Chief Armstrong held another press conference yesterday, only this one was different. Usually, the mood is somber, as he talks about the latest murder/s in Oakland. Yesterday, Chief was in, if not quite a celebratory mood, then at least one in which he was (in his words) “sending a message of safety.”
Here are some quotes directly from the Chief; I taped them on my phone and transcribed his remarks.
“Because of the violence we’re experiencing, I challenged my Command Staff to bring a different approach…with the goal of impacting public safety immediately. We implemented an all-hands-on-deck strategy, where we use every available resource within the department, with our local, Federal and state partners, to begin focusing on violent crime and the recovery of firearms. We started our new plan on Sept. 26; Sept. 26 through today (Oct. 25), nine lives were lost in the city of Oakland to gun violence. This is down from the same period last year, where we saw 14 people lose their lives. We took a similar approach when it came to shootings in Oakland: our shootings are down 25% compared to last year at the same time.”
“Over the same 4 weeks, our officers have recovered 82 firearms. We’ve also arrested 120 people for shooting and violent crimes across our city. This year so far, we’ve recovered 1,235 firearms, of which 30% are ghost guns. That exceeds the number of firearms we recovered in the entire year of 2021. And we’re only in October. There’s still two more months where we’ll continue to be focused.”
“Also, I added 8 additional officers to our criminal investigation division. The increase will lead to more criminal investigations and a higher rate of solved cases. I’ve also added an additional traffic enforcement team; they’re already out there, focused on our high-injury locations which the Dept. of Transportation has identified. In the first few days, these officers have written over 40 citations. They’ve also written 10 vehicle seizure warrants, for vehicles that fled during stops. We will be coming for those vehicles, and we will be towing those vehicles. These officers have been met with applause throughout the community.”
“Lastly, our department is also the current recipient of a U.S. Department of Justice grant. OPD was awarded $1.8 million to hire 15 additional officers by DOJ. We are really appreciative of DOJ’s support. We look forward to this Friday, when OPD will graduate another 2 dozen Oakland Police Officers [from the latest academy]. So not only will we get additional funding for officers, but this Friday we welcome 2 dozen new officers. That will take us for the first time in 2022 back over the 700-officer mark. So this department is growing…this will be the 4th academy we’ve graduated in the last 12 months. We’re being aggressive in our hiring, in our recruiting efforts…we’re doing everything in our power to get this department back to full staffing so we can provide the level of service needed to address the violence in Oakland.”
[This is Steve] Chief Armstrong has been hearing from the people of Oakland that we need hope. We need to believe that his police department is working on our behalf. The statistics he shared truly are hopeful. I thank the Chief for his inspirational leadership. I came away from this press conference feeling better about things than I have lately. I hope you do, too, dear reader.
Steve Heimoff