Council Queen to Dimond Residents:
You're Imagining Crime

"Dear Lt. Breshears,

"My husband and his mother were held up at gun point earlier this week, in front of our home. We have never had this type of crime on our block. We are also having a huge increase in other crime in our neighborhood. ... Nuisance activity in Dimond Park and in housing complexes in our community has also increased."

So begins a letter by Dimond resident Ann Nomura. The Oakland Tribune also reports:

"Two Dimond district residents were robbed at gunpoint last week and another had her car stolen even though it was locked and parked under a street lamp in front of her home.

"In the same week, almost 100 windows of cars parked in the district were shot out during a vandalism spree that ended in the arrests of three men.

"All these and other crimes happened in the neighborhood off Interstate 580 and Fruitvale Avenue.

"Some residents are calling the recent rash of lawlessness in the Dimond a crime wave and are blanketing the area with fliers." (Tribune, July 20, 2005)

How did the district's councilmember Jean Quan respond? "It doesn't appear to be a crime wave statistically. I just think awareness is up." She added, according to the Tribune report, that what the Dimond is experiencing is hardly out-of-control crime.

Remember the robbery wave around Lake Merritt just a month ago. In addition, the Allendale district among others experienced a wave of home burglaries starting a year and a half ago. Car breakins are rampant all across east Oakland. Now it's Dimond's turn, and Quan sees no problem.

The Dimond's police lieutenant, Eric Breshears, knows the basic problem. Fruitvale Avenue lost its walking officer Frank Morrow last year, but Breshears cannot replace him. Lt. Breshears told the Tribune that the Police Department is understaffed, and priority goes to areas with higher crime rates.

OPD has too few officers. It also has too few dispatchers. The City deliberately left eight positions unfilled. If crime statistics show no problem, maybe it is because people do not wait 20 minutes for a dispatcher to take their call, knowing that an officer will not show up in time. Hence, no crime statistic; just another crime.

Councilmember Quan is hosting a race to the bottom among parts of the City. In general, says Quan, "police may be a priority, but not for more money." That's what she said at a budget hearing last November.

Oakland needs 1,100 police officers. The council is collecting the Measure Y taxes but is not even delivering the 802 officers obligated for that money.

These numbers have consequences. "Three weeks ago, Shari Godinez's children's clothing store, Making Ends Meet, was broken into overnight. The store's window was smashed, and money was stolen. It took officers more than five hours to respond to the business and make a report, she said. Godinez, a business owner in the Dimond for nearly a decade, closed her Cool Spot ice cream shop last year after being robbed a number of times." (Tribune, July 20, 2005)

Quan's response? Neighbors are doing all the right things, she told the Tribune, by alerting one another about recent crime in the neighborhood through fliers and Web groups.

Actually, that is not true. Quan and her supporters are angry because the victims have not stayed quiet.

City Tells Community Meeting: No Walking Officer

Excerpts from the Montclarion, Aug. 09, 2005:

Without a walking police officer for more than a year and a half, residents and merchants in the Dimond neighborhood demanded answers from Oakland officials at a neighborhood public safety meeting.

The responses weren't what they wanted to hear.

City Council member Jean Quan said ... with the lack of officers citywide, the Police Department must focus on staffing regular beat officers, who respond to emergencies, rather than walk the streets or solve problems that a walking or problem officer would do. (An astounding remark from someone who sold Measure Y on the benefits of the community policing model.)

Of the 35 walking positions in Oakland, [police chief Wayne] Tucker said he may keep only four or five.

"Panhandling and the homeless and begging are facts of life in an urban area," Tucker said. (However, residents and merchants documented robberies, burglaries and other crimes.)

Quan's office suggested Dimond become a business improvement district and pay for their own private security, street cleaning and business promotion.

"The police cannot do it," said Claudia Jimenez, from Quan's office. "You really need the community to work together."

Resident to Councilmember:
Leadership, Not Light Bulbs

Three letters demanding public safety in the Dimond area appeared in the Montclarion, Aug. 12, 2005. Here is an excerpt from one of them.

My neighbor, a 250-pound man with a German shepherd in his yard and a house directly under a street light, was robbed at gunpoint; ...several neighbors were stoned by a group of teenagers...

At our neighborhood "Night Out" our councilperson, Jean Quan, came and gave us free light bulbs. She didn't seek out crime victims; she gave no apologies or condolences to a community which was obviously shaken by recent events. I am not an expert on crime in Oakland, I am just another crime victim, but I think what we need from Jean Quan's office is leadership not light bulbs.

Beth Marx, Oakland

Another Dimond Resident to Officials:
You Don't Live Here

When Police Chief Wayne Tucker came to my neighborhood (the Dimond), he told neighbors and merchants "panhandling and homeless people were a fact of urban life that we would have to get used to."

I doubt that these are the "realities of urban life" for Chief Tucker, who lives in Pleasanton, or for Councilwoman Jean Quan, who lives in Montclair. Nor do I feel they should be acceptable to any neighborhood in Oakland.

Ann Nomura, Oakland
Letter in The Montclarion, Sept. 9, 2005 (excerpts)
 

Dimond Thugs Know They Have a Free Hand

The street thugs are roaming for victims, knowing that they will not run into a walking officer. As columnist Ginny Prior reports:

"One reader told me she was almost carjacked at MacArthur and Coolidge the other evening. She was waiting at a stop light when a group of boys ran up to her car yelling, 'You're in East Oakland now!' One tried to open her door and she reacted by stepping on the gas and screeching through the intersection." (Montclarion, Oct. 14, 2005)

The lack of public safety in the Dimond district is increasingly obvious. This poses a problem for councilmember Jean Quan, who rammed through a senior housing project being built at MacArthur and Lincoln Blvd. Quan's developer friend Meea Kang got a giveaway contract from the City, including huge profit and a loan that requires no payments for the first 14 years. But seniors might not want to live around so much street crime.

