Deborah Edgerly, O.C. CEO
O.C. doesn't mean Orange County. It means Oakland Criminal.
Because that's who we have as City Administrator, aka Chief Executive Officer. A City CEO who barges into a police/SWAT action-in-progress and threatens POLICE OFFICERS that she will whine to Internal Affairs about them. All because her nephew is implicated as a gang member and has a gun in his car on the front seat.
Her nephew sounds like a normal law-abiding citizen. Right!
And in our very own Bush/Enron/Worldcomm, we let the CEO (Deborah Edgerly) keep the job all through end of July. That is super inappropriate. And if that's not corrupt enough, she also keeps her full benefits and 90% of salary for life, as a golden parachute. What are Oakland taxpayers made out of--PLATINUM??
WHAT THE FUCK!!!??
Send her away immediately and her inept relatives on the city payroll too! We read that Edgerly's extended family is on the city taxpayer payroll as all manner of maintenance technicians, animal control shelter director, police cadet, who knows, maybe even in "criminal whitewashing". Rather, criminal investigations. I wouldn't be surprised.
Why is city council so quiet on this??
***
And here's an Oakland Homicide Memorials blog. Up to date all the way through December last year, and now discontinued. (Too much work and gas costs too much, apparently.)
How can Councilwoman Jean Quan (oakland hills rep) complain that makeshift memorials cause more (retaliatory) crime? There's a loose screw somewhere. More like, "if we pretend these killings don't happen, I DON'T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT THEM."
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
SF Chronicle Miscalculates the Math
What is Demian Bulwa smoking?
"Violent crime in the Bay Area's biggest cities dipped in 2007 after two years of increases..."
vs
"the Bay Area's big cities reported a total of 358 slayings in 2007, up from 353 in the year before"
Hm... that's rich. You do the math.
Yet, the last point makes sense.
OAKLAND. We're number one!
"Violent crime in the Bay Area's biggest cities dipped in 2007 after two years of increases..."
vs
"the Bay Area's big cities reported a total of 358 slayings in 2007, up from 353 in the year before"
Hm... that's rich. You do the math.
Yet, the last point makes sense.
"Monday's FBI report showed that Oakland had the highest per-capita violent crime rate among big California cities last year. For property crime, Berkeley was on top."
OAKLAND. We're number one!
Waste of money, mockery of law
OPD wasted $15,000 of our property tax dollars (paid directly and through rent) for louder Harley Davidson motorcycle mufflers?
Who's dumb idea was this?
Who's dumb idea was this?
Monday, April 14, 2008
Why Oakland is "All Tuckered Out"
To hear it from ordinary citizens, depending on who's flapping their lips, you'd think our police department is either
-dysfuntional
-corrupt, working in hand with fbi to terrorize eco-activists (judi berri) and poor black victims
-not sensitive to ethnic cultural groups (china town, black neighborhoods)
-short staffed by 50% (Charles Pine and other city council candidates)
None of these are completely true.
1. Um, violent crime is up 50% in the last 3 years, since Chief Tucker took over the post of Chief of Police for Oakland, as compared to the previous five years before the OPD leadership changed. This has not happened in San Franciso, Union City, Richmond(!), or most other CA cities (source: see email below). So yes, there is dysfunction "somewhere" at OPD. As we look to troubled childrens' parents as the source of their acting out in class for attention, we need look no further than the chain of OPD command... and go straight to the top! Guess who's there?
2. Yes, police are corrupt if our banking and business "Leaders" (aka got to the top by climbing on the backs of others, cheating, making backroom deals, lobbying with money like PG&E and developers do) are corrupt. Which the latter largely are. For example, Clinton Killian. What a cheapskate! Womanizing?--okay, but cheapskate employer? Please. So yes, every affinity group or person will want to take their "cut" or slice of the cake. Hello, middleman!
3: Not sensitive to cultural groups, complain Chinatown leaders and a Berkeley Daily Planet columnist. Hey, what about following basic laws? But yes, sensitivity and a diverse work force would help. However, having 100% ethnic police in each enclave brings us to the post-Yugoslavia or "free tibet for CIA/US military nukes pointed at China" type ethnic/religious strife. We all want to be the MELTING POT right? There has to be balance. I don't know what the OPD staff ethnicity ratio is. Maybe someone can enlighten me? Counting the last names on ratemycop.com is probably not the greatest idea, but maybe it'll help shed some light...
4: As A Better Oakland notes recently, we are "in the middle of the pack" in comparing our ratio of police staff to total city residents. That is, Pine is exaggerating the number of police we need, and that this would be the end-all be-all solution, aped by Marcus Johnson's "1075 officers" petition.
Now, here is a retired OPD personnel's scathing critique of Police Chief Wayne Tucker (OPD) anda what should be changed ASAP. Ask questions.
---
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Subject: [OPD] OPD retiree can speaks out, thank goodness!
*The Harbinger of Daily Crime Reports*
*[April 1, 2008]*
OPD's Daily Crime Reports are not insider information. Anyone
can ask for a copy. The latest copy, March 31, 2008, is very telling, in
that it confirms for the third year in a row the new paradigm of intolerable
violence in Oakland. Collectively, Murders, Aggravated Assaults, Rapes, and
Robberies are up for the third year in a row to levels unparalleled for
their escalation. To appreciate this is first to review the numbers, second
to analyze them in proper context, and third to make serious adjustments.
Reviewing the Numbers:
Everyone should know by now that Homicides are up to 36, not the 35 mentioned in the current daily Crime Report. Nevertheless, the 35 mentioned contain the annotation that this frequency is "Average" for the current 21 day period. That this number is more than half, in the first quarter of the year, than the 60 we had all year in 1999 is not mentioned. That this number is representative of an average of 139 Murders for the current three year period and 50% higher than for the five years prior to the current OPD leadership is not mentioned either. Sadly, no number of Homicides should ever be listed as "average."
1,829 citizens were Robbed in Oakland this year thus far, 2%
more than last year, and 60% more than the average of five years under Chief
Word prior to the current administration. Car Jackings are particularly
horrendous because an automobile taken by force is a repugnant personal
violation tantamount to being robbed in one's own home. Unbelievably, 85
have occurred thus far this year, up 10% from the frightening 77 last year.
Aggravated Assaults often miss being Homicides by merely an
artery. They are up 7% from last year and have already hit 900 in these
first three months. Oakland has 275% Aggravated Assaults compared with New
Yorkers and 147% that of nearby Richmond. Oakland has about 2 ½ times more
Aggravated Assaults per citizen than San Francisco.
Overall, Violent Crimes are up again this year. Philadelphia's
Police Chief is operating under a state of emergency, and Oakland has +29%
more Murders, +18% more Rapes, +18% more Robberies, and +29% more Aggravated
Assaults per citizen – and climbing. Compared with Oakland Police Chief
Word's last year in office, 2004, the current administration has seen
Murders rise +77%, Rapes +18%, Robberies +63%, and Aggravated Assaults +40%.
The comparisons generally are for 2006, Chief Tucker's second year in
office, because that's the latest available for the Uniform Crime
reports. However,
the Oakland perspectives are up to the immediate date. Of particular note
is that the past three years have been consistent and increasing from the
high levels established in 2006.
Analyzing the Numbers:
It is fairly evident to determine that Violent Crimes indeed
elevated to crisis proportions during the past three years. They were
already too high previously, but the question has to be asked… "Are we
becoming inoculated to the severity?" These essays don't seem to strike
notes of alarm. Oakland is plodding ahead as with the inertia of stone and
the clarity of fog.
There is nothing in the demographics of Oakland to suggest such
a paradigm escalation of Violent Crimes. Unemployment, poverty, education,
income, and other factors reported by the Census Bureau have experienced
relatively little change from 2000 to 2006. Perhaps a note, if only to
demonstrate some significant demographic change, is that Whites increased
from 125.013 (31.3% of the population) to 128,672 (34.1%). Black or African
American decreased from 142,460 in 2000 (35.7%) to 114,342 (30.3%). The
Hispanic and Latino population increased from 87,467 (21.9%) to 97,738
(25.9%). The Asian population has remained relatively stable. Perhaps
something to consider is the change in languages spoken in the home for
people over 5 years of age. In 2000, 234,737 people spoke English (63.2%),
whereas in 2006 that number dropped to 203,594 (58.6%). Distressing, and
hopefully wrong, is the Census Bureau's "estimate" of Oakland's population
of 377,256 (+/- 13,173), down from the 2000 Census of 399,477.
In terms of City engagement and resources expended to reduce
violence through outreach and other programs, there have been considerable
increases in such efforts and expenditures. Measure Y funds have been
utilized since early 2005 to underscore the priorities. One would expect to
see some fruits from these well-meaning applications during the past three
years. In the worst case, they certainly would not have added to the new
paradigm of Violent Crimes that were actually experienced.
That leaves the Police Department to be analyzed in the context
of the high Violent Crime numbers. Whether the Negotiated Settlement
Agreement (NSA) had any deleterious effect on crime rates by lowering the
engagement of officers, as is commonly asserted, is up to conjecture. It is
unlikely the direct cause, however, because as stated in another essay,
private and public enterprises elsewhere have remained profitable, and even
increased in effectiveness, after much more onerous regulations,
constraints, prescriptions and proscriptions that have challenged their
missions. More likely, if the NSA has been a negative force, it has been
the fault of the administration for not efficiently melding the NSA into
operations and results. Wayne Tucker has received high praise for his NSA
efforts, and this has probably resulted in a gracious tolerance for the lack
of results against crime.
