Let me get this straight. Criminal shoplifts thousands of dollars of cosmetics from Ulta Beauty in massive retail theft. Flees from police when they arrive, hides behind bush hoping to avoid arrest. Vigilant K-9 officer arrives with dog, which goes after escaping suspect. Dog bites criminal. Criminal sues police department, receives nearly $1 million for “post-traumatic stress.”

We ought to give Sheng Thao a little credit for her concession statement on Nov. 8, just three days after we recalled her from office. The former mayor exaggerated her “accomplishments” and was defensive, but at least she thanked us, the voters, for electing her.

Here’s something I posted on Facebook on Nov. 14, 2011, in praise of Occupy Oakland: “Just had a good talk with some Occupy people who left downtown and are now set up about 2 blocks away. They are smart, committed and sane. Hard not to side with them.”

The Bay Area Council, a powerful coalition of business groups, has joined with more than 100 AAPI organizations to urge Gov. Newsom to “deploy the CHP across the BART system to address pervasive violence on trains and in stations.” The move follows a recent spate of violent incident on BART cars and in or near Bart stations. “We need to take strong, decisive and immediate action that violent and other crime will not be tolerated on BART,” the Council’s president said yesterday.

This is a perilous time for Oakland. I say this because there’s a tendency for people to assume that, with the Recalls of Pamela Price and Sheng Thao, normalcy will again prevail. As one commenter tweeted in a string congratulating Seneca Scott, “Better days ahead for Oakland. The fever has broken.”