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Oakland Thugs Boast for YouTube Video
More than half a dozen thugs boast about their ways in a video posted on YouTube. They are proud to be be pimps and drug dealers.
They show off concealed weapons. They mock a man they suspect is an undercover officer trying to buy drugs. They display their sideshow moves.
The video is said to have been shot in an area of east Oakland called Greenside. Every large city has such places. But Oakland is different. The thugs spread their disruption and damage throughout the city.
These thugs shoot at anyone on any street. They, their customers, and wannabes assault and rob people and small businesses in Glenview, Dimond, Maxwell Park, Laurel, Lakeshore, Adams Point, west Oakland and other neighborhoods. All over Oakland they steal cars, steal parts off vehicles, and vandalize cars for the sheer heck of it. They stage sideshows and blast "boom car" stereos into the homes of thousands of residents trying to have a peaceful evening.
See the 10-minute video
The thugs dominate Oakland streets for two reasons. First, Oakland has only half a police department. There are simply not enough officers patrolling the streets, not enough police responding to calls for help, and not enough investigators apprehending the criminals – who know they have little risk of being caught in Oakland.
City Hall maintains only half a police department as a matter of policy. The city council froze police hiring for nearly three years earlier in the decade. Then the council sold Measure Y taxes on the phony promise of adding more police officers. Oakland has fewer officers today than when Measure Y passed in 2004, and official policy is to stop if and when the City gets to 802 police, even though we need at least 1,100 officers for this city of 400,000 residents. Meanwhile, Measure Y money frees up other tax revenues that is used to add bureaucratic staff for the council and the mayor.
The second reason for the oppressive citywide presence of thuggery is that officials spend as much effort encouraging thug culture as they do dealing with its consequences. The city council handed out a five-year grant of $1.5 million to a social agency, Youth UpRising, that welcomed pimp rapper Too Short to its youth center. Youth UpRising helped place youth members in rapper E-40's music video glorifying sideshows and provided youth for a photo shoot celebrating sideshows. Councilmembers exercise no supervision over this out-of-control agency.
That's why a full police department and an end to the official policy of making concessions to the culture of disrespect are the first two points of ORPN's six-point program for peaceful neighborhoods and clean government.
– May 22, 2007
Reader's Comment
Unfortunately, the 13-year-olds we keep reading about are trying to emulate these guys, whether it's a real video or not.
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