In terms of the Police Department, it is most striking for its
change in leadership at the beginning of the escalation of Violent Crimes a
little more than three years ago. A change in leadership always brings, and
should bring, a change in priorities, philosophy, management style, and
operations. The current leadership has sought to assert itself in all of
these areas in ways that collectively must be held responsible for the
outcome. Whereas the Violent Crime rate had actually been declining in the
two last years of the Word administration, the first two full years of the
Tucker administration, and well into the third year, have found a huge jump
in Violent Crimes that cannot be explained relative to the opposite
experiences of other police agencies generally in California and nationally.
It was postulated in another essay that Wayne Tucker was ill
equipped with experience, knowledge, or management skill sets to address
Oakland's crime issues. What was not mentioned were a few other
observations generally regarded by others who work within the OPD. It is
felt that the current Chief relies heavily on the direction and control of
the City Administrator's Office [blind leading the blind?]. There are many
examples to highlight this, including the Vision Statement and White Paper
ostensibly written by the Chief, but reported actually to have been written
out of the City Administrator's Office. This would appear consistent with a
dramatic departure from all previous Chiefs who had their own styles for
placating City Hall while nevertheless exerting their personal direction
over the Police Department. Chief Word (6 years), Chief Hart (19 years),
and Chief Gain (6 years), were all consulted over the past three years by
this author. Each was appointed in some measure to be a change agent for
the evolution of OPD. Each made his way through the ranks, graduating from
the OPD Academy and having worked in most aspects of the OPD. Each had a
definably different management style. Each had comments concerning the
"interference" from City Hall. In terms of results, each either suffered or
enjoyed the general trends and directions of crime. None had a paradigm
escalation of Violent Crimes out of sorts with the trends.
A common note is that none blamed their predecessors, the OPOA,
the lack of manpower, the lack of resources, or any other factor as any
reason for not being able to do their jobs. While each would have preferred
more resources and fewer constraints, each seemed to develop a singularly
individual style to do the best they could under any circumstances. In
other words, their records are not laced with excuses. Their
accomplishments are thus credited or debited by the best score available –
the crime rates relative to general trends. Whether it was Wayne Tucker or
the City Administrator's office, the past three years have perhaps seen more
battle with the OPOA and the police membership than against crime. It has
been the same OPOA during the past 40 years, with essentially the same
powers under their Memorandums of Understanding and the City Charter, as
always. It was discovered that there were no management rights taken by the
OPOA from the Chief of Police going back at least to 1998. If anything, the
labor statutes have been responsible for giving more teeth to any labor
group in any public or private enterprise, and all must cope.
But it wasn't the OPOA alone that was responsible for the lack
of results during the past three years, to hear Wayne Tucker speak of the
OPD's inability to address Violent Crimes. Relentlessly, he has campaigned
that it was also the fault of a lack of manpower. He got the backing,
benign as it is, from the Mayor's Office and the City Council to raid the
Measure Y funds to stem an attrition problem that was proven not to exist. He
makes a good impression and one wants to believe everything he states,
regardless of the unsubstantiated generalities and lack of detailed
information. After all, he is the subject matter expert assumed to have the
gravitas of the highest law enforcement office in the City. On the
contrary, none of the previous Chiefs had more manpower, and in fact they
had much less. They had fewer police officers to begin with. None had the
backing of a City Administration that afforded Wayne Tucker $28,000,000
dollars of overtime funds to put to work. Chief Word recalls pulling teeth
to get $12,000,000 authorized for overtime, but he reduced crime noticeably.
Not only did Chief Tucker have the overtime equivalent of 200 full time
police officers working for him, he also had three dozen experienced police
retiree Annuitants. Tucker had the boon of Measure Y that gave him, had he
utilized it properly, the benefit of 63 more officers funded by the
taxpayers.
Therefore, neither the OPOA nor the lack of manpower were
legitimate excuses for the dismal increases in Violent Crimes. So, let's
focus on leadership and management style for a moment. Chief Tucker is well
known around OPD for having said that "morale doesn't matter." However, job
satisfaction does, and by all accounts it is dismally low. He also has
never had any experience in fielding police officers in an urban setting,
and he has been the first Chief ever to buy the notion that the Patrol
Division and the Beat system are no longer the "Backbone of the Department."
This is indeed a major departure. Another often quoted tenet of Chief
Tucker is to castigate "old fashioned practices." Whole units of OPD were
abandoned or thrown out wholesale.
Perhaps most debilitating for everyone concerned was his
abandonment of Planning and Research. Since then, there has been no
credible, relevant or timely information available for anyone. It is as if
a body was dropped in a snake pit blindfolded and with ear muffs.
Chief Word spoke of it recently, and the other Chiefs certainly
grasped it as a given, when he mentioned that in the last two years of his
term he found "balance" to be the key. When resources are limited, as they
always will be in any enterprise, one must balance the resources available.
Chief Tucker abandoned Beat Health, a profitable six person operation
responsible for cleaning up an entire city for over a decade, a unit
endorsed and sponsored by the community organization OCO, a unit heralded
around the country and interviewed many times on national television and
radio, as it was simply discarded in favor of promoting an idea out of
balance to the organization. It was felt that 57 PSO's could do the same
job better, when in fact they haven't achieved 2% of what the six man Beat
Health program did. Another abandonment was the Jail, in favor of having
OPD rely solely on the Sheriff's facilities. This took away the third
feature heralded by Chief Bratton (after morale and information) as success
factors – the ability of investigators to interrogate and debrief arrestees
not only for immediate crimes but also a wealth of usable information [not
to mention that the economics were faulty, the inordinate time now for
officers transporting away from their beats, and the rapid release of
citizens who were merely detained].
The most glaring example of imbalance is the Chief's full court
press with Area Command and Crime Reduction Teams (CRT's), at the cost of
denuding and subordinating more blanketing efforts. Both have laudable
potential, but they are huge diversions from a more comprehensive and
holistic game plan. The communities, their leaders and activists, "love"
the CRT's, and this is perplexing considering the paradigm increase in
Violent Crimes. Except, that for the first time people in the communities
got the personalized attention of the Strategic Area Commanders. So, while
CRT's should be reduced to an effective balance in addressing "hot spots,"
the benefits of having command personnel available and answerable in the
field must be continued. [Chief Tucker has announced to the Council and
Committees that he will increase CRT's to 7 Squads of 8 officers each.]
It wasn't only the Beats that were subordinated, but also the
traditionally revered Criminal Investigation Division. Never have so few
investigators been allocated, nor so many lower ranked officers been
assigned in C.I.D. One can go through every unit of the Department and see
that Chief Tucker was seriously intent on destroying every vestige of old
fashioned practices. Unfortunately, the new practices have been seriously
unproductive.
There should be at least one more mention [restraining the
volumes that could be discussed] about the inefficiencies, disconnections,
and dysfunction at OPD. Chief Tucker's insistence on a peculiar version of
12-hour shifts called 2-2-3-2-2-3 appears to be the most disruptive event
perhaps in OPD's entire history. There was no prior planning process, but
merely a pronouncement that it would take place, followed by an admitted
one-sided management report endorsed only by two command officers – one of
whom was since promoted to Deputy Chief and the other to Captain. There are
very enlightening narratives from both, and from another Deputy Chief who
was "demoted." In an objective survey, 428 cops opposed the plan (against
11 who supported it) being forced upon them, and many offered reasons,
alternatives, and recommendations. It has been in place since January 12,
and it is a common mantra to hear officers say, "Today is my Monday, and
tomorrow is my Friday." The Chief promised that the plan would be liked by
the membership, reduce overtime, place more officers on the streets, enhance
team efforts, and reduce violent crimes. He wants two years to "try it
out." There is no articulated plan, but merely an explanation of how it is
anticipated to work – called by the Chief as a "work in progress." There
are no designed metrics or measurements contemplated. It is failing in all
regards.
Making Serious Adjustments:
The first action is too obvious to mention. From there, the
Department must recover and get itself together. It can reduce crime
dramatically, and at less cost in dollars and manpower. The steps, taken
concurrently, are to motivate the work force, act on real information, and
develop measurable strategies. The pillars of neighborhood policing (Beats)
and relentless follow-up (Investigations) must be restored.
1. Acknowledge a Crisis Crime Situation.
2. Establish the Office of Police Management and Budget.
3. Move the best personnel into the most suitable assignments.
4. Establish the integrity of neighborhood Beat assignments and
Problem Solving Officers.
5. Differentiate the officers who respond to calls for service (911)
from PSO officers who are dedicated to solving neighborhood problems.
6. Place the three deputy Chiefs and Assistant Chief, each in charge
of the entire Department during each of three eight-hour shifts 24/7.
The Assistant Chief is in charge of the entire City during the day,
and the third Deputy Chief is the relief Commander. The Chief of
Police is the overall commander. Insist on "hands-on" and "management
by walking around."
7. Immediately place *all* officers, until further notice, into a five
day work week mode of ten hours each day. This may be either five
eight-hour days or four ten-hour days, with overtime being voluntary but
strongly encouraged. [overtime cost is estimated at about $7 million]
8. Insist that all officers work in the field and not spend time at
headquarters, including Sergeants, Lieutenants, and Captains. Intentional
and extensive overlaps are to be *in* the neighborhoods to afford
office hours for police/citizens, canvassing and follow-up, building
extensive contact networks, and so on.
