Last May, Oakland police arrested nine teenagers for a string of almost three dozen robberies throughout the East Bay. In one of the robberies, the juveniles brutally attacked a 63-year-old woman in a busy upscale Oakland shopping district, beating her in the head and dragging her by her hair across the sidewalk. Then, they attacked a bystander who tried to intervene.
Within days, the perpetrators were set free with no charges.
When you share stories like this one on social media, by far the most common refrain you hear is, “They voted for this.” And that’s true: Last year, Pamela Price, the far-left District Attorney for Alameda County, won her election by a decisive 53%. Sheng Thao, the current Mayor of Oakland, who once called to defund the police, won by a sliver.
But even the most ardent criminal justice reform voters never imagined they were voting for what Oakland has become. Crime has become a fixture of daily life in the East Bay, and nowhere more than in Oakland. In the most recent crime report available, crime was up 28% in the city over the same week last year, which was itself a huge crime year. Violent crime has increased by 19%, robbery is up 30%, burglary by 44%, and auto theft by 52%. Oakland has had 10,000 car burglaries so far this year, which is about one for every 43 residents.
Now, the explosion of crime, which has impacted just about every Oakland resident’s day-to-day life, is transforming the politics of this famously ultra-progressive city.
“She is on the criminals’ side,” an Oakland resident said of the District Attorney at a town hall meeting on public safety. “To any of you who voted for her: Shame on you, and elections have consequences. She told us what she was going to do, and somehow, the majority of people in this town voted for her anyway.”
The room exploded in applause.
Price ran on a decarceration platform. She defends her policies as the right thing to do and says she is being unfairly blamed for rising crime. At a recent community meeting, Price said she had let the kids who committed the robbery spree go free because the youths were masked, and her office could not discern which of the thieves was responsible for which of the attacks.
She went on: “All counties across the state have been asked to decriminalize young people. And so our county has adopted that as a policy.”
The line was not a crowd-pleaser. A friend of the 63-year-old victim, who had witnessed the crime, described putting her friend in an ambulance and sending her to the emergency department. “I just want to say that there must be consequences,” she told Price. The audience clapped and cheered.
In hyper-liberal Alameda County, almost no one would disagree with Price’s mission to “decriminalize young people.” But to crime victims, decriminalization has come to mean impunity. And the DA’s deep concern for the fates of criminals seems to be surpassed only by her indifference to the needs of their victims.
What went wrong in Oakland? If voters are “getting what they voted for,” why are they so upset about it?
“The Criminals are the Saviors, and the Victims, We’re the Criminals.”
On June 17, 2022, at around 10 PM, Isaiah Castillo, a 22-year-old on his way to his grandmother’s house, came to a red light in Fremont, California, a quiet East Bay city south of Oakland. For the last few blocks, he had been speeding through the streets, chased by four juveniles in a black Mercedes Benz. As he waited to drive through the intersection, the Mercedes pulled up alongside him. One of the passengers pulled out a gun and unloaded it on him. Isaiah’s 12-year-old sister happened to be at the McDonald’s on the corner, getting a milkshake. Recognizing the car, she ran up to it and saw her brother slumped over in the front seat. He had died instantly.
The boys who murdered Isaiah had been on a crime spree that night. They had carjacked the Mercedes and had stolen a Saab before that. After Isaiah’s murder, at least one of the boys in the car went on to commit more murders: first of Rienheart Asuncion, a 30-year-old man in a road rage incident, and then, less than two weeks later, of Jazy and Angel Sotelo Garcia, two brothers who attended Berkeley High School who were shot at a house party.
That boy, Sergio Morales-Jacquez, is in juvenile detention for Asuncion’s murder and will serve at most seven years. Morales-Jacquez, who is from Oakland, was 17 at the time of the murder and is now 18. Price refused to try him as an adult, and the juvenile justice system can only hold him until age 25. He could even be released sooner than that, on good behavior. He has not been charged for any of the other cases, including Isaiah’s.
The boy who pulled the trigger in Isaiah’s murder was never charged and remains free.
Isaiah’s mother, Rachel Barrera, told Public that she exchanged text messages with Price after she took office in January of this year. Then Price stopped replying to her. Barerra says she called the DA’s office and left messages twice a day from January until March. Price has never called her back. The most information she has received from the DA’s office was when one of Price’s staffers once told Barrera of her son’s killer, “If it makes you feel better, he moved to another county.”
Barrera and her family live in anxiety and unresolved grief. “When I pass by kids, I think is that him? Is that him?” she said. “I think everyone should have a gun now. I used to hate guns. I don’t feel safe anywhere.” After seeing her brother murdered, her daughter now has to go to school across the street from where he was killed.
The brazenness of Isaiah’s murder is a feature of crime in the East Bay, especially in Oakland. Car burglaries are carried out casually in broad daylight, on congested streets with crowds of bystanders watching. Often burglars break into cars while people are still inside them — in one case, an 8-year-old girl. Near the Oakland airport, one worker told the San Francisco Standard that she witnesses about 10 car break-ins a day; a FedEx worker said he once saw close to 10 of them in a single hour.
Burglars have rammed stores with stolen cars in order to break through their roll-up gates. In one case burglars used a forklift.
Gunfights have broken out downtown, either between rival crime gangs or between criminals and their victims.
“Sideshows,” in which drivers, often in stolen cars, take over intersections and do donuts in the middle of the street, are ubiquitous. Last May, a neighbor who tried to interfere with a sideshow was beaten nearly to death by a mob.
Criminals may be attracted to Alameda County because they’re aware that the DA will treat them leniently if she prosecutes them at all. But more likely, they don’t expect to get caught in the first place, because there aren’t enough police officers to enforce the law.
“A city of our size, of a half million people, and with our level of crime, according to many different metrics say that we’re supposed to have between 1,000 and 1,200 officers,” Seneca Scott, a community activist in West Oakland, told Public. “OPD has under 700.”
Police are so understaffed that when there are too many 911 calls, the police go into “no report status,” which means officers will only respond to violent crimes in progress. One resident told Public that after being robbed at gunpoint by three men in ski masks, he had to wait four days just for a police officer to take a report. That was only after calling the station multiple times and even visiting in person.
And that’s when residents can get through to 911 at all. Oakland has the second-slowest 911 response time in the state, with an average wait of 54 seconds. The city was recently threatened with loss of state funding over its failing 911 system.
