Frequent cuts to the number of police in recent years have adversely impacted Oakland’s ability to take advantage of a major benefit to policing—deterring crime from occurring in the first place.
Tim: Thank you for the Oakland Report, the only source of trustworthy reporting in the East Bay. Hopefully your reporting will lead to election results that help get rid of the politicians that are ruining our city.
Great well-written article. Would be nice if it could reach a wider audience. TV news? Post on X or FB or wherever possible. I guess no point in sending to our current council members, but maybe to all candidates?
When I read an article like this, it confirmed that common sense and objective reasoning about crime no longer exist in Oakland. Just a vast network of virtue signaling coupled with delusional thinking. It hurts to pile on but Oakland is not a safe place to live anymore.
It is sad (very) but true. Oakland was on a good trajectory post-Jerry Brown, but the subsequent and current crop of progressively-worse delusional radicals has succeeded in materially destroying what should be an excellent and improving city. Instead, it is in the toilet and swirling further down.
Somehow, the Oakland electorate needs to recognize that the policies espoused by these people are just very bad ideas.
Your eyes are truthful. Those (mayor, city council and their sycophants) that provided you with Oakland's Re-Imagined Policing should be charged with willful negligence and convicted. How many jobs have been lost, how much property damage, how many lives lost, how much tax has been lost by stupid people doing stupid things with the public trust? No resignations and no dismissals tell you that incompetency trumps rational thinking. It is here to stay and is protected by those in power.
Before the pandemic we had 749 officers. In 2021 the “reimagine policing” task force that did not include a single police officer, recommended defunding the police by 50%. They also created a public safety playbook that pitted the community against the police that Oakland struggles with to this day.
I appreciate your detailed reporting, but I think it’s an important detail to note the serious challenges plaguing OPD well before 2015, including federal oversight since 2003 as a result of the Riders case, when OPD officers were exposed for beating and framing Black Oakland residents. While the city hasn’t come off of federal oversight, the oversight also has seemed to be completely ineffective, considering the sad state of crime in Oakland today AND the horrific misdeeds that continue to become public, like the 11 officers who faced disciplinary action in 2016 for the statutory rape of a minor. There have been serious issues in OPD for decades.
Thank you for this well researched article. I will do my best to convince my neighbors to read this because it will turn their beliefs upside-down (many of them believed that Europe has less police but they are incorrect).
They believed that Europe has fewer police because that is part of the false narrative propagated by the “progressives” to justify their destructive policies.
Tim: Thank you for the Oakland Report, the only source of trustworthy reporting in the East Bay. Hopefully your reporting will lead to election results that help get rid of the politicians that are ruining our city.
I couldnt agree with you more. Please, let more Oaklanders vote smarter this November.
I really hope to never see the likes of Nikki Bas and Rebecca Kaplan in Oakland city government again.
Great well-written article. Would be nice if it could reach a wider audience. TV news? Post on X or FB or wherever possible. I guess no point in sending to our current council members, but maybe to all candidates?
When I read an article like this, it confirmed that common sense and objective reasoning about crime no longer exist in Oakland. Just a vast network of virtue signaling coupled with delusional thinking. It hurts to pile on but Oakland is not a safe place to live anymore.
It is sad (very) but true. Oakland was on a good trajectory post-Jerry Brown, but the subsequent and current crop of progressively-worse delusional radicals has succeeded in materially destroying what should be an excellent and improving city. Instead, it is in the toilet and swirling further down.
Somehow, the Oakland electorate needs to recognize that the policies espoused by these people are just very bad ideas.
This is great. just a couple of typos need to be fixed. keep it up!
Thx. I think we fixed them. If not, let us know!
Your eyes are truthful. Those (mayor, city council and their sycophants) that provided you with Oakland's Re-Imagined Policing should be charged with willful negligence and convicted. How many jobs have been lost, how much property damage, how many lives lost, how much tax has been lost by stupid people doing stupid things with the public trust? No resignations and no dismissals tell you that incompetency trumps rational thinking. It is here to stay and is protected by those in power.
Before the pandemic we had 749 officers. In 2021 the “reimagine policing” task force that did not include a single police officer, recommended defunding the police by 50%. They also created a public safety playbook that pitted the community against the police that Oakland struggles with to this day.
I appreciate your detailed reporting, but I think it’s an important detail to note the serious challenges plaguing OPD well before 2015, including federal oversight since 2003 as a result of the Riders case, when OPD officers were exposed for beating and framing Black Oakland residents. While the city hasn’t come off of federal oversight, the oversight also has seemed to be completely ineffective, considering the sad state of crime in Oakland today AND the horrific misdeeds that continue to become public, like the 11 officers who faced disciplinary action in 2016 for the statutory rape of a minor. There have been serious issues in OPD for decades.
Thank you for this well researched article. I will do my best to convince my neighbors to read this because it will turn their beliefs upside-down (many of them believed that Europe has less police but they are incorrect).
They believed that Europe has fewer police because that is part of the false narrative propagated by the “progressives” to justify their destructive policies.