Police unable to protect City employees

Father Attacks Rec Center Director

Despite advance notice, police were unable to respond in time to stop a brutal attack on the director of the Allendale Recreation Center.

On Nov. 14, 2006 around 5:30 p.m. director Michael Foster spoke to a girl using an office computer to look at MySpace.com. He asked her, per the rules, to move over to the computer room for youth. The 16-year-old cursed loudly at Foster. He asked her to leave the center. She shoved him, vowing to return.

Foster called the police. They did not arrive for 14 to 20 minutes, according to police records and witness reports. The girl returned with her stepfather, mother, and younger sister. The stepfather attacked Foster with a pipe wrench. He fell to the floor. The family beat Foster with an office chair, which they destroyed in the process, and other implements.

Scene of attack; police unable to respond in time

No other adult staff were on duty. Youth aides and patrons of the center watched in shock, some calling 9-1-1. Police finally arrived five minutes after the attack began. Foster suffered a concussion and a contusion on his thigh. He required 22 stitches to five cuts in his head.

Foster is a skilled professional who has many years experience working with youth. The most shocking aspect of this incident is that, with no security guard on duty, with no other adult staff on duty, the police could not respond to his call for 20 minutes, when it was too late.

This incident sends a message to all the children who use the Allendale Recreation Center as well as their friends: the City cannot run a safe center.

In the past we have heard from "ordinary" residents who have called the police department when violence seemed imminent. Dispatchers have asked, has anyone hit anyone, showed a weapon, etc.? If the answer is no, the dispatcher in effect replies, call us after there is violence. Now it seems City employees operating City facilities for youth are in the same situation.

That is what happens when the city council maintains no more than half a police department. When you need help, police are not available.

In particular, the city council has shrunk the Park Ranger unit down to a current three officers employed, attempting to patrol all City parks and their recreation centers. The unit once had 20 officers. With Park Rangers on their motorbikes patrolling parks throughout the City, one of them could have gotten to the Center within 20 minutes of the director's call for help and been on the scene when the stepfather and family arrived.

Three days after the incident, councilmember Quan's weekly newsletter #204 said, "We are looking at staffing patterns and ranger deployment to provide better staff support." Councilmember Quan shares responsibility for the council's most recent cut of budgeted Park Ranger positions from ten to eight. Furthermore, the City has let vacancies swell to five without replacing them; the scheme appears to be to kill the entire unit by attrition. In this context, talk of "ranger deployment" is virtually meaningless.

The Allendale Neighborhood Crime Prevention Council discussed the incident at a meeting that was already scheduled for the following evening. Councilmember Quan's aide tried to say that the City is trying to recruit officers, that other cities are having problems recruiting, blah blah blah. The fact is that while the city council expanded overall City hiring for ten years, we have the same number of police officers. The city council imposed a hiring freeze on the police department until the council convinced voters to pass Measure Y taxes in 2004.

Oakland needs at least 1,100 police officers. Until the city council commits to this goal and lays out a solid plan, potential hirees will continue to avoid understaffed Oakland, and the trickle of new recruits will barely make up for a steady stream of resignations and retirements from the police force.

Police Call Record Confirms Inability to Respond

A City employee gives the police record of calls for the attack on Michael Foster as the following:

6:15 pm - Call noted for "juvenile disturbance"
6:23 pm - Call changes incident to assault with deadly weapon
6:24 pm - Two units dispatched
6:29 pm - First unit arrives on scene

This record confirms the problem: the police department is so understaffed that dispatchers had to give low priority to the first call, when the director of a City recreation center advised he needed police presence. The girl had stated that she would return with reinforcements.

Incredibly, in an email the director of Parks and Recreation takes this record as saying that response time was five minutes. Presumably, she starts the clock at 6:23 or 6:24 – the vital first call simply does not count. Only after the attack began did the police department move into action. According to the above record, response was clearly 14 minutes (although not 20 minutes) after the first call. The policy of down-prioritizing calls before violence happens led to disaster. That policy is a consequence of police understaffing.

Attackers Get Sentences

Almost exactly one year later, the attackers entered pleas to the court and accepted sentences. The father, Marcus Moore, gets three years in state prison. Yamisha Martin gets 16 months, as well as a stayed sentence in a separate case of identity theft. The two girls are living with friends.