9. Balance and reallocate personnel distribution and deployment with
measurable plans, police and civilian.
10. Triple the use of Annuitants and have them engaged extensively in
follow-ups for investigations.
11. Develop a detention system that is short of incarcerating and
processing detainees by the ACSO.
12. Evacuate the Eighth Floor.
13. Increase manpower on the job by management protocols that will
drastically reduce the 40% absentee factor and dramatically place the right
personnel at the critical tasks during overtime. This could literally
have the effect of adding hundreds of cops "on-the-job."
14. Develop software to keep our resources maximized. If airlines and
hotels can keep their seats and rooms filled during drastic changes in
demand and resources, we should be able to fill our Beats and staff our
Investigators.
15. Freeze all outside conferences, seminars, training, and junkets.
16. Conduct in-service training voluntarily at home and on the
Internet, with certifications for successful learning.
17. Become a service organization. Employ every opportunity to
experiment in this regard. Adopt from successful private businesses.
Learn from the companies rated most liked by customers and employees
alike. Examples include getting faxes of records into the
neighborhoods instead of having citizens line up on the third floor of the
police headquarters, calling citizens for feedback and input, volunteer
organization participation in police work and volunteer work by police
officers, adopting in house child-care, offering in-house food catering,
in-house concierge for Oakland events, etc, etc.
There are of course endless ways to improve an organization, and
above are only a few priorities to indicate direction. Lowering crime is
all about having an effective apparatus, and it is made so not by emulating
others but by tying it all together from the top and having it work from the
bottom.
---end---
-dysfuntional
-corrupt, working in hand with fbi to terrorize eco-activists (judi berri) and poor black victims
-not sensitive to ethnic cultural groups (china town, black neighborhoods)
-short staffed by 50% (Charles Pine and other city council candidates)
None of these are completely true.
1. Um, violent crime is up 50% in the last 3 years, since Chief Tucker took over the post of Chief of Police for Oakland, as compared to the previous five years before the OPD leadership changed. This has not happened in San Franciso, Union City, Richmond(!), or most other CA cities (source: see email below). So yes, there is dysfunction "somewhere" at OPD. As we look to troubled childrens' parents as the source of their acting out in class for attention, we need look no further than the chain of OPD command... and go straight to the top! Guess who's there?
2. Yes, police are corrupt if our banking and business "Leaders" (aka got to the top by climbing on the backs of others, cheating, making backroom deals, lobbying with money like PG&E and developers do) are corrupt. Which the latter largely are. For example, Clinton Killian. What a cheapskate! Womanizing?--okay, but cheapskate employer? Please. So yes, every affinity group or person will want to take their "cut" or slice of the cake. Hello, middleman!
3: Not sensitive to cultural groups, complain Chinatown leaders and a Berkeley Daily Planet columnist. Hey, what about following basic laws? But yes, sensitivity and a diverse work force would help. However, having 100% ethnic police in each enclave brings us to the post-Yugoslavia or "free tibet for CIA/US military nukes pointed at China" type ethnic/religious strife. We all want to be the MELTING POT right? There has to be balance. I don't know what the OPD staff ethnicity ratio is. Maybe someone can enlighten me? Counting the last names on ratemycop.com is probably not the greatest idea, but maybe it'll help shed some light...
4: As A Better Oakland notes recently, we are "in the middle of the pack" in comparing our ratio of police staff to total city residents. That is, Pine is exaggerating the number of police we need, and that this would be the end-all be-all solution, aped by Marcus Johnson's "1075 officers" petition.
Now, here is a retired OPD personnel's scathing critique of Police Chief Wayne Tucker (OPD) anda what should be changed ASAP. Ask questions.
---
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Subject: [OPD] OPD retiree can speaks out, thank goodness!
*The Harbinger of Daily Crime Reports*
*[April 1, 2008]*
OPD's Daily Crime Reports are not insider information. Anyone
can ask for a copy. The latest copy, March 31, 2008, is very telling, in
that it confirms for the third year in a row the new paradigm of intolerable
violence in Oakland. Collectively, Murders, Aggravated Assaults, Rapes, and
Robberies are up for the third year in a row to levels unparalleled for
their escalation. To appreciate this is first to review the numbers, second
to analyze them in proper context, and third to make serious adjustments.
Reviewing the Numbers:
Everyone should know by now that Homicides are up to 36, not the 35 mentioned in the current daily Crime Report. Nevertheless, the 35 mentioned contain the annotation that this frequency is "Average" for the current 21 day period. That this number is more than half, in the first quarter of the year, than the 60 we had all year in 1999 is not mentioned. That this number is representative of an average of 139 Murders for the current three year period and 50% higher than for the five years prior to the current OPD leadership is not mentioned either. Sadly, no number of Homicides should ever be listed as "average."
1,829 citizens were Robbed in Oakland this year thus far, 2%
more than last year, and 60% more than the average of five years under Chief
Word prior to the current administration. Car Jackings are particularly
horrendous because an automobile taken by force is a repugnant personal
violation tantamount to being robbed in one's own home. Unbelievably, 85
have occurred thus far this year, up 10% from the frightening 77 last year.
Aggravated Assaults often miss being Homicides by merely an
artery. They are up 7% from last year and have already hit 900 in these
first three months. Oakland has 275% Aggravated Assaults compared with New
Yorkers and 147% that of nearby Richmond. Oakland has about 2 ½ times more
Aggravated Assaults per citizen than San Francisco.
Overall, Violent Crimes are up again this year. Philadelphia's
Police Chief is operating under a state of emergency, and Oakland has +29%
more Murders, +18% more Rapes, +18% more Robberies, and +29% more Aggravated
Assaults per citizen – and climbing. Compared with Oakland Police Chief
Word's last year in office, 2004, the current administration has seen
Murders rise +77%, Rapes +18%, Robberies +63%, and Aggravated Assaults +40%.
The comparisons generally are for 2006, Chief Tucker's second year in
office, because that's the latest available for the Uniform Crime
reports. However,
the Oakland perspectives are up to the immediate date. Of particular note
is that the past three years have been consistent and increasing from the
high levels established in 2006.
Analyzing the Numbers:
It is fairly evident to determine that Violent Crimes indeed
elevated to crisis proportions during the past three years. They were
already too high previously, but the question has to be asked… "Are we
becoming inoculated to the severity?" These essays don't seem to strike
notes of alarm. Oakland is plodding ahead as with the inertia of stone and
the clarity of fog.
There is nothing in the demographics of Oakland to suggest such
a paradigm escalation of Violent Crimes. Unemployment, poverty, education,
income, and other factors reported by the Census Bureau have experienced
relatively little change from 2000 to 2006. Perhaps a note, if only to
demonstrate some significant demographic change, is that Whites increased
from 125.013 (31.3% of the population) to 128,672 (34.1%). Black or African
American decreased from 142,460 in 2000 (35.7%) to 114,342 (30.3%). The
Hispanic and Latino population increased from 87,467 (21.9%) to 97,738
(25.9%). The Asian population has remained relatively stable. Perhaps
something to consider is the change in languages spoken in the home for
people over 5 years of age. In 2000, 234,737 people spoke English (63.2%),
whereas in 2006 that number dropped to 203,594 (58.6%). Distressing, and
hopefully wrong, is the Census Bureau's "estimate" of Oakland's population
of 377,256 (+/- 13,173), down from the 2000 Census of 399,477.
In terms of City engagement and resources expended to reduce
violence through outreach and other programs, there have been considerable
increases in such efforts and expenditures. Measure Y funds have been
utilized since early 2005 to underscore the priorities. One would expect to
see some fruits from these well-meaning applications during the past three
years. In the worst case, they certainly would not have added to the new
paradigm of Violent Crimes that were actually experienced.
That leaves the Police Department to be analyzed in the context
of the high Violent Crime numbers. Whether the Negotiated Settlement
Agreement (NSA) had any deleterious effect on crime rates by lowering the
engagement of officers, as is commonly asserted, is up to conjecture. It is
unlikely the direct cause, however, because as stated in another essay,
private and public enterprises elsewhere have remained profitable, and even
increased in effectiveness, after much more onerous regulations,
constraints, prescriptions and proscriptions that have challenged their
missions. More likely, if the NSA has been a negative force, it has been
the fault of the administration for not efficiently melding the NSA into
operations and results. Wayne Tucker has received high praise for his NSA
efforts, and this has probably resulted in a gracious tolerance for the lack
of results against crime.
In terms of the Police Department, it is most striking for its
change in leadership at the beginning of the escalation of Violent Crimes a
little more than three years ago. A change in leadership always brings, and
should bring, a change in priorities, philosophy, management style, and
operations. The current leadership has sought to assert itself in all of
these areas in ways that collectively must be held responsible for the
outcome. Whereas the Violent Crime rate had actually been declining in the
two last years of the Word administration, the first two full years of the
Tucker administration, and well into the third year, have found a huge jump
in Violent Crimes that cannot be explained relative to the opposite
experiences of other police agencies generally in California and nationally.
