice—has come out swinging at Bas, calling for 900 sworn officers (the department currently has 681).
I can only hope and pray that Nikki Bas came to learn something for a change, instead of lecturing us about “equity” and “root causes.” I hope she heard the despair in Deputy Chief Beere’s voice when he described the horrors of yesterday, which surely had to be one of the toughest 24-hour cycles in OPD’s recent history. I hope Bas listened with an open mind and an open heart and realized that her calls to defund the police have resulted in real collateral damage to the people of Oakland. Her anti-cop rhetoric is picked up and amplified by others, such as Cat Brooks, who seek to abolish the police department. I hope Bas had an epiphany at the press conference and realized that she’s taken her crusade too far.
But I doubt it; she’s too mired in her ideology. Wouldn’t it be nice if Nikki Bas admitted she’s been wrong about the police and apologized? That would be something. But she won’t. All the more reason to fire her and vote for Harold Lowe. Here’s his website. The campaign needs donations and volunteers. Do what you can!
Steve Heimoff