As much as Pamela Price has coddled criminals and ignored their victims, these problems are not the fault or the responsibility of the District Attorney and they pre-date her tenure. The blame for OPD’s staffing crisis falls on the current Mayor of Oakland, Sheng Thao, and on the Governor and state legislature.
In the summer of 2020, after the murder of George Floyd, Mayor Thao was a City Councilmember. Back then, she was an advocate of defunding the police. In 2021, she voted to redirect $18 million from then-Mayor Libby Schaaf’s proposed increase to the police budget amidst a growing crime wave, freezing 50 vacant officer positions and cutting two police academy cohorts. The City Council then restored much of that cut as crime rose, and Thao went on to run for mayor as a public safety candidate.
More important to OPD’s recruitment prospects than this back-and-forth on the budget, however, was AB 392, a 2019 law inspired by the high-profile deadly shooting of a black man in Sacramento. AB 392 made it easier to prosecute police officers who use deadly force. Combined with the political environment that arose from the Black Lives Matter movement, the law has forced officers in California to reconsider what risks they are willing to take on the job.
If a tragic mistake can lead to prison time, then officers have every incentive to avoid putting themselves in a scenario in which such a mistake could happen. This is especially true in Oakland, where the DA ran on a platform of prosecuting police officers. Minimizing this risk means avoiding interactions with suspects as much as possible, by refraining from traffic stops and other forms of proactive policing, and only responding to the most urgent 911 calls. It has also meant transferring from high-crime cities to low-crime cities, or not taking jobs in cities like Oakland at all.
The result has been short-staffed police forces in the cities that need police the most, and officers who are less inclined to take aggressive actions to prevent crimes, for fear of shooting someone and going to prison for it.
On top of the risk of criminal prosecution, the Oakland Police Department has been under a federal consent decree for 18 years. Over that time, relentless scrutiny from the federal monitor has created an internal culture of risk aversion in which doing police work is perceived as problematic. If you do too many stops, superiors start asking questions. “Officers will not stop people because they will be identified as outliers,” one retired Oakland police officer told Public.
The upshot of all of these factors is that for Oakland police officers, it makes more sense to do nothing than to do their jobs. And it makes more sense for new recruits to go to a low-crime suburb than to join the Oakland Police Department in the first place.
The costs of Oakland’s crippled law enforcement capacity have been borne by the most vulnerable residents of the city.
“We have the majority of the calls for support to 911 coming from the black community — black women in particular,” said Loren Taylor, former City Councilmember in East Oakland. “The majority of those who I represent from the flatlands of East Oakland, they recognize that taking away police and not having anything, puts more people in jeopardy and more lives at risk.”
“While they’re playing this political game with our public safety, we’re in communities where people are losing their lives,” Keisha Henderson, a community leader in Oakland, told Public. She believes defund the police activists fueled the crime wave, and then went back to the suburbs they came from. “We’re suffering in these communities, and we don’t even see these people. Where are the defund movement people? I have never seen anyone that is part of the defund movement in hardcore, high-crime communities in Oakland. I have never seen it.”
On top of all of these cultural and ideological variables, there’s sheer incompetence. Recently, the Governor announced the recipients of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of funds the state allocated to cities and other local jurisdictions to fight organized retail theft. Even though Oakland is losing businesses to rampant shoplifting, it wasn’t on the list. It turned out city leaders had missed the application deadline.
The factors driving lawlessness in Oakland, then, are these: Years of demonization of the police by the Black Lives Matter protest movement have left law enforcement neutered and ineffectual. The city’s political leadership is weak and inept. And radical victimhood ideology has pushed the politics of the city into a doom spiral.
“Now it’s like the criminals are the saviors, and the victims, we’re the criminals,” said Henderson. “It’s like it’s switched.”
Rage Against The Political Machine
After nearly four decades in business, Le Cheval, a beloved French-Vietnamese restaurant in downtown Oakland, is closing its doors this week. Burglars broke into the restaurant multiple times, and customers have stayed away because of the rampant car break-ins and gunpoint robberies downtown. It is no longer financially possible for the restaurant to stay open in the city of Oakland. “The crime, the criminals killed us,” the owner told a local news station.
“The politicians in Oakland here, they can do nothing, just talk only,” he said.
The reality of crime has caught up to Oakland, fast. Eighty-three percent of Oakland voters believe that crime and public safety is the top issue in the city, and 74% support hiring hundreds more police officers. The ideology that regards criminals as victims, which animated the campaigns of both former San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin and the current Alameda County DA, already feels like an anachronism of another time. Crime is galvanizing the politics of the city, stoking rage among voters against their elected leaders.
Alameda County residents may have voted for Pamela Price, but now there’s enough buyer’s remorse that a recall campaign is underway. Price blames the recall on Republicans and likens its supporters to January 6th rioters, but a growing number of ordinary Alameda County residents, including Isaiah Castillo’s mother, want to see her fired. By sending a signal to criminals that it’s open season in Alameda County, they believe, Pamela Price’s lenience has contributed to the colossal crime wave.
But removing the DA will not be enough to end the crisis. The causes are too entrenched and complex for such a simple fix. They can only be uprooted by a political sea change.
On Tuesday, small businesses in Oakland went on strike to demand a real response from the city. Carl Chan, president of the Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce, estimates that well over 200 businesses participated, including restaurants, gas stations, convenience stores and liquor stores, many if not most of them owned by immigrants. Organizers held their press conference at Le Cheval.
“We’re not ok with this,” Jamaica-born Nigel Jones, who owns two restaurants in Oakland, told an audience of a couple hundred. At one of his restaurants, he said, after being denied use of the bathroom, a homeless woman walked into his kitchen and relieved herself on the floor. “Are we going to normalize this?” he asked.
“Yes, we need to change and address institutional racism,” said Jennifer Tran, an Ethnic Studies Professor at Cal State East Bay and a member of the Vietnamese Chamber of Commerce. “But letting crime go rampant is not the way.”
The strike follows successful efforts by small businesses in San Francisco to demand action on crime and homelessness in that city. Last year, Castro merchants threatened a tax strike, and businesses in the Tenderloin did the same. Partly in response to the pressure, Mayor London Breed took more aggressive action to close the city’s open-air drug market.
