Meanwhile, the political hacks destroying this city cherry pick one number – homicide – which dipped a bit (as if the murder rate was now acceptable) in 2024 instead of all the seriously rising crime, and managed to get it in their complicit publicity sheets & broadcasts that used to be legit news outlets. Thank you Oakland Report for publishing the responsible story.
Poor Communication and Knee-Jerk "Takes" Diminish the Public Discourse Around Policing
Unfortunately, the entire discourse around the pursuit policy is a case of unexamined assumptions and quick answers being allowed to overcome much of the nuance and difficult choices that need to be made around policing in Oakland. Gavin is certainly guilty of this; he's purposefully used the idea of the "pursuit policy" as being the one thing that is holding back law enforcement in Oakland as a way to address the fact that OPD, as an extension of Oakland's City government, is not performing well. He does not, however, explain that the pursuit policy is a metaphor or stand in for this poor performance; instead he acts as if everything will be fantastic if the City simply changes the policy. That is not true.
At the same time, the "other side" in this debate also makes assumptions based solely on feelings or beliefs that aren't supported by either data or the understanding of how management of complex organizations (such as local government's law enforcement function) really works. This is most evident in the breathtakingly bad takes from partisans such as those on the Police Commission or those who attempt active control of the Police Commission's work (e.g., members of the Coalition for Police Accountability or the Anti Police Terror Project.
To close this first section of the comment, let's see some of the quotes that show how poorly these institutional actors - Gov. Newsom on one hand, the Police Commission on the other - communicate with the public, and actually work on informing, governing, and leading. These are directly from the above post:
Newsom: "We need to see some commensurate support and reforms and changes as it relates to policing here in Oakland in order to consider extending this state subsidized partnership. We specifically are going to need to see changes in the pursuit policy in Oakland."
The first sentence here is absolutely accurate. Policing in Oakland is terrible, for a wide variety of reasons. However, the second sentence makes the facile and, frankly, not very accurate claim that the pursuit policy is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, reason that OPD and the City do not perform their function well. This is nonsense. There are a whole host of reasons why OPD does not do well; pursuits are a symptom of that poor performance, not the root cause. Gavin, having many smart people working for and with him, and having access to people with actual experience in Oakland (e.g., Libby and her aides), should know this; one could just point to Justin Berton's piece in the Chronicle that not-so-subtly pointed out one of the true vectors of the extreme poor performance of OPD, which are the actions of the independent monitoring team, the plaintiffs attorneys, the federal judge, City leadership (or lack thereof) and OPD's own management.
Police Commission (Chair Riles): "It is hoped that the looseness of management and oversight that resulted in the dastardly behavior of the Riders and that resulted in the scandals that followed will not be forgotten in the ‘heat’ of politics."
Author Mandal did a good job of exposing the unwarranted assumptions inherent in Riles' arguments, to wit that police chases are intrinsically aggressive, unacceptable actions that police should either never or rarely use. We see some of this argument in the comments, backed up with unhelpful anecdotal "evidence" that is mainly just fear-mongering. That fear-mongering often comes back to the point made by Riles in the quote above: that the police are basically just barely-held-back animals who, at the first slip of the leash, will be back to being the extreme examples of outright cruelty and corruption that were present during the "Riders" scandal. This is the fear that many oakland "reporters" trade on; every piece on OPD is a tome stuffed with the worst examples of police behavior and an inherent warning: any loosening of the "accountability regime" that blankets OPD will, without a doubt, lead directly back to the same behavior we saw from the Riders. Of course, it is not that simple.
Why Won't Just Changing the Pursuit Policy Help?
One of the problems (and there are a lot around OPD) is that it is easy to slip into debates about high-profile symptoms, like pursuits, and completely miss the things that cause some of the symptomatic poor performance from the City and OPD. For example, look at Special Order 9212 (the one that restricts police from going over 50 mph in pursuits absent express permission from a command officer). Why did then-Chief Armstrong institute this policy? Poor incentives. He was under pressure from one of the plaintiff's attorneys in the Riders lawsuit, and hoped to escape the NSA by simply acceding to their every wish. Pursuits were a very sensitive topic at the time, due to the tragically poor performance of two officers whose actions during an unauthorized pursuit included abandoning the scene of a collision after said pursuit where a bystander lost his life. The Chief hoped for a quick resolution, made a change to policy that was rash and rather unconsidered, and here we are.
