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

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.

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:


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If you saw this incident occur, please contact us with details.

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.

"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.

phone blogging test successful. Posted

phone blogging test successful. Posted from fremont bart station.

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."

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.