The Pamela Price recall campaign is currently in its signature-gathering phase. Should it make it to the ballot, Price will have a fight on her hands. Currently, 51% of Oakland voters support replacing her, versus 27% who would like to keep her in her seat, according to a recent poll.
Oakland feels as if it’s on the precipice of change — either for the better or for the dangerously worse. The community leaders behind the business strike seem optimistic. But that may be because the alternative is too awful to contemplate.
If Price is not recalled, Henderson said, “It’s gonna cause a war in these streets. People are going to take matters into their own hands. There’s going to be more gun carriers, and they’re just going to be taking out people themselves.”
George Floyd was not 'murdered ' He died from substance abuse, even if the cops hadn't laid a hand on him, he would've been dead anyway. The independent autopsy proved that, there was no asphyxiation caused by Derek Chauvin kneeling on his shoulder blade. The trial was dodgy and even the jurors admitted they were scared for their own safety if they didn't find him guilty. All 4 police were jailed for political reasons.
You're of course correct. But the optics of that photo captured a long brewing problem and broke the dam loose. There was a very good documentary about OJ Simpson that traced the historical conflict between police and blacks that really delve into the underlying issues. We can argue the specifics of the George Floyd case all day long, but what we're dealing with is not about him. It's the emotions caught up with something that was never addressed (and arguably still not addressed and likely not be in our lifetime).
FYI you and I are probably pretty aligned with how we see this and feel all the same problems about Leftist agenda and insanity. I just find that in these politicl situations, facts never really matter to most people no matter how much they say they care about facts, "educated", The Science(TM), etc. No one ever wins over the other side by facts. The reason why Trump is so popular right now is because he doesn't actually talk "facts". He cuts through all the bullshit and with a few tweets, he describes the root of the problems (on issues that excites his voters anyway).
A key component of the leftist agenda is dismantlement of the family. A stolen car full of young males pulls up at a light and unloads a gun on a young man they didn't know. Who wants to take bets none of them had a father at home?
If the Republicans had any testicles, they'd point out it's the Democrats who destroyed the black family. They did it by giving away free stuff to any woman with children and no father to help raise them.
Well yes, all the "support" programs to women with children did a lot of enabling instead of helping. But it is also the case that over the decades since the Civil Rights movement, the legal justice system created a pipeline to send black boys to prisons and created this mess too. I'm not saying at all the radical left's current "no incarceration" policy is right or what should be done. It began as a prejudicial justice system from eons ago when the country was in fact a lot more racist. But once they took away the men, fairly or not, nothing was done to make sure the male youths in the black community had the leadership to help them succeed. (Not assigning blames here just pointing out the fact.) The Ds then made it ten times worse by the kind of policies you mentioned, and also their do-gooder policies of housing projects, which effectively housed all these black families into what became Crimes and Drugs Central instead of letting them naturally spread out and integrate into other communities. The situations then created a permanent black underclass.
The destruction of families is one of the biggest problem, if not the biggest, for the black communities. I don't see any end in sight unless black people themselves say enough and pull themselves up. Republicans philosophically expect people to pull themselves up. Democrats are worse as on the one hand they can't ideologically admit nuclear families have any value (even as the elite class of them practice it themselves). Policy wise everything they did or are doing only make things worse in the long run. But they'll keep doing them because it's one way they buy votes.
I really try to avoid arguing over every point. You start off by mentioning the "support" programs to women and children, and segue into the pipeline to send black boys to prison. There's no such pipeline.
Prior to The Great Society, black families were closing the wealth gap between white and black. That's a fact. Ever since Lyndon B. Johnson implemented free stuff for poor people, the percentage of poor people in the US has fluctuated up and down with the economy, but averaged over a rolling multi-year period it's remained essentially unchanged since the mid 1960's.
There's always a sad story, a pretense why we should give the government a little more power. Yes, let's help single moms. Give 'em housing, medical care, food, pay their utility bills, give 'em Obama phones. And expect nothing in return. A few decades later, a couple of kids are rolling down the road in a stolen car, and run over a bicyclist FOR FUN.
The well-intended program to give single moms free stuff subsidizes behavior that is destructive to the mom, to the children, and to society. Subsidizing that behavior increases it. I'm all in favor of helping people. Making a mistake shouldn't destroy a person's future. We should insist the people being helped take on some responsibilities to help themselves. Make sure the children are fed, and bathed, and have clean clothes to wear, and go to school. For the single mom, if the children are in school, she should be working or taking steps to acquire marketable skills. Get a relative- a grandma or grandpa or an aunt or uncle to help.
What's so infuriating is few people pay any attention to the importance of fathers in raising children. Republicans have been cowed into silence, and keep their mouths shut. For Democrats, free stuff is the new slavery. It keeps their voters the plantation, reliant on government.
I started off about liberal "support" programs and said nothing more because I have no dispute with what you already said, and I have nothing more to add. I have no disagreement with anything in your reply either so I don't have anything more to say. You summed everything up as well as I can.
The only thing we diverge on is the existence of a pipeline ushering black youths into the criminal class. It's not a widely known issue because no talking heads with political agenda has any incentive to talk about it. But if someone studies criminal law and the history of criminal justice, the info is there. Minor black males committed petty crimes were sent to prison, which are fertile breeding grounds of gang recruitment. While other kids went to colleges, these kids were sent to prisons. Once there, there futures were set to a point of no return. This was how the black community was deleted of men who could be a constructive part of a family unit. There are also debates whether these youths were punished more harshly because they're black, but that's one of those debates that can never be objectively assessed.
I will say this though. The origin of this problem, I believe, was not the criminal justice system. The origin of the problem to me was the liberals' housing project policy in the 70s. Putting the least well-off families into a single complex of buildings where gangs could operate easily and recruit immature youths easily fed into everything horrible which you can probably deduct without me. So the pipeline is not a result of the justice system's flaws alone. It's other well-intended but harmful programs, poor education systems, governmental programs encouraging breakdown of families, and more that led to the result.
I agree you and I are together on most things. I react against the "prison pipeline" thing for a number of reasons. One is that "disrupting the school-to-prison pipeline" was an Obama initiative and a key reason Nicholas Cruz sailed under the radar for so long before he shot up the Stoneman-Douglas high school and killed a lot of kids. Neither the police nor the school administrators could do anything about his threatening behavior. It was hands-off. That's not mentioned in the press much, but it's a fact.