The Montclarion is a newspaper of the Oakland hills, so columnist Prior also reports:

"A woman had her purse snatched in the Montclair Safeway parking lot at 2:30 in the afternoon, recently. The thug shoved her to the ground before jumping in his car and driving away."

The basic problem is that Oakland has half a police department. Measure Y was supposed to be the first step toward a remedy, but councilmember Quan and the City in general have told Oakland residents, you will not get the 802 police promised with Measure Y for years to come. Nonetheless, the council illegally put the new parcel tax on your property bill.

Dimond Merchant Speaks Out

Merchants agreed for the need of walking police officers.

"For years, we have asked for an officer, or one that patrols on a regular basis," said David Macon, who owns Sudear's Flowers in the MacArthur Boulevard district. "The area has cars in caravan, speeding up and down the street, profiling and swerving from lane to lane, and motorcycles with the mufflers removed and radios blasting."

Councilmember Drags Measure Y Flimflam
Into the Issue

Six months after the initial outrage peaked, councilmember Quan disclosed the City's new arrangement of walking officers:

"Because of the current shortage of officers and a high number of officers on disability, most commercial areas will share walking officers until the new police officer academies fill most of the vacant and new Measure Y positions. According to our sources in the police department Montclair and Piedmont Avenue will share an officer and Dimond and Laurel will share an officer." (Jean Quan newsletter, Dec. 16, 2005)

In other words, a walking officer will drive back and forth between at least two commercial districts during his or her shift. How long will this go on? Ms. Quan says until the City fill most of the vacant positions in the department as well as the 63 additional officers required by Measure Y. Well, that's over 110 officers, the gap between the current number employed and the 802 required in total by Measure Y. Furthermore, the City has not been closing the gap; instead, it has been widening. The number of employed police officers has fallen almost four dozen since the council wrote Measure Y in July 2004. In other words, the makeshift arrangement will go on for two years or forever, depending on how long the council can get away with dodging the anger of Oaklanders who see crime on the street and duplicity at City Hall.

A community activist had this to say: "There isn't a lot that everybody seems to agree on when it comes to community issues," said Ken Katz, a Lakeshore neighborhood resident and leader of the Splashpad Park committee. "But everyone agrees walking officers are incredibly effective. They really do make an impact on crime." (Oakland Tribune, Jan. 4, 2006)

In response, police Lt. Berlin tried to be optimistic: The police department will have 18 more officers on the streets starting mid-January after a new crop of rookies finishes training. There will be 30 new officers in March [2006].

The current "crop of 18 rookies" is down from a police academy that started with 34 candidates. Also, the relentless outflow of retirements and resignations offsets the few new officers. Decimation of the police department is not the police department's fault, of course. The responsibility lies with the city councilmembers. Their hiring freeze and dirty tricks with Measure Y have brought Oakland's police department to well under half the size it would be in most other major cities.

Seniors Won't Go Out to Shop

A letter by K. D. Sullivan says she another senior woman "avoid shopping near home in the Fruitvale district because we fear attack or robbery. Many of the miscreants don't come into Fruitvale. They already live here. Close by, too."

Sullivan adds, "A nearby neighbor drives me out of the area for our grocery shopping. Two senior women are small potatoes, but multiplied by hundreds we're a big bite out of the merchants' pockets." (Oakland Tribune, Jan. 11, 2006)

While councilmember Jean Quan has pushed through the Lincoln Court senior housing project, currently under construction, she and the rest of the council have let the Oakland police department shrink. This disconnect will come home to roost when Lincoln Court residents discover that they live in the middle of a free-crime zone.

No Real Dimond Walking Officer After All

From a letter to the Montclarion:

The Dimond district has experienced an alarming increase in violent crime. We have had numerous armed robberies and two murders. An assailant held up a woman working in a local children's store at knifepoint in front of her four-year-old child, other businesses have been looted; still others plan to leave the neighborhood. An assailant robbed and beat a woman near her car with her two young children watching and another woman was assaulted and robbed on a Sunday morning near her church.

Neighbors have patiently explained to the police and Vice Mayor Jean Quan that violent crime tends to happen in and around the business district and that a "walking officer" in that area provides an incredibly effective deterrent to just these types of incidents. Most of this crime happened in the commercial corridor or within a few blocks of it.

The Oakland police received great press when they restored walking officer services after similar incidents created outrage and anger last year. In reality, the "walking officer" the Dimond is supposed to "share" with the Laurel has been assigned to four neighborhoods and he has no time to "walk" in any of them.

Walking officers work because they know neighbors and a community, they establish a presence and develop relationships. The failure of the Oakland Police Department to provide this essential service is costing the Dimond neighborhood business, personal safety and now a child's life (a 16-year-old was killed). The Dimond neighborhood could be a model for effective community policing; instead we have become the victims of crime, mismanagement and misinformation from our police department and elected officials.

Amazing Indifference

Excerpted from a letter to East Bay Express:

Muggings have been happening there for two years. There are four ATMs located on that corner (Fruitvale and MacArthur) – WAMU, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citibank. I was robbed there on October 24, 2006, hit in the head with a lead pipe and robbed, and left unconscious in the street.

I notified Jean Quan and her chief of staff, Richard Cowan, that we had a serious problem. I posted on the listserv of the Dimond Improvement Association, and over a year later, nothing has changed, except the robberies are more blatant and occurring earlier in the evening, as soon as the armed guard at the Bank of America is off for the night, during the week at 5 p.m. I've never dealt with a more indifferent and ineffectual pair in my life. Jean Quan and Richard Cowan will only amaze you with their degree of indifference and lack of ability to address even the simplest problem.