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Cafe Employee Beaten: How Councilmember Reports
On Tuesday, April 10 after the World Ground Cafe on MacArthur Boulevard between 35th Avenue and High Street was cleaned up for the night, employee Connor left around 10:30 p.m. He got no further than the next storefront before a pack of thugs attacked and robbed him. They put a gun to this head, and their assault broke his nose.
The owners of World Ground know these attacks happen with increasing frequency in the Laurel district. As a result, they announced that World Ground will now have to close no later than 6 p.m. (See leaflet.)
Councilmember Quan felt the need to "report" the robbery to the community. Here is the item from her newsletter #224, published April 14:
"Evening Robberies Along MacArthur: A few weeks ago we reminded evening shoppers to be careful when they drove home, noticing a pattern of robbers following single shoppers home and approaching them just as they left their cars with hands full. We see a similar pattern of patrons leaving MacArthur businesses in the evening being approached as they walk to darker, side streets to their cars. This week a World Grounds [sic] worker was robbed as he went to his car. The Laurel Merchants have hired a private patrol agency for the evenings and there will be extra police patrols in the area. We encourage neighbors to park on MacArthur whenever possible in the evening, always be alert about your surroundings and whether you are being followed, and walk with friends or in groups when parked on side streets."
Students of marketing and communications, study councilmember Quan's insidious report closely. It is a model of distortion.
- Quan suppresses the fact that this was no mere robbery, but a violent assault, not by one man but by a pack of at least three thugs.
- Quan dwells on side streets, advising people to get up a group before going on them. Connor was attacked right on MacArthur, before he had walked more than a storefront down the boulevard.
- Quan talks about "extra police patrols," giving no specifics. She evades the basic fact about public safety in Oakland: we have only half a police department. The council has kept the department understaffed for years and refuses to commit to the minimum 1,100 officers we need.
- Quan's tiresome repetition of well-known boilerplate safety tips serves two purposes. It subtly tells readers that they individually must cope with the lack of public safety. Quan also cultivates the assumption that we – residents and public officials – are all grappling with crime. That is not true. Look at where the council spends money. It is clear that in deeds, not words, the council has little regard for public safety. The dollars go to Chabot observatory, more staff for the council, and a social agency that promotes the culture of sideshows, anything but a sufficient number of police.
Councilmember Quan's report relies on the readers' lack of knowledge about the incident. A week after the brutal robbery she dropped a truly fantastic set of remarks on a meeting of a nearby Neighborhood Crime Prevention Council, where some members knew the story.
First, Quan suggested that robberies along MacArthur are up because the City has been so good at cracking down on drug dealing that the criminals have simply turned to robberies!
Then Quan described with enthusiasm her ace-in-the-sleeve tactic to reduce robberies: send teams out who will talk to loitering youth along MacArthur and ask them what they would like to see at the Allendale Recreation Center. You read right, dear reader. Pretend that offering a game of hoops or whatever can change the ways of low lifes who held a gun to Connor's head and broke his nose. And if that worked by some miracle, do we really want those thugs mixing it up with the peaceable patrons of the recreation center?
This is the quality of leadership on the Oakland city council.
Oakland suffered 3,150 armed and strongarm robberies last year, nearly 600 more than in 2005, an increase of 29 percent. That's more than eight attacks a day like the one that traumatized World Ground's Connor. The only difference here is that World Ground is fed up, is speaking out, and the councilmember decided she had to engage in damage control.
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| World Ground Cafe in daytime |
Nor did councilmember Quan mention to readers that World Ground Cafe is part of the Laurel shopping district along MacArthur Boulevard from High Street to 35th Avenue. At the High Street end, Quan is pushing a zone-busting five-story 115-apartment monolith for senior citizens. The Laurel merchants and area residents oppose the project, but Quan is in league with landowner Alex Hahn and developer AMG & Associates to tear up the zoning law and push the deal through.
Most likely the senior housing proposal will wind up asking for a City subsidy. Meanwhile, the police department remains understaffed, and Laurel shops have to reduce their hours of business.
– April 16, 2007; revised April 18
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