I've personally been accosted by liberal relatives who have sad stories about some girl they read about who was sentenced to prison for dealing drugs. But she wasn't doing anything. It was her boyfriend- yada yada yada. Or black kids imprisoned for having a little bit of weed, while the white kids walk for the same offense. Years ago I was friends w/ a guy who was an investigator for the Federal Public Defenders Office. To be clear, his paid employment was helping the criminals in court as best they could. He could tell good stories about the people he helped. I asked him about these injustices, and he laughed. Everybody he knew about charged with a federal crime was handling sale-weight quantities.
In the state criminal system, it may be different. In fact I'm sure it is different. Like with every other ill of society, there's a little tiny little kernel of truth, but when you look at it up close you find it's almost always exaggerated way out of proportion.
Even if Floyd would have been "dead anyway," Chauvin's knee on the neck and the last few minutes on the shoulder blade for 9+ minutes showed he did not have the temperament to be a cop. Chauvin's response and actions also took down 3 other officers. Sometimes there are bad cops, just like in any profession. There was Daniel Shaver, John Crawford and Philando Castille, to name a few. Those who try to gaslight what we can see with our own eyes do damage just as those who try and say Michael Brown was an innocent murder victim.
The evidence does not support your opinion. Chauvin was a cop for more than 20 years with little if any documented complaints or problems. Additionally and more importantly, restraining uncooperative people, whether by cops or mental hospital staff, ain't pretty, no matter how you record it.
The evidence conflicts with what you want the narrative to be. Chauvin had 17 complaints. Three nurses in the family familiar with restraining people. Four grown men trained to restrain uncooperative and drug addled people should have been able to get him in the car. The rookie even realized there was a problem with the situation. To complete the picture, Chauvin had fraudulent car registration and tax evasion. I despise the guy and it's only fitting that he went down chained to his comrade, Floyd. But there are 3 cops that he took down with him.
The reporting on how many complaints varies, 17-20, only 2 resulted in discipline, haven't been around policing have you. They followed dept training and policy. Floyd died due to his behavior over many years abusing his body. During the fateful incident his pals kept warning him, stop fighting or you'll have a heart attack. Excited delirium is a poorly understood medical phenomena linked to many deaths in similar circumstances, with Floyd though, Fentanyl was primary cause. Floyd OD before due to ingesting fentanyl but was revived before death. The man was a poor learner.
Also, I can trump your three nurses claim, our father died under restraint in a mental hospital. Similar health profile as Floyd incident, only the drugs which suppressed lung activity were administered by the nurses in a COPD patient who was fighting restraint.
"To complete the picture, Chauvin had fraudulent car registration and tax evasion."
Welp. What more proof does anybody need? Chauvin is guilty of murdering George Floyd.
/s/
I never said that proved murder, but it does add a counterpoint to the narrative that he was a great cop, a law enforcer. I usually prefer to see law enforcers following the law. I have no sympathy for either Chauvin or Floyd. It's fitting that their interaction led to both going down, but 3 cops got fragged by these 2 jerks.
"...it does add a counterpoint to the narrative that he was a great cop, a law enforcer." A straw man. Nobody said he was a great human being and a perfect cop.
In a court of law, if someone is accused of murder, the judge (if he/she's a good one) won't allow the prosecution to bring in evidence that he kicked his dog and cheated on his taxes. The accused may be a sorry excuse for a human being, but it's inflammatory and prejudices the jury to put those facts into evidence. They don't prove his guilt one way or another.
You've already admitted you hate Chauvin. You slimed the guy to try to win an argument. It's a cheap stunt, kmick.
I did not slime Chauvin. He slimed himself. What a judge will or will not allow is up to the judge.
Oh. Now your resorting to "he did it to himself."
The central question in this discussion is Chauvin's guilt in murdering a human being. You bring in that he was behind in paying his taxes. That is irrelevant to his guilt. Typical leftist tactic- manipulate people's feelings with irrelevant factoids.
He did it to himself and dragged down 3 other cops when he wouldn't remove his knee off the neck until the last few seconds. That would be similar to saying a woman was at fault for her own death if a rapist kidnaps her and then dumps her naked on the side of the road in the middle of the winter and she dies from exposure that was multiplied by any illicit drugs she had in her system. Like the transmaidens slobbering over the worst males and showing zero sympathy to those damaged in the fray, you show no sympathy to the other 3 cops and you put Chauvin on a pedestal, and also bring in that Floyd had drugs in his system. Typical leftist tactic to manipulate other people's feelings with irrelevant facts.
It was actually another commenter who brought in drugs in Floyd's system- b/c the tox screen showed for most people it was a lethal dose. For Floyd, it may not have been lethal b/c he was a habitual user. There's expert opinion on that, but no way to really know for sure.
What I didn't bring up, but you're provoking me to do it now, is Floyd's autopsy showed NO CAUSE-AND-EFFECT between Chauvin's knee on Floyd's throat or shoulder blade and Floyd's death.
I challenge you to point out anything I wrote where I "put Chauvin on a pedestal."
You have a right to your feelings. You have a right to be angry. But if your anger is going to cause you to try to convict Chauvin in the court of public opinion - in comment forum like this - I have a right to point out some of your accusations, though they may be true, have no relevance to his guilt.
Those other cops didn't do anything wrong. A lot of emotion was spun up over St. George supposedly being murdered by racist police, and the mob had to be placated. That's on our justice system, not on Chauvin.
Just to check what you think you know vs actual facts, how many unarmed black males do you estimate were killed by police in any recent year? Here, "unarmed" is a pretty good but not perfect indicator of whether the cop was justified in killing an assailant to defend his own life.
How many do you estimate in any year? You pick the year. Hundreds? Thousands? Tens of thousands? An estimate, please.
Floyd was 6' 4", and resisting officers' commands. Chauvin was doing what he was trained to do.
Floyd was a repeat offender, a career criminal. During a home invasion, he put a gun to the belly of a pregnant woman- a black woman, if that matters. He was lionized at his funeral as some kind of hero by race grifter Al Sharpton, and buried in a gold coffin.
The jurors in Chauvin's court case were intimidated by threats from protestors in front of the court house to burn down the city. Nobody can seriously believe Chauvin's was a fair trial.
Tony Timpa was restrained the same way in Texas for something like 11 minutes before ge died . This did not make national news or lead to protests. He was white.