That cycle - see symptomatic issue (often brought up from one corner of the commentariat or interested activist group milieu), make a knee-jerk decision that has far reaching impacts on community, police staff, morale, and organizational effectiveness, shrug, and repeat - has been the status quo at OPD, and by extension the City of Oakland, for at least 10 years. The City and OPD do not have a pursuit problem; they have a management problem. Until they fix that, tinkering around the edges will not fix any of this.
The residents of Oakland (to include the activists operating in the City Ciuncil and especially the City Attorney's Office) do not care about the residents in the City. They care only about their virtue signaling activism. They will gaslight the residents (many of which also place their virtue signaling above reality) into believing more hugs and fewer arrests will result in a utopia in Oakland. At the end of the day they only empower the criminal element that terrorizes the residents, businesses, and countless tourists passing through.
How many people need to be victimized, businesses destroyed, and treasure lost before the commission is disbanded or power reined in?
I'm surprised you haven't been negged to death by the mob. Every single word you expressed is the unvarnished truth. "Progressives," in the most extreme definition, are more interested in virtue signaling and canceling opposing views than actually working for a solution. Oakland's politicians are more intent on creating "Oceania'" than a vibrant community
Thank you for once again for "pulling back the curtin", a bit, on yet another confounding Oakland issue.
This article fills in the gaps, with data and references, for the limited sound bite reports on local news, and hopefully provides focus for the public to make change.
The residents of Oakland, deserve much better from public officials
I wonder if these members actually live in Oakland... Arent they aware of the damages that residents and businesses have suffered due to their policies?
Time and again, we've had people with influence that prioritized their political alliances and ideology over common sense backed solutions and approaches at the expense of Oakland commerce and general public safety. It is their policies that have transformed Oakland into an amusement park for criminals.
Moreover, these members appear to NOT have taken the losses, damages, financial pitfalls, and trauma suffered by residents and businesses into account.
An amazing report. We all need to attend the Police Commission meetings and stop waiting for others to do something. Do it Now ….. or continue to wring your hands.
Rajni, you want a “safer” city. What does that mean to you? Is the city safer if police are allowed to chase burglary suspects after they have already smashed a stolen car into a Lucky? Or is it actually safer to just put up a barricade to prevent the smash and grab in the first place? What if the chase results in the death of innocent shoppers as the suspect flees, crashing onto a crowded Montclair sidewalk on a Saturday afternoon?
I’m curious if you’ve ever been walking down a street when a police chase happens. I have. The chases are terrifying. I’ve had to run to avoid getting hit by a suspect’s car. I’ve seen suspect’s cars careen off the sides of hills on 580. And after they crash, the suspects abandon their cars, and take off running through my flatland neighborhood. I’ve had a swat team bang on my door at midnight to ask for access to my backyard. They all had automatic rifles at the ready as they marched through my living room. Did they catch their perp? Nope. There used to be so many police chases in my neighborhood that I have the police helicopter “we are releasing the dog on you” announcement memorized.
None of the above makes me feel safer in Oakland. I agree that perhaps the car chase policy should be widened to include chasing suspects using a car as a weapon against property (a fairly violent act), but I’m not signing off on police chases through my neighborhood so Montclair can be free of shoplifters.
What we really should do is modify Section 230 of the Communications Act to hold eBay, Amazon, Facebook, Instagram, Craigslist, etc liable for any postings of stolen products. That would shut down the organized burglaries, robberies and shoplifting without people getting run over.
Racial disparity studies like to exclude important facts.
In Oakland, the vast majority of violent crime is committed by Black criminals, who are not the majority demographic in Oakland. The majority of murder victims in Oakland are from the Black community and are victimized most frequently by the Black criminals who represent an even smaller percentage of the Black community overall.
Also, I don't think anyone, including Newsom, is suggesting a return to pursuits with out guardrails.
Disparity is a useless data point without applying local context.
There is a vibrant black market in Oakland that is not facilitated by Amazon, Craig's List, eBay, etc... For example, stolen cartons of cigarettes and cases of liquor.
