With Police Understaffed, Black Muslims Take Down Two Liquor Stores

A dozen Black men broke bottles of liquor and smashed cooler doors at the San Pablo Liquor store. Then they filed out, went to the New York Market and did the same thing. The disciplined squad, dressed in crisp white shirts and black suits and ties, told the store owners to stop selling alcohol to African-Americans.

Newspaper reports said nothing about a police response at the time of the Nov. 23 incidents. Commanders at the police department, which the city council has left seriously understaffed, know the situation is volatile.

(photo, Oakland Tribune, Nov. 25, 2005)

"We're not going to tell the store owners to arm themselves, but if it happens, it's a big concern," said deputy chief Howard Jordan. "We could have victims all over Oakland." (Oakland Tribune, Nov. 25, 2005)

The police department said it will step up patrols around the area of the two stores. On Monday, Nov. 28, two patrol cars sat outside San Pablo Liquor – in a city that has 38 patrol officers on the street at any one time. This response is the same desperate measure the department had for late-night sideshows: divert officers for special attention to the latest problem.

Furthermore, the liquor store incidents occurred in the middle of an approximately two-month-long period when Crime Reduction Teams (CRTs) are being directed to locales of high violence. Consequently, problem-solving officers normally assigned to various neighborhoods have been withdrawn. Instead of working persistently on a few problems until results are achieved, the PSOs join the CRTs, rotating to last-minute assignments received daily from a central command center.

Once again, thousands of residents across Oakland are being deprived of simple peace and quiet because there are no police available. In the Dimond district, the Fruitvale, Adams Point, north Oakland, Allendale, Maxwell Park, even Montclair, street dealers, boom cars, pimps, and violent robbers make life miserable and dangerous for everyone, simply because there is not enough police presence.

Headquarters of Yemenie American Grocers Association of California, Sacramento St., Berkeley

Too many liquor store owners take the path of least resistance, welcoming drug dealers, pimps and the crowd around them. The notorious Al's Market fought the City's lawyers tooth and nail rather than uniting with neighbors and the City to oust the thugs swarming through the market. Indeed, owners Ali M. Aboudi, A. Mohamed Saleh and Hamdan Alaoudi even sued the City for $1 million, on the ground that telling the truth about the drug crowd was defamation. In this approach, the owners were assisted by the Yemenie American Grocers association. These liquor store owners act as one, and their choices have been all wrong.

One of the two stores, the New York Market, was in the process of changing its range of merchandise. Fresh produce? Baked goods? No, Musa Saleh had filed an application on Oct. 17 to sell hard liquor – just what an Oakland flatlands neighborhood needs, another vodka outlet.

Within five days of the incident, President Mohamed Saleh Mohamed of the Yeminie Grocers complained publicly, "It's frustrating that it's taking so long to get the folks caught on videotape apprehended." The next day he added, "The police have not been doing their jobs. They should have made arrests days ago." (Oakland Post, Nov. 30, 2005) After police made the first two arrests, Saleh was grudging in his praise: "It shows a little progress, but we still don't know what's next." On the other hand, when police approach a store owner about working together against the drug crowd, the owner typically refuses.

By Jan. 2, 2006, police had arrested six men, all connected with the Your Black Muslim Bakery organization, including the son of founder Yusuf Bey. (There is no connection between the bakery group and national Black Muslim organizations.) The suspects were charged with felony vandalism and false imprisonment, with hate crime enhancement. One 19-year-old was arrested when caught speeding in a silver Jaguar. Another was caught on a warrant check after caught speeding and driving without a front license plate in Fresno. The attacking squads were made up of between ten and eleven men.

Why did the squads target liquor but not drugs? Do the squads think they will significantly reduce the number of stores that sell liquor?

Or were these attacks paving the way for a protection racket: Mr. Liquor Store Owner, sign up with our security service and your store will be safe? It certainly seems that way. Five nights later one of the two stores was burned out. Arson is suspected.

Despite a wave of violence in general, despite these attacks on liquor stores in particular, despite the swelling presence of thuggery across Oakland, the city council persists in its years-long policy of running the police department into the ground. The number of employed police officers, instead of increasing in the past year, dropped several dozen to below 700. A year ago the council lifted its police hiring freeze, but you would never know it.

Valuing publicity instead of results, the City started issuing monthly reports on the alleged progress of Measure Y, the tax package sold to voters in Nov. 2004 with a commitment to 802 officers. Now city officials openly defy the staffing requirement. However, the City's website dedicated to boasting about Measure Y activity has been silent for November. What's going on?

Council member Nancy Nadel, whose district includes the two markets, "acknowledged that the Police Department was understaffed but said city officials wanted to help." (San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 29) Council president De La Fuente had nothing to say about the hundreds of police that Oakland needs to restore its department, instead focusing on half a dozen City lawyers who sue problem businesses. What hypocrisy! Nadel, De La Fuente, Quan and others sat on the council for years; they reduced police staffing. If council members want to help, all they have to do is obey the law they wrote, Measure Y.

To be sure, the city council is busy handing out Measure Y grants to social agencies that make political alliances with one or another council member.

Mayoral candidate Ron Dellums has been silent on the liquor store events.

When someone smashes a shelf of liquor bottles, the violence is dramatic. When city councilmembers refuse to staff the police department, that is a crime, too, an ongoing crime bigger than one incident, a crime whose victims are not one or two liquor peddlers but tens of thousands of peaceful Oakland residents.

These are some of the daily newspapers that covered the story, in addition to dozens of television stations not listed here.