Keep an eye on the Jasper Wu case. He was 2 years old when he was killed by gangs shooting at each other on I-880 in Oakland. His family has expressed concern that their sentences could be reduced due to the DA/mayor's new policies and progressive leanings. Astroturfed Stop Asian Hate organizations and the Asian mayor say nothing about Jasper because the perpetrators are protected by The Narrative.
I saw the clip of Thao deflecting all responsibility for her city missing the grant deadline to the city administrator (whom she appointed). It was pretty wild. Unbelievable and mind boggling really to see the person in charge blatantly saying she doesn't care and have nothing to do with what she was elected to do. If the city administrator manages the whole city and every department, then why do the people in the city need her? What the hell does she do? Cut ribbons?
Glad I live on the opposite coast of Oakland and CA. How can Oakland people even stomach someone like that?
Oakland is pretty much a Black city, but Oakland physically butts up against Berkeley and Berkeley is where the actual "philosophical/political" epicenter emanates. Yeah, UC Berkeley and all that, but the town impresses me as psychologically disordered. I could go on about 60s radicals, but the atmosphere is charged with political social justice, etc. The kids who attend the university are surprisingly mostly Asian, however. Don't underestimate the power of the radicals. They're a lot like the gophers in my yard who eat all the roots of my roses and one day suddenly all my roses are dead.
the funny thing... yes it still is, but far less so than say 20 years ago... jerry brown (Newsom's godfather) and the team gentrified the hell out of oakland, just like SF... they drove many blacks out to places like Antioch all the way over deep east bay in the Sacramento direction. they opened it up for high rent whites, asians, mostly tech people, to move on in for double those rents. It is now , in my opinion, lost. I was there a few weeks ago at Lake Merritt, and what I saw was just a group of people with the "thousand mile stare" (the gentrified progressive hip young urban sort), people that see what's going on in front of them but will not recognize it as truth. the irony (I mean, the ironies are endless) is all the policies have driven out many blacks, stepped on the ability to survive of those that remain. There is no diversity there any more (and no, I don't count hair dye diversity). There is complete lawlessness, a demoralized group of people, and probably no hope. they complain, but they will vote in "another" progressive because they've been entirely propagandized against their own eyes, ears, thoughts, and gut feels. scary. body snatchers. I really, truly, hope I am proved wrong. We just had our car stolen in oakland in a high rent district where my wife had to go for a work function. That district was NEVER a crime target in oakland. now its all open season, especially the high rent districts where everybody is anti-gun (for themselves, but generally supportive of the criminal class to bear those arms). In-sanity. Our daughters don't go there anymore, they left for Wisconsin (thankfully for now, far safer).
In all fairness, many families in the largely Black communities (I’m white, and I live near Bayview Hunters Point) used their inherited property as piggy banks. Yes, some parts of San Francisco were newly developed, but development in the Black neighborhoods is not common. BVHP is still pretty gritty and dangerous, so all the young people who originally moved in quietly moved out. Irony doesn’t even come close to the awareness disconnect. Many are deeply immersed in denial.
having said that, clearly some of "my people" are still here, like yourself...we are going to have to find one another in groups, and protest publicly. which is insanely dangerous nowadays. we are going to have to, though. if we did not have these forums of free expression, we would not even know that we still exist. god bless Michael, Matt, Leighton, Lee, and all the good guys. "as long as there is breath there is hope"
Yes, this has been a really gratifying hangout. I agree.
castro valley for us. I feel like I live (fortunately) on a relatively safe island, surrounded by literal monsters. it's like an olde worlde mappe of the oceans "here there be sea monsters", (San Leandro/oakland etc) we get our CHP and sheriff deputies policing here, they are a constant presence. thank god for that. I can't count on that in the future, these days you've only got what you have today. family has kept us here, it still does, but my mind goes to places like South Dakota, or Wyoming, maybe AZ now. California is not my people any more. if we can stay and fight for it, I absolutely will. we're going to be betrayed by the voters yet again though.
I love San Francisco very much and have chosen to roll with the punches. I believe the tide is slowly, incrementally turning. Fingers crossed. And, I do support political action that supports my values.
Yeah all of what you said and more because 2020. The George Floyd thing was an unbelievable set of events leading to a perfect storm. It came at the height of CRT and an epidemic with lockdown. The lockdown meant a lot of radical SWJs who otherwise would've been at work or in classes and preoccupied with their own lives had time to go out and be agitators. This was especially true with the young ones like UC Berkeley idiots craving something active to do outside. The GF thing broke the dam. Then it came with a tsunami no one could've foreseen. And now here we are.
This is about order, or a lack thereof not only within larger society, but in schools and most importantly at home. Kids, even those who haven't done well in school are much smarter than we often give them credit for. In my experience, they operate as urban survalists who not only adapt well to their environment, but master and dominate it like an alpha wolf. Just as in nature, no other alphas have come along to challenge them. They have free reign over their territory and convince themselves this can be held with impunity. Where did they ever get that idea, is the real question?
I investigated armed robbery cases in Minneapolis and I had a violent spree of connected cases involving young adults (18-19) in Summer 2020. In one case, after the group of four robbed a woman of her purse, the main suspect shot a good samaritan who was coming to the victims aid. He nearly died of his injuries. Within weeks I had the shooter dead to rights in that case and a few others. He plead guilty in Hennepin County court and received 42 months. Remember, this man committed a string of violent armed robberies and nearly killed a guy in one of them. 42 months? How can anyone, including the shooter, believe that is "accountability"? In MN he'll serve two-thirds in prison and one third on parole, meaning he will only be in a cell for 28 months. Do we honestly believe he'll be dettered from committing futureviolent criminal behavior once his sentence is completed? This is a lack of order. We have to stop electing people who do not value public order.
To me that should be a crime punishable with death. There's no way that criminal should walk the streets ever again. The government we depend on to punish crime has become so averse to any accountability that they abolish death penalties, and have become unable to accept the responsibilty they have to society.
I live in Minnesota. Thank you for pointing out what everyone can see but wants to ignore: the ridiculously light sentences. Plea deal for the trash that killed those five young women on Lake with his car? Black son of a DFL politician *yawn* surprise, surprise.
Democrats supported and created this nightmare. And, those that voted for and continue to support them are also to blame. The whole scam was so easily predictable to have the current situations. Is the current chaos what they want? Cory Bush?
