On Tuesday, Emergency; On Friday, All Is Well

By Jim Forsyth

Mayor Brown along with two councilmembers running for mayor and several others seeking re-election to the council can see their election hopes inexorably sliding into the gaping maw of Oakland's lawless streets. If this crime wave can't be quickly whisked off the front pages and the TV screens, many of the politicians could be voted off the island come June or November.

The problem for Joe and Jill Resident is that the political implications have limited the solution arc to dramatic moves that promise a quick decrease in crime, diverting the media to the pursuit of more exciting fare.

Two basic plans were floated. One was to expand recruiting efforts to jump the City ahead of its hiring treadmill, which is barely producing enough police to offset officer retirements. But which direction do you think resignations will take after a radical change in officers' working hours is implemented?

The other plan is to deploy officers in more effective ways and increase street manpower during peak crime hours. Councilmembers' desperation was obvious when they seriously considered voting a state of emergency in order to club the police union into agreement on the chief's redeployment plan. For a council that regularly drags out Wal-Mart as a poster boy for union-busting tactics, this was tantamount to heresy. So that was one reason for hesitation to declare an emergency.

The other reason for hesitation was that City Hall realized a declaration of emergency would hurt Oakland's "image." Of course, no responsible official would sacrifice real public safety merely for image.

Police chief Tucker ultimately got a redeployment. The City and the Oakland Police Officers' Association have reached an agreement. Details are too sketchy for analysis. Suffice it to say that even this small, temporary sop for public safety would not have happened without the concerted effort of the 1,200 good people who signed and presented the "Enough is Enough!" petition.

Yes, the surge of additional officers onto the streets will temporarily increase arrests. Unfortunately, most of the arrests will be criminal bottom feeders who lack the resources and common sense to lie low until the heat subsides. The smart guys will put their operations into stealth mode and order a lot of "CSI" re-runs for professional development.

In the meantime, how long can the chief continue to keep flying squad officers away from their regular duties without a breakdown in other tactical and support areas? Staff rebuilding is moving so slowly that deployment is a zero sum game; a push here results in a countervailing pull in another part of the organization.

Regardless of how the chief deploys his troops, it is simply not possible to fix 50 roof leaks with 10 patches, particularly when the leaks are in motion. He can't do it with the 701 officers he has today, nor with the 802 police who are dangled before us but who keep receding into the future like a mirage in the desert.

Consider a little staffing history. In the last three or four years, approximately 54 officers were diverted from normal police duties to the airport, to the schools, and to internal affairs watch-dogging pursuant to the Rider's settlement. If the chief magically woke up with 802 officers tomorrow, he would still have only 748 net officers. Well, on June 27, 2001, Oakland employed 749 officers – and Oakland residents were not safe then.

The people of this city will not be safe until it has at least 1,100 officers, which is still far less than many other cities of comparable size.

Not one politician has even mentioned a plan for raising the abysmally low 802-officer ceiling. Until City Hall develops and commits to a five-year plan to field at least 1,100 police officers, Oakland will be unsafe, increasingly so. The flash and dash band-aids of the past week were best described 500 years ago when MacBeth lamented, ". . . it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."