The Moxie of an Oakland Armed Robbery Victim

Jane Powell tells us about a victim of armed robbery, a victim with moxie:

A friend staying at my house in Fruitvale was robbed at gunpoint when she arrived home from a concert about 1 a.m. on a Saturday/Sunday night. She was not scared but angry. The thief complained that she only had $65 on her! She told him she was unemployed. As he walked off, he yelled, "I'm unemployed, too!" She tossed back, "Yeah, but at least I'm not robbing people!"

After he left, she came in the house, thought about calling the police, but realized it was Saturday night in Oakland, so didn't bother. When I returned from out of town a few days later, I insisted she call the police. Even on a Thursday afternoon, she was on hold for 20 minutes!

My property tax bill works out to $625 per month – for that money I could hire a security guard to guard my house every night, because apparently the City of Oakland isn't going to. And Ignacio De La Fuente wants to be elected mayor when he has let criminals run rampant in his own district?

Despite the victim's light-hearted moxie, this report is only one of many that could be written to remind us that Oakland still has half a police department.

A police department memo to the city administrator reveals that robberies in the first several months of 2006 are up 58 percent over the same period in 2005. (Memo dated May 23, 2006)

That does not matter to city councilmembers, who think they weathered the March "Enough Is Enough!" storm of protest. They have moved on to bargaining over little projects that will dissipate an $8.5 million surplus ... on to sabotaging the city auditor's ability to do his job despite the city attorney's warning that their staff cuts are illegal ... on to campaigning for yet another tax assessment (the proposed LLAD tax hike).

The crisis of public safety in Oakland is only getting deeper. It can be turned around, but so far as we can see, not by the current city council, whose members manage every month or so to set new lows for triviality in political life.