It seems if the politicians who control the policies and control the citizens tax dollars are defending what is happening they are in fact complicit in the terrorization of the citizens.
It may very well turn back into the Wild West if citizens are forced to defend themselves.
Infuriating.
I wish Leighton would actually address that response "They voted for this". He brought it up but then never address it or answered to it. Yes all the entrenched problems he brought up are serious. But fundamentally it would take breaking the Democratic party stronghold on the government to make a change. "They voted for this" is also somewhat disingenuous without acknowledging that CA voters pretty much have no alternatives to vote for. The GOP by and large had given up those districts. The two parties have divvied up their respective turfs through years of political manipulations and gerrymandering and after that they stop supporting or funding candidates in territories they ceded to the other side, so a lot of voters don't really have any choice. No one ever talks about this even with all the outcries and fingerpointings about voting fraud by both sides.
True, but a republican won't run in a district where there is not enough republican registered voters. I think CA will get much worst before it gets better. But voters have to wake up to the far left extremism that has taken over the CA democrat party for the last few decades.
True to an extent. But at times like this it's ripe for someone different to step in because voters are pushed to want some alternatives. A GOP candidate will have to be moderate on some cultural issues similar to Youngkin but it's the only way to break the stranglehold. GOP the party isn't interested though. (Same can be said of Dems re super red districts with problems and a dysfunctional government too entrenched with cronies.)
But look what happened in LA. You had a moderate guy running as an independent businessman and STILL they elected Dem progressive Karen Bass. They really rejected a chance at saving that city, if you ask me. Maybe I'm wrong and Bass will pragmatically clean things up, but she is a high ranking D party person so I doubt it.
Yes it happened not only in LA, but also in Chicago, which to us seem completely crazy. It is true that some liberals are always going to vote D no matter what, and some conservatives are always going to vote R no matter what. But in the GOP's case, the lack of party funding support and more importantly, the lack of a good grassroot operation to harvest all the ballots and get them to be counted is another reason why it seems like the Rs can never win even when they should. If you can spare the time, watch this podcast episode. It's a GOP local race candidate who talked at length about the operations on the ground and how the GOP party apparatus is not a well-oiled machine to make sure every vote counted like the Ds are: https://youtu.be/uEAAmmKnn5k?si=Lrjs22PQGENh7eud
I have heard some GOP strategists say the party recognizes it's a problem and are doing some work to get better organized. But it doesn't sound like they're altogether there yet.
I think the issue comes down to funding. If a candidate runs in a perceived "unwinnable" district the GOP will not fund it. I've seen independents run in Los Angeles and lose because the DEM have such a stronghold and people will vote blue no matter who, even if those they vote in are literal dem socialist and will ALWAYS vote to allow crime. Dems still run in red districts and the party backs them but since dems have a super majority in CA funding isn't as big of an issue for letting candidates run in unwinnable districts.
Very much the funding. Also the grassroot level get out the votes drive. The GOP made a very dumb strategic mistake to bitch about mail-in ballots instead of doing their own mail-in ballots drive. Or maybe it wasn't a mistake but they knew they didn't have the grassroot workers on the ground to do the ballot harvesting so all they could do was complain. Either way, it contributed to their loss.
This is a good podcast episode where someone GOP who ran in a blue district in CA talked at length about how the lack of funding and mechanics contributed to them no winning, even when there were votes to go after: https://youtu.be/uEAAmmKnn5k?si=Lrjs22PQGENh7eud
In the end there will be justice - the only question is who will administer it - the government, or the people?
it's already there. the future has arrived. the Wild West is upon Oakland. only this time, the citizens have been conditioned to reject defending themselves, they have given up any agency entirely and look to the state (the criminal enterprise's godfather that is behind all this violent crime) to protect them. ground zero for an Orwellian case study.
California is backwards about crime. We have DAs like the one in your article who have mandates to "decriminalize youth"... if your youth is spent assaulting and stealing, all you are doing is getting a few years of penalty-free practice before you do it as an adult. These behaviors and actions are illegal for a reason. So people who work and pay for their things can just have them taken away, often violently, by people who don't? That doesn't make sense and it will just lead to more vigilantism, which will be framed as more violence against youth, which will be used to justify more laws that criminalize self defense.
We have a governor signing bills that make it more expensive to own guns and criminalize legal and safe practices of law abiding gun owners. While at the same time his state is being soft on violent criminals. He just signed an additional 11% tax on guns, ammo and accessories to fund education against gun violence. Guess who won't be paying this tax? Criminals. Thieves. People from out of state. These people don't show up for education in the first place and he's funding more with money taken from people who follow his retarded laws. Before the gun tax bill was revised, the main justification for it was a statistic that said 94% of victims of gun violence were black. It didn't say who was the perpetrator though, and it didn't create new penalties for violent criminals, it simply enhanced fees and restrictions for people who already follow our ridiculous laws. It has been revised to quote the CDC about violence and trauma without naming any specific races, just "people of color."
Democrats have gone from tiptoeing around the problem of violent crime in these communities, to blaming it on external consequences, to outright enabling it. All while pretending to have a monopoly on virtue.
Gavin Newsom is the undertaker of a California that has become the Cemetery of the American Dream.
And, he doesn't care, either. Gavin Newsom has always been about Gavin Newsom. As Joe Rogan described him - a cold-hearted technocrat beholden to the biggest dollar donations.
Excellent, thoughtful piece Leighton. I’m a Coloradan, and our legislature for the last 10+ years has looked to CA for inspiration on a host of laws, from criminal justice “reform” to climate stuff. So I read this piece with foreboding.
Either by design or incompetence, CA’s legislature has adopted a host of policies, from those you addressed in the article to the obsession with disarming law abiding citizens, adopting restorative justice policies in schools and ceasing to actually educate (rather than indoctrinate) children, over regulation of the business sector resulting in fewer job opportunities for teens and low skill workers, etc.
This is a real “systemic” problem, and I would encourage citizens to start using the initiative process to repeal these laws while they replace the legislators, and the governor. Repealing the legislation that altered police liability would be a good start.
It is not racist to demand that criminals be held accountable. It is not racist to fund, recruit, and train police. And racism is rarely, if ever, the root cause or a factor of police shootings. Suicide by cop, aggressively resisting arrest, or threatening the cop are the cause. Tragic, for the loss of life, but also tragic for the officer who had only a split second to make the decision to defend themselves or innocents.
