It’s hard to believe this actually happened. Oakland is a far left city full of far left elected officials. Yesterday the head of the Oakland NAACP, along with the Bishop of the Acts Full Gospel Church, released a letter blasting the city’s progressive politics and singling out the county’s progressive DA. The letter called for a state of emergency to deal with rising crime. This letter is so good I’m tempted to include all of it but here’s a portion of it.
Oakland residents are sick and tired of our intolerable public safety crisis that overwhelmingly impacts minority communities. Murders, shootings, violent armed robberies, home invasions, car break-ins, sideshows, and highway shootouts have become a pervasive fixture of life in Oakland. We call on all elected leaders to unite and declare a state of emergency and bring together massive resources to address our public safety crisis…
Failed leadership, including the movement to defund the police, our District Attorney’s unwillingness to charge and prosecute people who murder and commit life threatening serious crimes, and the proliferation of anti-police rhetoric have created a heyday for Oakland criminals. If there are no consequences for committing crime in Oakland, crime will continue to soar.
People are moving out of Oakland in droves. They are afraid to venture out of their homes to go to work, shop, or dine in Oakland and this is destroying economic activity. Businesses, small and large, struggle and close, tax revenues vanish, and we are creating the notorious doom-loop where life in our city continues to spiral downward. As economic pain increases, the conditions that help create crime and criminals are exacerbated by desperate people with no employment opportunities.
We are in crisis and elected leaders must declare a state of emergency and bring resources together from the city, the county, and the state to end the crisis. We are 500 police officers short of the number that experts say Oakland needs. Our 911 system does not work. Residents now know that help will not come when danger confronts them. Worse, criminals know that too…
There is nothing compassionate or progressive about allowing criminal behavior to fester and rob Oakland residents of their basic rights to public safety. It is not racist or unkind to want to be safe from crime. No one should live in fear in our city.
What can you say except that is outstanding. Under the circumstances, people in Oakland are right to be angry because crime is up and so are 911 wait times.
According to Oakland Police Department statistics, the city had already logged 3,370 violent crimes in 2023, an 11% increase over the previous year, as of June 25.
In nearly seven months of 2023, Oakland experienced 52 homicides, the same number as during the entirety of 2022, although still fewer than in 2021. Incidents of rape increased by 16% and robbery by 14% compared to 2022, according to police.
The problem also extends to how the city responds to crimes. Victims of crimes—even violent ones—who call 911 face long wait times to speak with a dispatcher and even longer ones for the police to arrive.
Between 2018 and 2022, the average time it took police to arrive after 911 received a call about a high-priority incident ballooned from 12.7 minutes to 19.1 minutes, more than a 50% increase. Response times for misdemeanors are even longer.
The letter was released yesterday, the same day that Oakland residents packed out a public safety meeting with the police and with county DA Pamela Price:
A group of passionate residents lined up around the block to get in. At one point, community members took over the meeting and loudly voiced their concerns about a rise in violence and the lack of prosecution in Oakland.
“While I’m driving, I’m pulled out of my car at gunpoint. What are we doing to address this? How do we solve this? Nobody feels safe,” said one woman who spoke at the meeting…
“Pamela Price needs to understand that there must be consequences when there are assaults on people in their city,” Barbara Hoffer said, adding she was assaulted during an attempted robbery along with her friend.
“They just drive around and pick a victim. It’s getting scary. I’m fearful,” said another woman who attending the meeting.
Price has been criticized, including last night, for a recent decision not to charge a group of teens who were implicated in a string of robberies. Price said the decision was made not to prosecute because there was not enough evidence to secure a conviction.
Hopefully, the message of the NAACP letter and last night’s meeting is sinking in with Pamela Price. People don’t want 2nd chances for crooks at this point, they want some order on the streets so they aren’t afraid every time they leave the house. Here’s a local news report about the public safety meeting.
