Couple's First Visit to Oakland Is Last

He and his partner came to Oakland for an evening of dancing at Veterans Hall. Read his story and ask, why don't we have even one councilmember insisting Oakland commit to at least 1,100 police?

Catherine and I, both of us enthusiastic contra dancers (and I'm also a long-time contra dance caller), decided to drive up from Monterey. We loved the idea, and both of us found it to be a delightful evening of music and dance.

That said, the evening did not have a good outcome – and I think it's a story that anyone ever thinking of going to a future event at this venue (or elsewhere in Oakland, for that matter) should be aware of.

We stayed and danced until the end, and then headed out to the parking lot – at which point we discovered my car had been stolen.

We parked in the Veterans Hall lot, at the Grand Avenue end (just two spots in from the street), and very close to a bright street lamp on the building side of the lot. We made sure the car was completely locked before heading in to the dance.

When we found the car gone, we immediately called the Oakland police. Actually, we called 911, got put on hold, eventually got routed through to the Oakland police, got put on hold again... If someone had actually been like dying or something, well nothing was happening in a hurry...

Stately building, but unsafe

In fact, nothing happened at all. When we did get through and reported that our car had been stolen, we were told they would send an officer by as soon as they could. But after another 40 minutes then passed, with us just hanging around in that post-midnight empty parking lot, we called back. We were then told that it would be at least a couple of hours before they could get anyone there because...well because there had just been a shooting right in that area and all available officers were tied up with that.

They also told us to get the heck out of there, that it wasn't then safe for us to be outside in that area. The police then suggested we come by the police headquarters at Seventh and Broadway to file a report.

We found ourselves in a vast cavernous space, all painted in retro(?) 50s black and white, with a giant Oakland police shield high up on the wall. At a giant dark desk down below sat the sole occupant of the room – a dispatch sergeant with a rather striking appearance: a burly late-middle-aged African American fellow with a long, curly flaming-white beard and wizened graying hair. An officer who happened to arrive there between crime scene visits took pity on us and very nicely put everything else aside for a bit to write-up the police report (thank you Officer Coglio).

While standing there at the desk providing the information needed for the police report, there was a flurry of police radio and phone activity with the dispatch sergeant rushing between conversations with various officers out in the field. When there was finally a brief pause, he looked over at us with the expression of someone who's seen everything encountering a new horror, and in a very soft voice simply said: "in just 10 minutes..." and then trailed off, too soft for us to hear. Officer Coniglio and I paused in working on the stolen vehicle report, and looked over at him with quizzical expressions. He shook his head slowly from side to side and told us that in just the last ten minutes there had been four shootings in Oakland.

I asked if they were all at the same location and he said no, that two were at one location and two at another...and that the two at the first location were "down" (believed to be dead) while at the other location one was "down" and the other looked as if he would make it. I believe one of the locations was near Veteran's Hall.

We finally got home at 4:30 a.m. Four hours later the Oakland police called to say they had found the car – or rather what was left of it: "badly stripped but not burned." Great, huh? She then referred us to the towing yard it had been taken to. They told us that the radiator(!), tires, hubcaps, fenders, stereo and everything we'd left in the car had been taken. The latter includes my glasses, cell phone, some books, a lot of maps, and the gate access card for the Navy base I work on (adding in the fun of a military security breach to deal with). I also lost what I consider to be a priceless collection of CDs of great contra dance bands over the past 2 decades, which I kept in my car as I tended to listen to them while driving – especially when traveling between calling gigs.

In my opinion the part of Oakland around Veteran's Hall is presently too unsafe for evening events to reasonably be held, at least without additional security being provided, given the shootings and other serious crimes that have recently occurred right in that Grand Ave/Lake Merritt area.

Catherine and I will not ever be attending any future dance events anywhere in Oakland, except perhaps for those held in the few remaining semi-safe areas up in the hills, unless Oakland as a city manages to get its crime situation under control.

I'll conclude with a final personal comment by saying that I think it's reflective of a fundamentally pathetic societal state when we're left seriously questioning whether attendance at an evening of traditional music and dance at a beautiful ballroom in the middle of a major American city is no longer tenable simply due to concerns over safety of life and property.

– Warren

(Excerpts. Full blog post here)