It was postulated in another essay that Wayne Tucker was ill
equipped with experience, knowledge, or management skill sets to address
Oakland's crime issues. What was not mentioned were a few other
observations generally regarded by others who work within the OPD. It is
felt that the current Chief relies heavily on the direction and control of
the City Administrator's Office [blind leading the blind?]. There are many
examples to highlight this, including the Vision Statement and White Paper
ostensibly written by the Chief, but reported actually to have been written
out of the City Administrator's Office. This would appear consistent with a
dramatic departure from all previous Chiefs who had their own styles for
placating City Hall while nevertheless exerting their personal direction
over the Police Department. Chief Word (6 years), Chief Hart (19 years),
and Chief Gain (6 years), were all consulted over the past three years by
this author. Each was appointed in some measure to be a change agent for
the evolution of OPD. Each made his way through the ranks, graduating from
the OPD Academy and having worked in most aspects of the OPD. Each had a
definably different management style. Each had comments concerning the
"interference" from City Hall. In terms of results, each either suffered or
enjoyed the general trends and directions of crime. None had a paradigm
escalation of Violent Crimes out of sorts with the trends.
A common note is that none blamed their predecessors, the OPOA,
the lack of manpower, the lack of resources, or any other factor as any
reason for not being able to do their jobs. While each would have preferred
more resources and fewer constraints, each seemed to develop a singularly
individual style to do the best they could under any circumstances. In
other words, their records are not laced with excuses. Their
accomplishments are thus credited or debited by the best score available –
the crime rates relative to general trends. Whether it was Wayne Tucker or
the City Administrator's office, the past three years have perhaps seen more
battle with the OPOA and the police membership than against crime. It has
been the same OPOA during the past 40 years, with essentially the same
powers under their Memorandums of Understanding and the City Charter, as
always. It was discovered that there were no management rights taken by the
OPOA from the Chief of Police going back at least to 1998. If anything, the
labor statutes have been responsible for giving more teeth to any labor
group in any public or private enterprise, and all must cope.
But it wasn't the OPOA alone that was responsible for the lack
of results during the past three years, to hear Wayne Tucker speak of the
OPD's inability to address Violent Crimes. Relentlessly, he has campaigned
that it was also the fault of a lack of manpower. He got the backing,
benign as it is, from the Mayor's Office and the City Council to raid the
Measure Y funds to stem an attrition problem that was proven not to exist. He
makes a good impression and one wants to believe everything he states,
regardless of the unsubstantiated generalities and lack of detailed
information. After all, he is the subject matter expert assumed to have the
gravitas of the highest law enforcement office in the City. On the
contrary, none of the previous Chiefs had more manpower, and in fact they
had much less. They had fewer police officers to begin with. None had the
backing of a City Administration that afforded Wayne Tucker $28,000,000
dollars of overtime funds to put to work. Chief Word recalls pulling teeth
to get $12,000,000 authorized for overtime, but he reduced crime noticeably.
Not only did Chief Tucker have the overtime equivalent of 200 full time
police officers working for him, he also had three dozen experienced police
retiree Annuitants. Tucker had the boon of Measure Y that gave him, had he
utilized it properly, the benefit of 63 more officers funded by the
taxpayers.
Therefore, neither the OPOA nor the lack of manpower were
legitimate excuses for the dismal increases in Violent Crimes. So, let's
focus on leadership and management style for a moment. Chief Tucker is well
known around OPD for having said that "morale doesn't matter." However, job
satisfaction does, and by all accounts it is dismally low. He also has
never had any experience in fielding police officers in an urban setting,
and he has been the first Chief ever to buy the notion that the Patrol
Division and the Beat system are no longer the "Backbone of the Department."
This is indeed a major departure. Another often quoted tenet of Chief
Tucker is to castigate "old fashioned practices." Whole units of OPD were
abandoned or thrown out wholesale.
Perhaps most debilitating for everyone concerned was his
abandonment of Planning and Research. Since then, there has been no
credible, relevant or timely information available for anyone. It is as if
a body was dropped in a snake pit blindfolded and with ear muffs.
Chief Word spoke of it recently, and the other Chiefs certainly
grasped it as a given, when he mentioned that in the last two years of his
term he found "balance" to be the key. When resources are limited, as they
always will be in any enterprise, one must balance the resources available.
Chief Tucker abandoned Beat Health, a profitable six person operation
responsible for cleaning up an entire city for over a decade, a unit
endorsed and sponsored by the community organization OCO, a unit heralded
around the country and interviewed many times on national television and
radio, as it was simply discarded in favor of promoting an idea out of
balance to the organization. It was felt that 57 PSO's could do the same
job better, when in fact they haven't achieved 2% of what the six man Beat
Health program did. Another abandonment was the Jail, in favor of having
OPD rely solely on the Sheriff's facilities. This took away the third
feature heralded by Chief Bratton (after morale and information) as success
factors – the ability of investigators to interrogate and debrief arrestees
not only for immediate crimes but also a wealth of usable information [not
to mention that the economics were faulty, the inordinate time now for
officers transporting away from their beats, and the rapid release of
citizens who were merely detained].
The most glaring example of imbalance is the Chief's full court
press with Area Command and Crime Reduction Teams (CRT's), at the cost of
denuding and subordinating more blanketing efforts. Both have laudable
potential, but they are huge diversions from a more comprehensive and
holistic game plan. The communities, their leaders and activists, "love"
the CRT's, and this is perplexing considering the paradigm increase in
Violent Crimes. Except, that for the first time people in the communities
got the personalized attention of the Strategic Area Commanders. So, while
CRT's should be reduced to an effective balance in addressing "hot spots,"
the benefits of having command personnel available and answerable in the
field must be continued. [Chief Tucker has announced to the Council and
Committees that he will increase CRT's to 7 Squads of 8 officers each.]
It wasn't only the Beats that were subordinated, but also the
traditionally revered Criminal Investigation Division. Never have so few
investigators been allocated, nor so many lower ranked officers been
assigned in C.I.D. One can go through every unit of the Department and see
that Chief Tucker was seriously intent on destroying every vestige of old
fashioned practices. Unfortunately, the new practices have been seriously
unproductive.
There should be at least one more mention [restraining the
volumes that could be discussed] about the inefficiencies, disconnections,
and dysfunction at OPD. Chief Tucker's insistence on a peculiar version of
12-hour shifts called 2-2-3-2-2-3 appears to be the most disruptive event
perhaps in OPD's entire history. There was no prior planning process, but
merely a pronouncement that it would take place, followed by an admitted
one-sided management report endorsed only by two command officers – one of
whom was since promoted to Deputy Chief and the other to Captain. There are
very enlightening narratives from both, and from another Deputy Chief who
was "demoted." In an objective survey, 428 cops opposed the plan (against
11 who supported it) being forced upon them, and many offered reasons,
alternatives, and recommendations. It has been in place since January 12,
and it is a common mantra to hear officers say, "Today is my Monday, and
tomorrow is my Friday." The Chief promised that the plan would be liked by
the membership, reduce overtime, place more officers on the streets, enhance
team efforts, and reduce violent crimes. He wants two years to "try it
out." There is no articulated plan, but merely an explanation of how it is
anticipated to work – called by the Chief as a "work in progress." There
are no designed metrics or measurements contemplated. It is failing in all
regards.
Making Serious Adjustments:
The first action is too obvious to mention. From there, the
Department must recover and get itself together. It can reduce crime
dramatically, and at less cost in dollars and manpower. The steps, taken
concurrently, are to motivate the work force, act on real information, and
develop measurable strategies. The pillars of neighborhood policing (Beats)
and relentless follow-up (Investigations) must be restored.
1. Acknowledge a Crisis Crime Situation.
2. Establish the Office of Police Management and Budget.
3. Move the best personnel into the most suitable assignments.
4. Establish the integrity of neighborhood Beat assignments and
Problem Solving Officers.
5. Differentiate the officers who respond to calls for service (911)
from PSO officers who are dedicated to solving neighborhood problems.
6. Place the three deputy Chiefs and Assistant Chief, each in charge
of the entire Department during each of three eight-hour shifts 24/7.
The Assistant Chief is in charge of the entire City during the day,
and the third Deputy Chief is the relief Commander. The Chief of
Police is the overall commander. Insist on "hands-on" and "management
by walking around."
7. Immediately place *all* officers, until further notice, into a five
day work week mode of ten hours each day. This may be either five
eight-hour days or four ten-hour days, with overtime being voluntary but
strongly encouraged. [overtime cost is estimated at about $7 million]
8. Insist that all officers work in the field and not spend time at
headquarters, including Sergeants, Lieutenants, and Captains. Intentional
and extensive overlaps are to be *in* the neighborhoods to afford
office hours for police/citizens, canvassing and follow-up, building
extensive contact networks, and so on.
9. Balance and reallocate personnel distribution and deployment with
measurable plans, police and civilian.
10. Triple the use of Annuitants and have them engaged extensively in
follow-ups for investigations.
11. Develop a detention system that is short of incarcerating and
processing detainees by the ACSO.
12. Evacuate the Eighth Floor.
13. Increase manpower on the job by management protocols that will
drastically reduce the 40% absentee factor and dramatically place the right
personnel at the critical tasks during overtime. This could literally
have the effect of adding hundreds of cops "on-the-job."
14. Develop software to keep our resources maximized. If airlines and
hotels can keep their seats and rooms filled during drastic changes in
demand and resources, we should be able to fill our Beats and staff our
Investigators.
15. Freeze all outside conferences, seminars, training, and junkets.
16. Conduct in-service training voluntarily at home and on the
Internet, with certifications for successful learning.
17. Become a service organization. Employ every opportunity to
experiment in this regard. Adopt from successful private businesses.
