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:

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.

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.

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.

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!

The guy getting shot is Viet Cong and just killed 2-3 American soldiers. Did he deserve to die?Do Oaklanders deserve to die for killing other Oaklanders?

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.