Look at neighboring cities of Oakland and it is obvious that criminals favor Oakland because it is essentially an amusement park for them. The reasons are obvious but committees and commissions stand in the way of implementing common sense solutions and modifications.
Attitudes like this are quickly guaranteeing that Oakland will continue its descent into a failed city, where the only safety lies in barricaded compounds protected by armed private guards. If there’s anyone left around to care…
as reported in the article, Oaklands pursuit policy is an outlyer in ca, and possibly the usa.
No one wants see innocent folks hurt in a chase,.
But
Most people don't think its acceptable for police to standby by and not pursue when robberies, burn outs, break ins etc happen right in front of them, either.
There has to be a middle ground on the persuit rules
Cops having to evaluate 19 risk factors, and calling in for permission in the middle of a crime, just doesn't seem reasonable, practical, or even possible in a real world situation
“But.” So it’s ok with you if I live in a police war zone down here in the flats because you have an expectation?
I think it is reasonable for cops to evaluate 19 factors. We all evaluate multiple variables daily when making decisions. We pay OPD officers a crazy amount of money. They can handle 19 factors. What isn’t reasonable is people’s expectations for OPD to just “do something.” Sometimes doing nothing is better.
Did you read the SF Chronicle article I linked to? Is is acceptable for Black people to die because people in the hills have an expectation that their police force will do something? That sounds so unreasonable I can hardly say it. Read the book The Riders Come Out At Night about the history of OPDs oppression of Black and Brown communities in Oakland.
No, it's not acceptable. It's not acceptable for people in the hills to die, either, or for mailbox theft to be so prevalent that practically every mailbox now is a vault--every time I use that mailbox vault I'm reminded that my neighborhood isn't safe.
Anyway, not the deaths aren't acceptable, but it's not the lawful citizens of Oakland that are responsible. It's the crooks and thugs. And they need to stop using our homes and shops as their playground.
Meanwhile, the political hacks destroying this city cherry pick one number – homicide – which dipped a bit (as if the murder rate was now acceptable) in 2024 instead of all the seriously rising crime, and managed to get it in their complicit publicity sheets & broadcasts that used to be legit news outlets. Thank you Oakland Report for publishing the responsible story.
Poor Communication and Knee-Jerk "Takes" Diminish the Public Discourse Around Policing
Unfortunately, the entire discourse around the pursuit policy is a case of unexamined assumptions and quick answers being allowed to overcome much of the nuance and difficult choices that need to be made around policing in Oakland. Gavin is certainly guilty of this; he's purposefully used the idea of the "pursuit policy" as being the one thing that is holding back law enforcement in Oakland as a way to address the fact that OPD, as an extension of Oakland's City government, is not performing well. He does not, however, explain that the pursuit policy is a metaphor or stand in for this poor performance; instead he acts as if everything will be fantastic if the City simply changes the policy. That is not true.
At the same time, the "other side" in this debate also makes assumptions based solely on feelings or beliefs that aren't supported by either data or the understanding of how management of complex organizations (such as local government's law enforcement function) really works. This is most evident in the breathtakingly bad takes from partisans such as those on the Police Commission or those who attempt active control of the Police Commission's work (e.g., members of the Coalition for Police Accountability or the Anti Police Terror Project.
To close this first section of the comment, let's see some of the quotes that show how poorly these institutional actors - Gov. Newsom on one hand, the Police Commission on the other - communicate with the public, and actually work on informing, governing, and leading. These are directly from the above post:
Newsom: "We need to see some commensurate support and reforms and changes as it relates to policing here in Oakland in order to consider extending this state subsidized partnership. We specifically are going to need to see changes in the pursuit policy in Oakland."
The first sentence here is absolutely accurate. Policing in Oakland is terrible, for a wide variety of reasons. However, the second sentence makes the facile and, frankly, not very accurate claim that the pursuit policy is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, reason that OPD and the City do not perform their function well. This is nonsense. There are a whole host of reasons why OPD does not do well; pursuits are a symptom of that poor performance, not the root cause. Gavin, having many smart people working for and with him, and having access to people with actual experience in Oakland (e.g., Libby and her aides), should know this; one could just point to Justin Berton's piece in the Chronicle that not-so-subtly pointed out one of the true vectors of the extreme poor performance of OPD, which are the actions of the independent monitoring team, the plaintiffs attorneys, the federal judge, City leadership (or lack thereof) and OPD's own management.