Learn from the companies rated most liked by customers and employees
alike. Examples include getting faxes of records into the
neighborhoods instead of having citizens line up on the third floor of the
police headquarters, calling citizens for feedback and input, volunteer
organization participation in police work and volunteer work by police
officers, adopting in house child-care, offering in-house food catering,
in-house concierge for Oakland events, etc, etc.
There are of course endless ways to improve an organization, and
above are only a few priorities to indicate direction. Lowering crime is
all about having an effective apparatus, and it is made so not by emulating
others but by tying it all together from the top and having it work from the
bottom.
---end---
Saturday, April 12, 2008
All Tuckered Out
Chief Tucker is uninspiring. The HR team doesn't even think to use google adwords or craigslist consistently for recruiting purposes, until pushed by the city's own residents. The Dept needs help. Funds. Tech knowhow of the friendster/myspace generations.
Where is the Oakland Police Foundation? Totally MIA since inception.
Oakland's ghettos need high paying factory jobs to bootstrap themselves.
And all we have are more cheap asian imports, instead of local factory jobs, even as the dollar falls ever more into toilet paper territory. And more bankrupting wars, enriching only the "federal express" reserve LLC's elite yale/goldman sachs/bank of america/cia/jp morgan/offshore/tax-haven/drug running banking class.
I return. How does one start a recall of the current police chief? This would help us, locally.
So would everyone choosing to bank with local Oakland credit unions, instead of big tapeworm banks like BofA, Wells, WaMu (about to fail), Citi, etc. Admittedly, Bofa and Wells are involved in the east bay community thru various projects, but we need to strengthen our local and regional banking institutions first, not national, corporate, shareholder-first banks which splatter our freeways and cities with expensive billboard adverts.
Okay, so step one of recalling Chief TUcker is probably contacting your city council rep.
Dist 1: Brunner
Dist 3: Nadel
etc.
Get to it!
Where is the Oakland Police Foundation? Totally MIA since inception.
Oakland's ghettos need high paying factory jobs to bootstrap themselves.
And all we have are more cheap asian imports, instead of local factory jobs, even as the dollar falls ever more into toilet paper territory. And more bankrupting wars, enriching only the "federal express" reserve LLC's elite yale/goldman sachs/bank of america/cia/jp morgan/offshore/tax-haven/drug running banking class.
I return. How does one start a recall of the current police chief? This would help us, locally.
So would everyone choosing to bank with local Oakland credit unions, instead of big tapeworm banks like BofA, Wells, WaMu (about to fail), Citi, etc. Admittedly, Bofa and Wells are involved in the east bay community thru various projects, but we need to strengthen our local and regional banking institutions first, not national, corporate, shareholder-first banks which splatter our freeways and cities with expensive billboard adverts.
Okay, so step one of recalling Chief TUcker is probably contacting your city council rep.
Dist 1: Brunner
Dist 3: Nadel
etc.
Get to it!
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
The interesting thing...
...about crime is that it started with the founding of our nation.
Some "founding fathers" were slaveholders.
The US grew through the Louisiana Purchase, yes. What does that mean... just transferring title to some vacant land?
Or did that mean the forced ethnic cleansing of America of its native Indians so white cracker settlers could settle down?
How odd.
Now, have you ever worked in a prison ministry? Met the so-called criminials incarcerated in American for-profit jails on trumped up marijuana charges?
The real criminals are the wealthy people of this country who leach off the rest of us.
The executives of Citibank, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Blackwater, Corrections Corporation of America, ExxonMobil, Chevron.
The lowest income tax on the planet: US corporate tax rate.
We pay taxes on income: wages, and items we buy: sales tax. Nobody pays taxes on wealth. No wonder we are depending on $500 Billion to $1 Trillion per year in dirty money (from hard "illegal" drug sales) laundered through our largest banks to fund the US Government and Wall Street and thus our 401ks/mutual funds.
Wealth: held in large families with names like Vanderbilt, JP Morgan, Hilton, Gates, Buffet, Soros, Bush, etc.
Anything made illegal becomes VERY EXPENSIVE. See: Prohibition: liquor became a black market. And now we have the same with heroin from Afghanistan, crack from Columbia, etc.
The CIA according to the CIA's Inspector General in 1998 noted that the CIA brought drugs into the US to sell in inner cities, to funnel back into Iran-destabilization schemes.
Learn more about organized crime, real cost economics, financial market manipulation, how shit really works in the US and the world... altogether "Tapeworm Economics" of a centralized , imperial system.
Navigate the Falling Dollar
--video presentation by Catherine Austin Fitts
Money Matters
--blog by Elaine Supkis
Clusterfuck Nation
--blog by James Howard Kunstler
None of this is to refute Oakland's crying need for effective police--but more than this, Oakland's families need manufacturing jobs to pay for increasingly expensive food and energy and shelter, while this country exported nearly all its manufacturing jobs to cheap-labor countries over the past three decades. And now white collar jobs are being exported as well.
Good luck, Oakland.
Let's consume less. Invest in our community--small business loans, local production, arts and education.
Some "founding fathers" were slaveholders.
The US grew through the Louisiana Purchase, yes. What does that mean... just transferring title to some vacant land?
Or did that mean the forced ethnic cleansing of America of its native Indians so white cracker settlers could settle down?
How odd.
Now, have you ever worked in a prison ministry? Met the so-called criminials incarcerated in American for-profit jails on trumped up marijuana charges?
The real criminals are the wealthy people of this country who leach off the rest of us.
The executives of Citibank, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Blackwater, Corrections Corporation of America, ExxonMobil, Chevron.
The lowest income tax on the planet: US corporate tax rate.
We pay taxes on income: wages, and items we buy: sales tax. Nobody pays taxes on wealth. No wonder we are depending on $500 Billion to $1 Trillion per year in dirty money (from hard "illegal" drug sales) laundered through our largest banks to fund the US Government and Wall Street and thus our 401ks/mutual funds.
Wealth: held in large families with names like Vanderbilt, JP Morgan, Hilton, Gates, Buffet, Soros, Bush, etc.
Anything made illegal becomes VERY EXPENSIVE. See: Prohibition: liquor became a black market. And now we have the same with heroin from Afghanistan, crack from Columbia, etc.
The CIA according to the CIA's Inspector General in 1998 noted that the CIA brought drugs into the US to sell in inner cities, to funnel back into Iran-destabilization schemes.
Learn more about organized crime, real cost economics, financial market manipulation, how shit really works in the US and the world... altogether "Tapeworm Economics" of a centralized , imperial system.
Navigate the Falling Dollar
--video presentation by Catherine Austin Fitts
Money Matters
--blog by Elaine Supkis
Clusterfuck Nation
--blog by James Howard Kunstler
None of this is to refute Oakland's crying need for effective police--but more than this, Oakland's families need manufacturing jobs to pay for increasingly expensive food and energy and shelter, while this country exported nearly all its manufacturing jobs to cheap-labor countries over the past three decades. And now white collar jobs are being exported as well.
Good luck, Oakland.
Let's consume less. Invest in our community--small business loans, local production, arts and education.
Monday, March 17, 2008
New Killing in WO; Plus, Car Thefts in Temescal/Rump Rockridge
Oakland's 31st murder happened yesterday -- on a Sunday afternoon. If you thought that "whipping out a tittie on a Sunday afternoon" was crazy (two superbowls ago) well this is just darn worse! Inexusable behavior.
Has OPD figured out what the common thread is in most of the murders?
Economic status of shooter, victim?
Race of both?
Common motive?
Common opportunity?
Common circumstances?
* * *
Moving on to actual crimes in North Oakland proper -- the Temescal/Rockridge brady bunch where the "legally" earned and taxed money's at...
we have muggings aplenty
we still have a good burglary burn rate
we lose at least five steel cages propelled by liquid explosive per week (stolen cars)
Who are the victims?
Choose from our three mutually exclusive specie of Temescaler/ Rockridger:
1 - mid 20s youngsters/artists/grungy or tatted out art students (35%)
2 - mid 30s young, urban professional yuppies who slave at corporate, inc. in SF (35%)
3 - mid 50s+ older people who lucked out and bought houses decades back (25%)
Note on car theft: see map below. City of Oakland had 106 officially reported car thefts in the last ten days. In the North Oakland area, 27 cars or 25% of the total.
Click for larger image-
Takeaway: we must all be making it too easy for them!
Correct me if I'm wrong, but "Vehicle Theft" to me means whole cars taken, not mere "Theft" of car parts of crap on your passenger seat.
Tips:
-close windows completely
-lock your doors
-use a steering wheel lock - masterlock works better than "the CLUB" - get one at Reed Bros on 45th
-use your alarm
-park with your wheels turned into the curb
-leave NOTHING in your car for thieves to steal: coins, phone, CDs, cameras, laptops, blah blah blah
-don't tint your windows
-always remove radio faceplate
You can't prevent guys from hotwiring your accord or civic once they're in, but you can keep them out by using the steps above.
Check out this handy list of the easiest cars to steal.
Lots of useful, common sense tips, too.
Including, etching your VIN into every window:
Has OPD figured out what the common thread is in most of the murders?
Economic status of shooter, victim?
Race of both?
Common motive?
Common opportunity?
Common circumstances?
* * *
Moving on to actual crimes in North Oakland proper -- the Temescal/Rockridge brady bunch where the "legally" earned and taxed money's at...
we have muggings aplenty
we still have a good burglary burn rate
we lose at least five steel cages propelled by liquid explosive per week (stolen cars)
Who are the victims?
