This is a link to a petition started by our friend Rajni Mandal, who monitors the Oakland Police Commission. The petition demands an end to the federal Negotiated Settlement Agreement, which as most of you know has been in effect for more than twenty years. Under the NSA the Oakland Police Department has lost its independence and much of its ability to ensure our public safety, all because a certain greedhead named Robert Warshaw, who runs the NSA, keeps finding excuses to keep OPD under his heel. Of course, Warshaw’s $1 million annual salary may have something to do with that!
Please sign the petition. If our last few mayors, city attorneys, city managers and City Council members had had any integrity, they would have sued Warshaw years ago and kicked his ass out of town. But they had no integrity and neither does the current crop. So it’s left to us, the People, to band together and get rid of Warshaw on our own.
Here, from Rajni, is his analysis of the impacts of the city’s underfunding of OPD. It’s pretty dire. Because of the low staffing level, there will be no more traffic department. Cops will be assigned to mandatory weekend stints, and reductions in other departments will increase threats to our safety—for example, there will be only 10 officers in homicide, and no more officers will be assigned to cold cases.
What this means is a police department that is increasingly crippled. And the thing to keep in mind is that this is deliberate. It’s the result of years of leftwing abominations like Nikki Bas, Carroll Fife, Rebecca Kaplan, Sheng Thao and Dan Kalb kneecapping OPD, badmouthing cops every chance they got, appointing mentally ill people to anti-police boards and commissions, and convincing unstable voters that all cops are bastards and OPD must have its budget severely defunded so that they can no longer attack innocent Black people. Of course, that allegation was always complete bullshit, but it worked with immature voters, the kind who put Black Lives Matter signs in their yards and then moan when their car windows are smashed.
Also according to Rajni, OPD staffing levels will fall to 470 active officers, which is 200 fewer even than the scariest projections we’ve seen. And, as Rajni puts it, there is no cavalry which will come to our rescue. We can’t expect Gov. Newsom to keep on sending us CHP to help round up criminals. If all of this sounds horrendous, it is. And this current gang of incompetents that runs our city doesn’t give a damn, no matter what they say. They literally want to cripple OPD, even as they reassure their audiences how committed they are to public safety. It’s like Hitler promising the Jews that the concentration camps have lovely synagogues, so they needn’t fear being sent there.
What can you do? First, fill out Rajni’s petition and send it. Then renew your commitment to public safety. Force your elected representatives to increase their commitment to OPD. If they don’t listen to you, then team up with your neighbors and get organized! We can fire City Council members and mayors just as easily as we elect them—just ask Sheng Thao.
A big thank you to Rajni for his invaluable service!
Steve Heimoff