Police Commission (Chair Riles): "It is hoped that the looseness of management and oversight that resulted in the dastardly behavior of the Riders and that resulted in the scandals that followed will not be forgotten in the ‘heat’ of politics."
Author Mandal did a good job of exposing the unwarranted assumptions inherent in Riles' arguments, to wit that police chases are intrinsically aggressive, unacceptable actions that police should either never or rarely use. We see some of this argument in the comments, backed up with unhelpful anecdotal "evidence" that is mainly just fear-mongering. That fear-mongering often comes back to the point made by Riles in the quote above: that the police are basically just barely-held-back animals who, at the first slip of the leash, will be back to being the extreme examples of outright cruelty and corruption that were present during the "Riders" scandal. This is the fear that many oakland "reporters" trade on; every piece on OPD is a tome stuffed with the worst examples of police behavior and an inherent warning: any loosening of the "accountability regime" that blankets OPD will, without a doubt, lead directly back to the same behavior we saw from the Riders. Of course, it is not that simple.
Why Won't Just Changing the Pursuit Policy Help?
One of the problems (and there are a lot around OPD) is that it is easy to slip into debates about high-profile symptoms, like pursuits, and completely miss the things that cause some of the symptomatic poor performance from the City and OPD. For example, look at Special Order 9212 (the one that restricts police from going over 50 mph in pursuits absent express permission from a command officer). Why did then-Chief Armstrong institute this policy? Poor incentives. He was under pressure from one of the plaintiff's attorneys in the Riders lawsuit, and hoped to escape the NSA by simply acceding to their every wish. Pursuits were a very sensitive topic at the time, due to the tragically poor performance of two officers whose actions during an unauthorized pursuit included abandoning the scene of a collision after said pursuit where a bystander lost his life. The Chief hoped for a quick resolution, made a change to policy that was rash and rather unconsidered, and here we are.
That cycle - see symptomatic issue (often brought up from one corner of the commentariat or interested activist group milieu), make a knee-jerk decision that has far reaching impacts on community, police staff, morale, and organizational effectiveness, shrug, and repeat - has been the status quo at OPD, and by extension the City of Oakland, for at least 10 years. The City and OPD do not have a pursuit problem; they have a management problem. Until they fix that, tinkering around the edges will not fix any of this.
The residents of Oakland (to include the activists operating in the City Ciuncil and especially the City Attorney's Office) do not care about the residents in the City. They care only about their virtue signaling activism. They will gaslight the residents (many of which also place their virtue signaling above reality) into believing more hugs and fewer arrests will result in a utopia in Oakland. At the end of the day they only empower the criminal element that terrorizes the residents, businesses, and countless tourists passing through.
How many people need to be victimized, businesses destroyed, and treasure lost before the commission is disbanded or power reined in?
I'm surprised you haven't been negged to death by the mob. Every single word you expressed is the unvarnished truth. "Progressives," in the most extreme definition, are more interested in virtue signaling and canceling opposing views than actually working for a solution. Oakland's politicians are more intent on creating "Oceania'" than a vibrant community
Thank you for once again for "pulling back the curtin", a bit, on yet another confounding Oakland issue.
This article fills in the gaps, with data and references, for the limited sound bite reports on local news, and hopefully provides focus for the public to make change.
The residents of Oakland, deserve much better from public officials
I oppose pursuit…”shoot on site” is more economical.
I wonder if these members actually live in Oakland... Arent they aware of the damages that residents and businesses have suffered due to their policies?
Time and again, we've had people with influence that prioritized their political alliances and ideology over common sense backed solutions and approaches at the expense of Oakland commerce and general public safety. It is their policies that have transformed Oakland into an amusement park for criminals.
Moreover, these members appear to NOT have taken the losses, damages, financial pitfalls, and trauma suffered by residents and businesses into account.
An amazing report. We all need to attend the Police Commission meetings and stop waiting for others to do something. Do it Now ….. or continue to wring your hands.