Choose from our three mutually exclusive specie of Temescaler/ Rockridger:
1 - mid 20s youngsters/artists/grungy or tatted out art students (35%)
2 - mid 30s young, urban professional yuppies who slave at corporate, inc. in SF (35%)
3 - mid 50s+ older people who lucked out and bought houses decades back (25%)
Note on car theft: see map below. City of Oakland had 106 officially reported car thefts in the last ten days. In the North Oakland area, 27 cars or 25% of the total.
Click for larger image-
Takeaway: we must all be making it too easy for them!
Correct me if I'm wrong, but "Vehicle Theft" to me means whole cars taken, not mere "Theft" of car parts of crap on your passenger seat.
Tips:
-close windows completely
-lock your doors
-use a steering wheel lock - masterlock works better than "the CLUB" - get one at Reed Bros on 45th
-use your alarm
-park with your wheels turned into the curb
-leave NOTHING in your car for thieves to steal: coins, phone, CDs, cameras, laptops, blah blah blah
-don't tint your windows
-always remove radio faceplate
You can't prevent guys from hotwiring your accord or civic once they're in, but you can keep them out by using the steps above.
Check out this handy list of the easiest cars to steal.
Lots of useful, common sense tips, too.
Including, etching your VIN into every window:
"VIN etching is so effective that many insurers offer discounts from 3% to 15% on comprehensive premiums for cars with etched windows. Cars that have been VIN etched have a 64% lower theft rate than non-etched cars. And, a VIN etched car has a more than an 85% chance of recovery if it is stolen."
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
March 5th bus stop shooting
Deadly Gunfire Claims Another Life In Oakland
Official details over at Oakland Crimespotting.
Where: San Pablo between 32nd and 33rd. Probably the homebase of "the perps" committing the 37th-41st Street armed robberies and burglaries in Temescal.
View Larger Map
Just hours after an Oakland City Council vote to add more officers to its police force, a neighborhood bus stop was riddled with gunfire early Wednesday leaving one person dead and another wounded.
The death was the city's 28th homicide of the year, far outpacing last where there were 15 homicides by this date.
The latest shooting took place at the corner of San Pablo and Brockhurst with officers responding to a "shots fired" call at 5:50 a.m.
Official details over at Oakland Crimespotting.
Where: San Pablo between 32nd and 33rd. Probably the homebase of "the perps" committing the 37th-41st Street armed robberies and burglaries in Temescal.
View Larger Map
Tri-City I-80 Crime Prevention Collab. Restarted
Daily Cal reports that
"History of the Richmond-San Leandro strip, and how we got concentrated black poverty."
During WWII, blacks migerated from the Deep South, to get paid good wages in the war effort's shipbuilding jobs. Kaiser Shipbuilding, for example.
After the war ended, jobs dried up.
Don't forget about last hired, first fired.
No jobs = angry young men, loss of family authority.
Then the 1960s, a generation later. Civil rights enabled by fossil fuel freedom. But more crime because of the still-chronic lack of jobs.
1970s. CIA trafficks cocaine into LA, Detroit, SF Bay, other major cities for "Iran-Contra" scandal. Drug sales from Central American coca funded "our bitches" in Latin Am vs "Communists" and also funded Iranian weapons vs Iraq. ("let them kill each other" Kissinger)
1980s. crack epidemic reaches throughout US. most money laundered into big, private banks or offshore. Back into Wall Street as low interest capital. (Just like the old brit limey empire with opium and heroin sales--how do you think the Royals got so rich??) Unemployed poor people, largely black, get into drug sales to simply survive. few other options.
1990s-present. Accelerated Globalization offshored many of our remaining factory jobs -- the last remaining good paying jobs for less educated people -- to China, India, middle east, korea, etc.
Now we all have McJobs or highly professional "services" jobs. A "service economy" producing not much of value, unless you count hedge funds and real estate mortgage brokers-- WHOOPS!
So. Poor blacks from Richmond to South Oakland.
1) WWII jobs magnet
2) jobs disappear
3) drugs come in
4) where poor blacks are today
There's more to it, but this is the main gist.
Good thing Nancy Nadel is opening a choco factory, it'll employ all of west oakland soon in high paying jobs!
Seriously, we need more local factories. And farms.
In response to increased crime rates in Oakland, Berkeley and Richmond, the Richmond City Council pledged $50,000 last week to reactivate a tri-city crime prevention program that disbanded about three years ago.Great! And now... (deep voice)
"History of the Richmond-San Leandro strip, and how we got concentrated black poverty."
During WWII, blacks migerated from the Deep South, to get paid good wages in the war effort's shipbuilding jobs. Kaiser Shipbuilding, for example.
After the war ended, jobs dried up.
Don't forget about last hired, first fired.
No jobs = angry young men, loss of family authority.
Then the 1960s, a generation later. Civil rights enabled by fossil fuel freedom. But more crime because of the still-chronic lack of jobs.
1970s. CIA trafficks cocaine into LA, Detroit, SF Bay, other major cities for "Iran-Contra" scandal. Drug sales from Central American coca funded "our bitches" in Latin Am vs "Communists" and also funded Iranian weapons vs Iraq. ("let them kill each other" Kissinger)
1980s. crack epidemic reaches throughout US. most money laundered into big, private banks or offshore. Back into Wall Street as low interest capital. (Just like the old brit limey empire with opium and heroin sales--how do you think the Royals got so rich??) Unemployed poor people, largely black, get into drug sales to simply survive. few other options.
1990s-present. Accelerated Globalization offshored many of our remaining factory jobs -- the last remaining good paying jobs for less educated people -- to China, India, middle east, korea, etc.
Now we all have McJobs or highly professional "services" jobs. A "service economy" producing not much of value, unless you count hedge funds and real estate mortgage brokers-- WHOOPS!
So. Poor blacks from Richmond to South Oakland.
1) WWII jobs magnet
2) jobs disappear
3) drugs come in
4) where poor blacks are today
There's more to it, but this is the main gist.
Good thing Nancy Nadel is opening a choco factory, it'll employ all of west oakland soon in high paying jobs!
Seriously, we need more local factories. And farms.
Monday, March 3, 2008
A Better Oakland Police Recruiting Budget
It turns out that the Oakland City Council will approve $7.7 Million to spend on police recruiting.I like that advertising has been reduced to $1M instead of the ludacris $1.5M bucks.
Great.
OPD is still not on the ball marketing online. According to a post on the Rockridge Crimewatch group, there have been NO ads for hiring OPD officers on craigslist. You won't find any ads except one for an $8-10k/month HR manager fatcat position. (Perhaps split that into three positions: one coordinator, and two neighborhood walking recruiters?)
Check craigslist for OPD jobs
You will find job postings on monster.com, but monster costs 4x what a job posting costs on craigslist ($495 instead of $75) and monster ads are seen by far fewer people.
I spoke with SFPD officers over the weekend who noted that *every* PD in the country is having trouble staffing up right now. Same with the military. Who wants to die for low pay, or nothing to show for it?
These guys also commented that hiring bonuses are not good for this reason, because they steal officers from other cities who need them. For sure, they can replace said officers more easily than OPD can. Oakland has plenty of violent crime. On the other hand, San Francisco has more homicides per year than Oakland. Do you hear that in the media?
Rebecca Kaplan's IDEAS
OPD marketing/recruiting needs to hear Rebecca Kaplan's ideas of hiring more people from within Oakland. If the police are your brothers and neighbors, you can't really well call them "pigs" can you? Plus, many households in West and East Oakland could use the money!
Also, most people who aced all our OPD tests but were screened out at the 11th hour, failed because of:
-- low credit scores (who cares? what about goldman sachs' and alan greenspan's "scores"?)
-- past drug use, long ago (who cares? who in our newer generations has NOT used drugs? I know I have, but I didn't keep up because that's not my style of addiction. C'mon now people. If we want more police, make the standards realistic!)
A Date with Mack the Knife
In the CoCo Times, there is a story about a man who went on a date with a woman who intended to kidnap and rob him with help from her other hoodlum East Oakland friends.
Luckily, the victim, like me, carried a knife and stabbed her male accomplice while he was stuck in the back of the car with the women.
Nice date!
Now go get your own piece.
View Larger Map
Thursday, February 21, 2008
City Council Votes to Delay OPD Recruitment Funding
According to the San Diego Tribune, and San Mateo Times, our City Council voted Tuesday night (2/19) to defer this program:
Minutes are not posted yet, only the Agenda is available (PDF) from city's website.
Why would council block this immediate, focused use of funds to recruit more qualified police and buy equipment? Are they crazy? Or is something really wrong with the proposal?
Comments, please.
