One "Major Incident" Brings Police Service to Halt

Oakland City officials, headed by Mayor Brown in a rare appearance, held a neighborhood meeting in west Oakland on Nov. 19, 2005.

People complained about blight, too many liquor stores and a lack of grocery stores, slow police response, teenage prostitutes and rampant drug dealing. In particular:

"Paulette Dorado of the Maxwell Park neighborhood questioned slow police response and a long list of other complaints.

"[Police] Chief Tucker explained that non-emergency, non-life-threatening calls get lower priorities. It's a matter of staffing, he said. When a major incident occurs, it requires many officers and other calls get delayed substantially.

"'We had a shooting here Tuesday night at 30th and Martin Luther King and we had 15 cars there. We were knocking on doors looking for witnesses, searching for where the firearm was thrown,' he said." (Oakland Tribune, Nov. 20, 2005)

Although the chief referred to a major incident, shootings are not unusual in Oakland. One to two killings occur every week. Now the City admits that for hours after such events, the rest of Oakland gets no police service, or gets responses so late that they are useless.

Chief Tucker is correct that it is a matter of staffing, or more accurately, understaffing. Oakland has half a police department by comparison with most major cities.

Measure Y was supposed to be the first step toward a remedy. Councilmember Jean Quan and other city officials insisted again and again that Measure Y would raise the number of police officers to 802. Yet today the City employs fewer than 700 police, a fall of several dozen since Measure Y was written in July 2004.

Meanwhile, the City is collecting Measure Y taxes without providing the required officers. In legal documents the City has said that it has no obligation to fulfill the requirement for 802 officers. In effect the City says it was all on paper, a farce that voters were gullible enough to believe.

Oakland is rife with crime on the streets – and illegality at City Hall.