Communities cannot flourish when criminals run the streets.
I absolutely agree with everything you said - but "racism is actually to blame for everything, and everything is racist" remember?
when everything is racist, nothing is racist. we are at that point now.
Ha! Whoops!
I left California 4+ years ago because of high taxes and increasing restrictions on gun ownership. Literally, the money I saved in state taxes in California paid for my son and daughter to go to college. There were lots of other reasons to leave, but I am a 5th generational Californian (born in the San Francisco Bay Area and raised my 5 kids in Sacramento) and I really, really didn't want to go. I love so much about northern California, but everything has fallen apart. I would have left earlier but my husband kept saying, "It'll turn around, sanity will return." And it kept getting worse. Thank God we were out of there before the COVID bull-crap. .... That all said, we have to fix this. Somehow. Because chaos is reigning and it's spreading. No one wants to be in law enforcement because they are disrespected and have their hands tied (my oldest is a Phoenix cop.) It's disheartening.
I'm a Politically Independent woman, an East Bay, CA resident living in a town near Oakland. I almost never go into Oakland or SF, even in mid-day, mid-week, and never alone or on on public transit. I recall the riots in and around Oakland in 2020 and the businesses destroyed. I recall the Pamela Price election, where she ran pretty much unopposed (here, the candidate 'choice' is between liberal, very liberal and even more liberal, so the options are much the same and with no pushback or opposition). I never marched or voted for any of this. I now have a Jury Duty summons for late October. I don't know how fair and impartial I can be, but I sense it won't matter much.
By the way, I'm from the NY / NJ area. I'm not naive. I just know when to stay away, or move on.
What's driving the national catastrophe is the weaponization of crime to intimidate and distract the majority of Americans.
It feels like a systematic destabilization of America. Trying to pit people against each other to create chaos. I pray that we can find a way to unite and fight.
I think you are 100% correct. It is manufactured chaos from the Left to create large scale contexts of chaos that they can reasonably claim that only the 'Power of Government' can solve. It's all about consolidating power. The problem for Democrats is that they have become the party of Government, not The People.
What is this? Goddamn Clockwork Orange?
I guess we need to add that to 1984, Brave New World, and The Trial as the instruction manuals for our times.
The magnetic pull of nihilism since the 70's is absolutely astounding. We'd almost have more chance of pulling the moon away from Earth than getting California to focus on a form of Justice based on fairness rather than feelings.
“While they’re playing this political game with our public safety, we’re in communities where people are losing their lives,” Keisha Henderson, a community leader in Oakland, told Public. She believes defund the police activists fueled the crime wave, and then went back to the suburbs they came from. “We’re suffering in these communities, and we don’t even see these people. Where are the defund movement people? I have never seen anyone that is part of the defund movement in hardcore, high-crime communities in Oakland. I have never seen it.”
Virtue signaling is easiest when you’re totally ignorant of the consequences. People who have never dealt with any crime in their life, believe the idea police are not needed. Police like everything is a compromise. The compromise existed because the alternative is survival of the fittest, strongman attacks and protection rackets. Even mob justice if things get really bad. So while Police are not perfect they're better than the alternative. We're looking at a spiral that will take at least a decade to reverse. Hopefully we've at least reached the beginning of that 10+ year process, and not yet still delaying it.
“Yes, we need to change and address institutional racism,” said Jennifer Tran, an Ethnic Studies Professor at Cal State East Bay and a member of the Vietnamese Chamber of Commerce. “But letting crime go rampant is not the way.”
So... An Ethnic Studies Professor is on the board of the Vietnamese Chamber of Commerce and says "we need to change and address institutional racism" yet acknowledges rampant crime as a problem. Good luck threading that needle.
There are people trying to make this "complicated". This is not complicated. Societies for centuries have had to tackle these problems - and have successfully done so - through fairness (not feelings). If a faction of society doesn't know obvious Right from Wrong then they clearly can't know anything about "Justice". It's amazing to see how some communities just just double-down on Stupid and keep digging a deeper and deeper hole.
“Yes, we need to change and address institutional racism,” said Jennifer Tran, an Ethnic Studies Professor at Cal State East Bay and a member of the Vietnamese Chamber of Commerce. “But letting crime go rampant is not the way.”
There’s your problem. If university budgets were cut to fund more police officers, we might get a handle on the anarchy.
Back when air hijackings were a thing there was a tongue in cheek proposal to simply hand a loaded .45 to each adult passenger upon boarding. Every grandma with knitting has heat on her lap.
I recall some Texas town passing a law that every citizen was required to own (and perhaps carry - can't remember) a firearm. This was in response to laws prohibiting carriage but it provides a model.
In an Oakland, having every citizen be equipped with a firearm would result in some short term chaos but the status quo is pretty chaotic so maybe it's worth it. And juries could certainly exercise their right to examine the entire circumstance surrounding some carjacker being shot in the face point blank.
What is ignored in the present circumstance is that criminal elements have done the risk calculus. Seeing no likelihood of punishment and having thus nothing to lose, they seek an endorphin hit by terrorizing strangers and taking their material goods. Resisting their takings risks life. It's time to tip the scales.
As to the simpering press coverage that might ensue, I invoke that old saw: "Nice newspaper you have there. It'd be a shame if something happened to it."
Agreed, pretty much - but please, please, enforce gun training and safety! Else I fear just more of the wild west. And for those opposed to guns, mandatory self defense or martial arts training as an option?
Martial arts has exactly zero impact against a gun. Seems sweet, but is irrelevant. These people are not being killed by karate chops.
never bring a knife to a gun fight
Thanks to you, Leighton, Michael and company.. superb writing, but what we've got here is more than this. we have community. We are all citizen journalists now. The spirit of Jefferson and Franklin lives on here. All thanks to you, and thanks to substack. You guys give us the material, and a new unanticipated (at least to me) side-effect, development that is unique to this forum: the commentary on the material is journalistic quality in itself, and you inspire us regular citizens to start writing our own pieces as well. God bless you and keep you safe and writing in good health and good spirit, God Bless the United States of America. I immigrated to this country 23 years ago to find my true home, and now we must find it here once again. We need your writing, you need our support. Brothers in arms.