Rajni, you want a “safer” city. What does that mean to you? Is the city safer if police are allowed to chase burglary suspects after they have already smashed a stolen car into a Lucky? Or is it actually safer to just put up a barricade to prevent the smash and grab in the first place? What if the chase results in the death of innocent shoppers as the suspect flees, crashing onto a crowded Montclair sidewalk on a Saturday afternoon?
I’m curious if you’ve ever been walking down a street when a police chase happens. I have. The chases are terrifying. I’ve had to run to avoid getting hit by a suspect’s car. I’ve seen suspect’s cars careen off the sides of hills on 580. And after they crash, the suspects abandon their cars, and take off running through my flatland neighborhood. I’ve had a swat team bang on my door at midnight to ask for access to my backyard. They all had automatic rifles at the ready as they marched through my living room. Did they catch their perp? Nope. There used to be so many police chases in my neighborhood that I have the police helicopter “we are releasing the dog on you” announcement memorized.
None of the above makes me feel safer in Oakland. I agree that perhaps the car chase policy should be widened to include chasing suspects using a car as a weapon against property (a fairly violent act), but I’m not signing off on police chases through my neighborhood so Montclair can be free of shoplifters.
What we really should do is modify Section 230 of the Communications Act to hold eBay, Amazon, Facebook, Instagram, Craigslist, etc liable for any postings of stolen products. That would shut down the organized burglaries, robberies and shoplifting without people getting run over.
BTW:
https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2024/police-pursuits-race-deaths/
Racial disparity studies like to exclude important facts.
In Oakland, the vast majority of violent crime is committed by Black criminals, who are not the majority demographic in Oakland. The majority of murder victims in Oakland are from the Black community and are victimized most frequently by the Black criminals who represent an even smaller percentage of the Black community overall.
Also, I don't think anyone, including Newsom, is suggesting a return to pursuits with out guardrails.
Disparity is a useless data point without applying local context.
There is a vibrant black market in Oakland that is not facilitated by Amazon, Craig's List, eBay, etc... For example, stolen cartons of cigarettes and cases of liquor.
Look at neighboring cities of Oakland and it is obvious that criminals favor Oakland because it is essentially an amusement park for them. The reasons are obvious but committees and commissions stand in the way of implementing common sense solutions and modifications.
I’m ok with the cops not car chasing people stealing cigarettes and liquor. We could stand to have a few liquor stores go out of business anyway
Attitudes like this are quickly guaranteeing that Oakland will continue its descent into a failed city, where the only safety lies in barricaded compounds protected by armed private guards. If there’s anyone left around to care…
as reported in the article, Oaklands pursuit policy is an outlyer in ca, and possibly the usa.
No one wants see innocent folks hurt in a chase,.
But
Most people don't think its acceptable for police to standby by and not pursue when robberies, burn outs, break ins etc happen right in front of them, either.
There has to be a middle ground on the persuit rules
Cops having to evaluate 19 risk factors, and calling in for permission in the middle of a crime, just doesn't seem reasonable, practical, or even possible in a real world situation
“But.” So it’s ok with you if I live in a police war zone down here in the flats because you have an expectation?
I think it is reasonable for cops to evaluate 19 factors. We all evaluate multiple variables daily when making decisions. We pay OPD officers a crazy amount of money. They can handle 19 factors. What isn’t reasonable is people’s expectations for OPD to just “do something.” Sometimes doing nothing is better.
Did you read the SF Chronicle article I linked to? Is is acceptable for Black people to die because people in the hills have an expectation that their police force will do something? That sounds so unreasonable I can hardly say it. Read the book The Riders Come Out At Night about the history of OPDs oppression of Black and Brown communities in Oakland.
No, it's not acceptable. It's not acceptable for people in the hills to die, either, or for mailbox theft to be so prevalent that practically every mailbox now is a vault--every time I use that mailbox vault I'm reminded that my neighborhood isn't safe.
Anyway, not the deaths aren't acceptable, but it's not the lawful citizens of Oakland that are responsible. It's the crooks and thugs. And they need to stop using our homes and shops as their playground.
To what extent can surveillance drones be the hack that makes everybody happy?