My Oakland friend Carrie frequently urges the city to address the problems of homelessness, crime and filth along Alameda Avenue, in her East Oakland neighborhood. The city just as frequently ignores her, and the problems only get worse. She finally got around to obtaining Oakland Police Department records for “calls for service” concerning incidents in the area during the first six months of 2021. There were 508 such calls reporting the following crimes:
Battery
Domestic battery
Assault with a deadly weapon
Child abuse
Drug use or drug dealing
Disturbing the peace
Brandishing a weapon
Burglary
Auto burglary
Petty theft
Grand theft
Vandalism
Trespassing
Stalking
Suspicious person
Person screaming for help
Car prowler
Drunk in public
Fire
Fight
Suspicious occupant in auto
Stray animal
Vicious animal
Vehicle collision with personal and/or property damage
Abandoned auto
Hit and run
Reckless driving
Carrie adds, “This is likely an underreporting.”
Something else happened yesterday. Oakland Police Department Chief LeRonne Armstrong held a press conference, on the occasion of Oakland’s 100th homicide of the year. He said: “So much violence. So many guns, so many senseless lives lost. If this is not a calling to everybody in this community that there is a crisis, I don’t know what is.”
Chief Armstrong is hurting. His OPD officers are hurting. Carrie is hurting. Most of the people of Oakland are hurting. There is, as the Chief says, a crisis. Sadly, not “everybody in the community” is listening to the people. Look at our City Council—yes, the same one that stripped $18 million from OPD’s budget last June. Chief Armstrong is calling out to those council members who did the dirty deed. But Carroll Fife isn’t listening. Nikki Bas isn’t listening. Noel Gallo isn’t listening. Dan Kalb isn’t listening. Rebecca Kaplan isn’t listening. Sheng Thao isn’t listening. Instead, they are addicted to the screeching of cop-haters like Cat Brooks. These people are so lost in their woke fantasy of weakening or abolishing the police, an argument can be made that they are complicit in the deaths of a hundred Oaklanders and counting.
How is this different from the Republican denial of masks and vaccines that is also killing us? How many more deaths will it take for these “progressives” to properly fund OPD, to the tune of 1,000 officers? What will it take for them to stand up to Brooks and her ilk and say, “Enough! Be gone!”
Sheng Thao is now making a big deal about her proposal for another Police Academy. How ironic. As the San Francisco Chronicle headlined, “One Oakland council member voted against adding more police academies. She’s now backing them.” That member was Thao. How can we take her, or any of these council members, seriously? Their positions come and go like the fog. You don’t know where they stand on anything on any given day. With no core convictions regarding public safety, they drift aimlessly, tossed around on the currents of the loudest, rudest voices in town—voices like Ms. Brooks’. I wish all of our city council members would wake up every morning and say two words in their hearts: public safety. That’s why they’re in office. If they can’t assure public safety, they should get out.
Steve Heimoff