What the woman in the video said is something I said back in 2020. It was a bunch of white apologist feeling bad for their privileges' pushing the defund narrative and rioting back then. Which is especially bad since they've probably never lived or worked in an area where they felt unsafe. Policies in the bay area need to change because it is a mixture of less officers but also law enforcement's hands are tied when they cannot arrest or prosecute certain crimes.
I often listen to Anthony Brian Logan, a Black conservative on YouTube. His most recent commentary is timely and relevant to Oakland. https://youtu.be/ewFaM5BysVE?si=MsYztSkALCf_ns_y.
I enjoy ABL's videos, too.
Good Leighton - what you have exposed happening in Oakland is one spot of many. As one of your commenters said, all of this appears to be so coordinated, so extensive. It is as if minds have been stripped of reason. We appreciate you more than we can say. Thank you, again, is inadequate.
The solution to the problem is staring everyone in the face. Citizens should simply "identify" as criminals; then they can carry weapons with impunity, as criminals don't ever bother with 'gun laws'. I can just see now the optics of trying to try a 60+ black grandmother after she blew away a real criminal trying to jack her car with her grand-daughter still inside. DA: "But judge, she had a gun for which she had no permit!". Defense Attorney: "And the black 3-time murderer still out on bail wasn't?"
Problem solved!
I do not believe Oakland or CA in general will recover from the death spiral. I'm actually stunned that 700 people have, for some reason, chosen to remain LEOs in that shithole. No, at this point I believe it's really just a question of how many states decide to follow CA down the drain. CO, WA, OR for sure. AZ highly likely. And yes...They Got What They Voted For.
It must be confounding to vote for a political candidate who does exactly what they say they'll do and then be upset they did so.
Decarceration, defunding police and all the other criminal justice reform bs will not fix the fact the broken young men committing these crimes were raised without a father. All CA roads must be paved with good intentions because you've surely made a hell out of a natural paradise.
I have no sympathy for any of you. I only want one thing and that is for you to stay there. Progressives have a bad habit of fleeing the sty they create to spread their pestilence elsewhere.
Only 51% of voters support replacing her? Doesn't that statistic alone prove that Oakland is lost? This is a hopeful article, but with only 51% in favor, the recall is a 50/50 proposition. Voter turnout will decide the issue. I'm not so optimistic.
Next step: vigilantes.
I am so very glad I do not live in Oakland, or any other big city run by politicians with these beliefs that criminals can't or shouldn't be incarcerated. This liberal policy has been rolling for some time now, and I can only fear it will get much worse before it gets better. Police are afraid, and rightly so, of being held to an unrealistic standard when faced with making a split second decision that could have devasting consequences that could last a lifetime.
At some point I hope that people will wake up to the fact that if we are to live in a civilized society, then we all must live by the rules. If you break the law there must be punishment. If you physically hurt others then you must be removed from the civilized society for the amount of time it will take for you to realize the error of your ways. If that is never, than so be it. Living in a civilized society is a privilege.
If there are severe enough consequences, and punishment is swift and meaningful, most will have a second thought about the crime they are going to commit
The “voters” voted for woke nonsense out of virtue signaling and now that reality is hitting them over the head they are complaining
They thought it would only affect the poor.
“Educated beyond their intellectual means”.
George Jonas.
Why the 2024 US election will be decided by Google | Should Trudeau Stand Down as Canadian PM?
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small correction... "has already been decided by Google..."
A big news is that Trudeau met eith Nazi BEFORE ovations in Parliament
Trudeau met with Nazi BEFORE ovations in Parliament
Why the 2024 US election will be decided by Google | Should Trudeau Stand Down as Canadian PM?
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Crisis fix for an institutional problem in the leftist east bay. In 2009, Price was the chosen voice of Berkeley Daily Planet editor Becky O'Malley, in a lame attempt at discrediting the success of Price's south Berkeley neighbors in our 10 year focused effort reducing drug dealing/street violence. Price came off as racist and disconnected from reality then and she is only worse now.
Surely the malignant debacle that is the federal conservatorship of OPD deserves more attention for its contribution to this situation than one paragraph . . .
I live in Alameda County (not Oakland) and even in our suburban idyll it’s gotten noticeably worse. More homeless, more shoplifting, thefts and robberies in broad daylight with families and children around. More and more women don’t dare to carry purses anymore and every shopping trip feels like you are risking life and limb. Many of the shops that we still have in this area feel like they are only a few months away from closing. I hope that the Price recall will succeed and I hope that we all as residents will say “No, enough” to spiraling public disorder. We simply cannot accept living in a Mad Max style dystopian world. Law and order are the prerequisites for a civilized society. Letting criminals terrorize the rest of us in the name of “compassion” is one of the worst bill of goods we have ever been sold.
DA Price wants to decriminalize crime, which is a logical contradiction. Assault and murder are crimes.
I bet you if that DA was attacked by people wearing masks she'd find a way to charge them. What a pathetic excuse to not do your job.
Thoughtful, responsible journalism is a crucial start. Supportive comments are a nice follow up. But I don't think things will change unless the forment rises to the level that drives people on to the streets demanding it. It doesn't need to be as dramatic as the BLM/defund protests, but it needs to be unmistakably a large and passionate movement ofthe people living under the effects of misgovernance. Just attending a few protest meetings to convince London Breed to course correct with some minor palliative measures is not enough to change the political mindset that led us to this place. It's complicated because it's not just a law enforcement and criminal justice issue, it's a complete reversal of the erosion of morals in our society. We have allowed the notion of not wanting to tell other people what is right "for them" to completely undermine having any standards at all.
I'd only like to point out one well known but often overlooked fact when discussing the plight of our nation's dangerous cities. The 1994 crime bill is often called the Joe Biden Crime Bill. This bill sent a more than a generation of young black men to prison and played a large part in the destruction of the modern black family. Progressive voters can simultaneously advocate for criminal justice reform and support Joe Biden. The temerity is impressive. Nothing makes sense anymore.
I noticed no one blamed the Democrats. Why is it that Democrat voters who vote for Democrat politicians that destroy their cities continue voting for Democrats as if suddenly they’re going to change their policies? Are they so brainwashed to believe Republicans are the problem that they can’t see the obvious?
I will never vote for any Democrat, ever!
I have no sympathy for the people of Oakland. They deserve everything they get. I hope crime gets even worse.
Im saying this as someone who used to live there by the way.
He always looks like a grown up version of the psychotic kid who tortured kittens in his youth. The political embodiment of the 'American Psycho'