Subject: Measure Y: Police Recruitment Program
From: Oakland Police Department
Recommendation: Adopt A Resolution Authorizing A Transfer Of Existing Appropriations Of Measure Y Funds In An Amount Not To Exceed Seven Million Seven Hundred Twenty-Two Three Hundred And Thirty Nine ($7,722,339) To Implement The 2008 Augmented Measure Y Police Recruitment Program, Waiving Advertising And Bidding For The Purchase Of Ammunition, Firearms, Advertising Services And Travel Services, And Waiving The Requests For Proposal/Qualifications Process For The Purchase Of Recruitment Services And Other Professional Services Needed To Expedite The Hiring And Training Of Police Recruits, And Authorizing The City Administrator To Purchase: Firearms In An Estimated Amount Of One Hundred And Fifty Six Thousand ($156,000), Advertising Services For Recruitment In An Estimated Amount Of One Million Five Hundred Thousand ($1,500,000), Travel Services In An Estimated Amount Of One Hundred Thirty Eight Thousand Four Hundred Sixty Four Dollars ($138,464), Recruitment Services In An Estimated Amount Of Sixty Two Thousand Three Hundred Thirteen ($62,313), And Other Professional Services Needed To Expedite The Hiring And Training Of Police Recruits In An Estimated Amount Of Five Million Six Hundred Forty Two Thousand Five Hundred Sixty Two Dollars ($5,642,562), Without Return To Council
(07-1009)
Minutes are not posted yet, only the Agenda is available (PDF) from city's website.
Why would council block this immediate, focused use of funds to recruit more qualified police and buy equipment? Are they crazy? Or is something really wrong with the proposal?
Comments, please.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Detroit Girl Hero vs Oaklanders' Crime Response
If only our Mayor, Council, and the rest of us would put ourselves on the front line, like this seven year old girl from Detroit, who was shot six times defending her mother from an exboyfriend/ excon.'Hero' Girl Recovering After Shooting
Where are the firm, positive father figures our black communities desperately need? Surely there are more out there than the media tells us. We could use more. I don't think it's out of people's capacity to do so, given the right circumstances and "village" support.
And if not?
Should richer families in this country be required to adopt poor black children before going to Africa, Asia, South America and Eastern Europe to find adoptees? What if some of those children were born to crack-addicted prostitutes?
One related issue to why blacks remain poor is the fact that black students are all racing for the academic bottom, to be the cream of the crud (gangsta), instead of studying and making their way out of the ghetto. They all pull each other down. If you try to study in school, you are "just tryin to be white." No, that's called trying to get ahead!! Beat whitey at his own game! I suppose it's merely kids being kids in a shitty situation, trying to come out of top. Problem is, they're playing the wrong game.
Our black kids need Cream of Wheat and button down shirts, not Coco Puffs, tshirts and Xbox360.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Heart Disease Kills more West Oaklanders than Violence
The number one cause of death in West Oakland is not violence, but heart disease - accounting for 29% of all deaths from 1996-1998.
Source: Alameda County Public Health Department of Vital Statistics
So are you surprised? Really? And what could be causing this epidemic?
* low quality diets with too much meat, fat, sugar, and processed fast food
* too much driving
* living too close to major freeways and the port of oakland's 20,000 car-tailpipe-equivalent tanker ships
It's easy to change #1 and #2. #3 not so easy.
Source: Alameda County Public Health Department of Vital Statistics
So are you surprised? Really? And what could be causing this epidemic?
* low quality diets with too much meat, fat, sugar, and processed fast food
* too much driving
* living too close to major freeways and the port of oakland's 20,000 car-tailpipe-equivalent tanker ships
It's easy to change #1 and #2. #3 not so easy.
Friday, February 8, 2008
Dellums and Newsom's bullshit request
Dellums, Newsom call for help fighting crime, Daily Review Online - Feb 07, 2008
OAKLAND — Calling violence on the streets of America "a national health crisis" that the federal government has ignored, Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom chastised the Bush administration on Wednesday for abandoning cities and called on all levels of government to respond to crime.
"Sixteen thousand people were murdered in the streets of America" in 2006, Dellums said, and even more were murdered in 2007.
"If 16,000 people died of AIDS we would have a national strategy to deal with the epidemic," he continued. "If 16,000 people died of bird flu we would have a national strategy. We have 16,000 people die of murder and yet each mayor is left to deal with it alone."
Great! Why don't they ask for help from the Feds for _42,000 people killed by CARS_ each year? That's 250,000 DEAD AMERICANS SINCE 9-11.
Oh wait, Ford, GM, Toyota, Honda, and Mercedes--not to mention Exxon Mobil, Shell, CHevron, BP don't want anything done about THAT. Nope! Keep filling up at the gas station, losers!
OAKLAND — Calling violence on the streets of America "a national health crisis" that the federal government has ignored, Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom chastised the Bush administration on Wednesday for abandoning cities and called on all levels of government to respond to crime.
"Sixteen thousand people were murdered in the streets of America" in 2006, Dellums said, and even more were murdered in 2007.
"If 16,000 people died of AIDS we would have a national strategy to deal with the epidemic," he continued. "If 16,000 people died of bird flu we would have a national strategy. We have 16,000 people die of murder and yet each mayor is left to deal with it alone."
Great! Why don't they ask for help from the Feds for _42,000 people killed by CARS_ each year? That's 250,000 DEAD AMERICANS SINCE 9-11.
Oh wait, Ford, GM, Toyota, Honda, and Mercedes--not to mention Exxon Mobil, Shell, CHevron, BP don't want anything done about THAT. Nope! Keep filling up at the gas station, losers!
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Frustrated Residents ask for milestones, specifics at Rockridge NCPC meet
At tonight's Rockridge Neighborhood Crime Prevention Committee (NCPC) meeting, residents of Oakland Police Department beats 12y/13x welcomed Area 1 Captain Toribio, but also asked tough questions and expressed a variety of frustrations. Toribio introduced himself, then discussed the rationale behind OPD's new geographic policing strategy and what his strategies will be moving forward. Many times during the meeting, he mentioned the chicken-and-egg difficulties of staffing up by training new officers, while simultaneously reacting to widespread crime with a small, inadequate police force.
The general tone of the meeting was widespread frustration by residents, much of the same on the part of the professional but overworked ("chasing the radio, call to call") OPD, and a vague sense for a hoped for surge in recruitment, but resignation to more of the same social environment for the near term. At the very least however, residents learned about the new Area Captain's priorities, experience, and met half a dozen of their local force.
During a question and answer session following Captain Toribio's talk, many residents expressed frustration with local Councilwoman Brunner, Mayor Dellums, and even OPD for not addressing crime sufficiently, including OPD staffing issues. Some residents asked about specifics such as when truant and quality of life "sweeps" would begin; others asked about when the beaten down OPD would begin recruiting more bodies to the force.
One resident stood up and pointedly asked the Captain why her area, beat 13x--far up the hill-- was not patrolled anymore, and why the non-emergency reporting line had a confusing and long phone menu. She and her neighbors have spent money out of pocket for Bay Alarm, a private company, to do patrols. Recently, the work-at-home mom spied two youth soliciting door-to-door at homes on her street without security signage, asking for a "chaperone to London". She pointed out the two boys to Bay Alarm's staff, who escorted them off the street but could not do anything further. In contrast to the OPD's long wait times, Bay Alarm's patrol is able to respond in 15 minutes or less.
Toribio replied more or less apologetically but honestly, that he simply did not have enough staff on hand. He recalled that during the late 1980's, "police assigned to the hill could not leave the hill because the Deputy Chief of Police's house was there." However, he repeated that these are challenging times to be a police officer in Oakland, because OPD is understaffed, among other reasons. Toribio also implied that due to expanded regulations and reporting, the police have their hands tied up with paperwork and threats of legal action.
The meeting was long; I was surprised that so many officers showed up and that they still want to work in Oakland. Captain Toribio seemed to say that the department had a resource problem -- cars with 80,000, 100,000 miles on them or more, although a fleet is slowly being renewed with fresh vehicles; dilapidated radio sets; not enough staffing. At the same time he said that OPD did not have a money problem, but a human resources problem -- hiring and retaining enough skilled policemen and women.
It's hard to say what the biggest problem is, and of course having adequate police doesn't make poverty go away, but it's safe to say that Oakland will not be seeing more jobs created until the social environment is much, much safer. Oakland is currently the nation's fourth most dangerous city, according to FBI statistics.
Further, "Oakland had the highest rate of violent crime of any large city in California last year – 190.5 incidents for every 10,000 people, according to a Times analysis of recently released FBI data. That's nearly 2 1/2 times the rate in Los Angeles." (Los Angeles Times, Nov. 11, 2007)
To sum things up, OPD needs our help. Whether a foundation for businesses and residents to join to give more money to police, to a family and friends of Oakland recruiting effort to recruit good police officer candidates. Politicians don't lead, they follow. We need to be the change we want to see in Oakland.
-- IMBY
The general tone of the meeting was widespread frustration by residents, much of the same on the part of the professional but overworked ("chasing the radio, call to call") OPD, and a vague sense for a hoped for surge in recruitment, but resignation to more of the same social environment for the near term. At the very least however, residents learned about the new Area Captain's priorities, experience, and met half a dozen of their local force.
During a question and answer session following Captain Toribio's talk, many residents expressed frustration with local Councilwoman Brunner, Mayor Dellums, and even OPD for not addressing crime sufficiently, including OPD staffing issues. Some residents asked about specifics such as when truant and quality of life "sweeps" would begin; others asked about when the beaten down OPD would begin recruiting more bodies to the force.
One resident stood up and pointedly asked the Captain why her area, beat 13x--far up the hill-- was not patrolled anymore, and why the non-emergency reporting line had a confusing and long phone menu. She and her neighbors have spent money out of pocket for Bay Alarm, a private company, to do patrols. Recently, the work-at-home mom spied two youth soliciting door-to-door at homes on her street without security signage, asking for a "chaperone to London". She pointed out the two boys to Bay Alarm's staff, who escorted them off the street but could not do anything further. In contrast to the OPD's long wait times, Bay Alarm's patrol is able to respond in 15 minutes or less.
Toribio replied more or less apologetically but honestly, that he simply did not have enough staff on hand. He recalled that during the late 1980's, "police assigned to the hill could not leave the hill because the Deputy Chief of Police's house was there." However, he repeated that these are challenging times to be a police officer in Oakland, because OPD is understaffed, among other reasons. Toribio also implied that due to expanded regulations and reporting, the police have their hands tied up with paperwork and threats of legal action.
The meeting was long; I was surprised that so many officers showed up and that they still want to work in Oakland. Captain Toribio seemed to say that the department had a resource problem -- cars with 80,000, 100,000 miles on them or more, although a fleet is slowly being renewed with fresh vehicles; dilapidated radio sets; not enough staffing. At the same time he said that OPD did not have a money problem, but a human resources problem -- hiring and retaining enough skilled policemen and women.
It's hard to say what the biggest problem is, and of course having adequate police doesn't make poverty go away, but it's safe to say that Oakland will not be seeing more jobs created until the social environment is much, much safer. Oakland is currently the nation's fourth most dangerous city, according to FBI statistics.
Further, "Oakland had the highest rate of violent crime of any large city in California last year – 190.5 incidents for every 10,000 people, according to a Times analysis of recently released FBI data. That's nearly 2 1/2 times the rate in Los Angeles." (Los Angeles Times, Nov. 11, 2007)
To sum things up, OPD needs our help. Whether a foundation for businesses and residents to join to give more money to police, to a family and friends of Oakland recruiting effort to recruit good police officer candidates. Politicians don't lead, they follow. We need to be the change we want to see in Oakland.
-- IMBY
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Time to get "hyphy" on Dellums and City Council!
Novometro has a great post about Oakland PD's gauntlet hiring process. and why mayor Dellums just made a promise he cannot keep. (To have OPD staffed up to the 2004 Measure Y-promised "803" sworn members.)Here's a great explanation for why Dellums told us Oakland citizens a lie: because it gets us off his and city council's back for a YEAR! One year of a few less complaints. We will be proactive however--it makes sense to sue the city for not having more than half of the police it needs for 3+ years now! How many lives could have been saved? What real progress could we have made in a secure environment? But no. We have permissive, anything goes, plain old disrespect.
Side note- I wonder if the hiring gauntlet is the same for new hires as for existing police personnel transferring in from other cities.
See you at the January 23rd Neighborhood Watch Steering Committee meeting at City Hall, Hearing Room 4, from 6:30-8:30pm.
Perata update #2
The stolen gold camaro was later found in East Oakland. What was insightful is Lt. Green's admission that one carjacking a day occurs in Oakland.
Everyone is kicking OPD around lately for lackluster performance -- reporters (Chip Johnson, Charles Pine), politicians passing the buck (Councilwomen Brunner, Quan), the public (see any forum or mailing list) ... but is our crime epidemic all OPD's fault?
Who's to blame for an inefficient, incapable OPD? Who put a hiring freeze in place on the department in the earlier part of the decade? Was it the Chief of Police, or was it Oakland's city council? Are the politicians not admitting the larger problems? Of an extractive, concentrating economic system that rewards a few and punishes the majority?
To expand on the economics at play: private, corporate prisons; gasoline expenditures that leave our local economies; eating low quality food from McDonald's and Safeway and giving our money to these corporations who don't reinvest in Oakland...
If you've never been to East O, it's definitely colorful and fun to play in. Fruitvale district has lots of good Mexican and SouthEast Asian eats. Take a culinary trip through Fruitvale. Up off the flatlands a bit toward the hills of 580, you can drop "the real" East O, home of Youth Uprising, a place where people promote the validity of opposition to the mainstream through spoken word, song, dance, playing XBox video games and graffiti art. YU features a cafe run by students.
This neighborhood also features Islamic houses of worship (or at least gathering on the sidewalk outside) and is close to a giant strip mall. The thing I found most depressing about this area is that one needs a car to get anywhere. The residents would be much better served by improved public transportation to decently-paying jobs. To complement this strategy however, the area would be much better off with more jobs sited in the general area. Finally, dedicating less pavement to through car traffic would greatly aid everyone's safety when walking about, and even promote sidewalk cafes and other businesses.
Everyone is kicking OPD around lately for lackluster performance -- reporters (Chip Johnson, Charles Pine), politicians passing the buck (Councilwomen Brunner, Quan), the public (see any forum or mailing list) ... but is our crime epidemic all OPD's fault?
Who's to blame for an inefficient, incapable OPD? Who put a hiring freeze in place on the department in the earlier part of the decade? Was it the Chief of Police, or was it Oakland's city council? Are the politicians not admitting the larger problems? Of an extractive, concentrating economic system that rewards a few and punishes the majority?
To expand on the economics at play: private, corporate prisons; gasoline expenditures that leave our local economies; eating low quality food from McDonald's and Safeway and giving our money to these corporations who don't reinvest in Oakland...
If you've never been to East O, it's definitely colorful and fun to play in. Fruitvale district has lots of good Mexican and SouthEast Asian eats. Take a culinary trip through Fruitvale. Up off the flatlands a bit toward the hills of 580, you can drop "the real" East O, home of Youth Uprising, a place where people promote the validity of opposition to the mainstream through spoken word, song, dance, playing XBox video games and graffiti art. YU features a cafe run by students.
This neighborhood also features Islamic houses of worship (or at least gathering on the sidewalk outside) and is close to a giant strip mall. The thing I found most depressing about this area is that one needs a car to get anywhere. The residents would be much better served by improved public transportation to decently-paying jobs. To complement this strategy however, the area would be much better off with more jobs sited in the general area. Finally, dedicating less pavement to through car traffic would greatly aid everyone's safety when walking about, and even promote sidewalk cafes and other businesses.
ORPN/Sen. Perata carjacking update
ORPN (Charles Pine's site) gives an update about Senator Don Perata's carjackers. Apparently, they "were seen drag racing in the Fruitvale district. The thugs threatened death to get a vehicle to play with." All that following by abandoning the GTA3-like toys in Richmond near their home territory.
ORPN shows the wrong "51st and Shattuck"--the map shown here is nowhere near the incident location and has no stoplights. The correct location is the intersection of 51st and Shattuck at the ARCO/ampm gas station, with 51st becoming 52nd in the Western direction. See below:
View Larger Map
If you saw this incident occur, please contact us with details.
ORPN shows the wrong "51st and Shattuck"--the map shown here is nowhere near the incident location and has no stoplights. The correct location is the intersection of 51st and Shattuck at the ARCO/ampm gas station, with 51st becoming 52nd in the Western direction. See below:
View Larger Map
If you saw this incident occur, please contact us with details.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
OPD Crimewatch Maps up again
No idea why they were down for so long. One of our friends wrote to the local city councilmember to complain and voila, as of today they are back up! I encountered an error of some kind--and was able to see cumulative crime stats for Oakland city proper from September 07 to present. Couldn't really see any patterns except that there is a lot of prostitution in poor areas of West and East Oakland. (Like the Iron Triangle of Richmond.)
However, not to knock only poor areas--richer areas feature prostitution too, just in brothels--which is perhaps why they are left alone. (Organized vs disorganized crime. We only hate on disorganized crime, here.)
The "accidental" map:
Chip Johnson hits nail on the head
As Chip Johnson notes today in his column, Oakland mayor Dellums finally addressed Oakland's huge crime problem last night by saying he will finally hire up 70 additional cops to bring Oakland's force up to the 803 total cops previously promised to us by Oakland City Councilmembers as part of the 2004 "Measure Y" tax on homeowners.
For at least three years now, OPD has been understaffed by 400 or so policemen. No wonder the criminals are out in force--there is no check on them! It is like having a rodent problem in your neighborhood and not enough cats around.
Oakland currently has only 700-something police, but needs at least 1,100 police to match what other cities of similar size and history possess: Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago.
"The only way a politician could get any softer on crime would be to hold a party in honor of convicted felons and pass out manuals on how to beat the criminal justice system."
For at least three years now, OPD has been understaffed by 400 or so policemen. No wonder the criminals are out in force--there is no check on them! It is like having a rodent problem in your neighborhood and not enough cats around.
Oakland currently has only 700-something police, but needs at least 1,100 police to match what other cities of similar size and history possess: Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago.
Monday, January 14, 2008
phone blogging test successful. Posted
phone blogging test successful. Posted from fremont bart station.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Mayor Dellums: What can one man do about crime?
Tomorrow, LIVE!
Dellums to give state of city speech tomorrow. I'd watch and play one of those "bush/state of the union/terrorism" type drinking games, except i don't get cable.
FOX News says he's going to talk about "adding dozens of police" to OPD, which as you may know is severely understaffed.
Ironically, a mom who got mugged in 2004 then voiced support for Measure Y at the time, saying "We need more police on the streets."
Saturday, January 12, 2008
First post
Why this blog?
Violent crimes in Oakland are way up.
Vehicle thefts every week, muggings, shootings, daylight carjackings and holdups at gunpoint. No wonder Oakland is called "the 4th most dangerous city in America."
Now, if only we had some regular old Ordinary Decent Criminals.
Violent crimes in Oakland are way up.
Vehicle thefts every week, muggings, shootings, daylight carjackings and holdups at gunpoint. No wonder Oakland is called "the 4th most dangerous city in America."
Now, if only we had some regular old Ordinary Decent Criminals.
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