Well, the battle has been joined. On one side you have anti-cop groups demanding defunding the Oakland Police Department. On the other are organizations, such as our Coalition for a Better Oakland, pointing out that crime is rampant in our Town, and this is not the time to reduce the effectiveness of the police.
Our thesis seems so rational that I have to wonder what’s going on in the heads of the anti-cop forces. Perhaps the best known anti-cop group is the “Anti Police-Terror Project” (APTP). From its name you can infer its ideology: they admit being “anti-police,” and the hyphen between “police” and “terror” is deliberate; they mean to state in no uncertain terms that Oakland police officers are terrorists akin to Al Qaeda or ISIS.
That’s ridiculous hyperbole, of course, although we’ve come to expect stuff like that from the extreme cop-haters. But hyperbole characterizes most of their program. The verbiage is stuffed with false and misleading statements, such as this one: “The voices of Oaklanders are finally being heard.” By that, they imply that “Oaklanders” – all 425,000 of us – are united in hatred of police and a belief that they are terrorists.
But is this true? Not according to the facts. Mayor Libby Schaaf was widely quoted a week ago (for instance, here) when she said “This is the mandate from Oaklanders, 78% of whom have told us they want at least the same or more police 911 response and patrols.” Seventy-eight percent of Oaklanders is a lot of people: a super-majority. You might think that the cop-haters would pause before such a significant indication of pro-cop sentiment. But no. Instead, they prevaricate, and resort to all kinds of word games. Here, for example, is Sikander Iqbal, a leader of the Urban Peace Movement, one of whose goals is “decarceration”—releasing criminals from jail back onto the streets. Iqbal is embarrassed by the 78% figure, as well he should be, so what does he say about it? “It’s disingenuous to look at that poll and work the Reimagining Public Safety Task Force has done and say Oaklanders want more police in their community.”
“Disingenuous”? But “more police in their community” is exactly what 78% of Oaklanders say they want! So why would Iqbal say something so obviously fake? We’re used to these denials of reality, these lies from Trump. Iqbal tries to muddy the waters even further by claiming that Oaklanders want “fixing potholes,” as if Oaklanders have to choose between road repair and crime stopping. But we don’t. We can have both; we must have both.
So, as I said, the battle has been joined. It’s a good fight, one worthy of your engagement. For too long, Oaklanders have been voiceless in the councils of government, where radicals like the Anti Police-Terror Project and the Urban Peace Movement claim to represent “the people.” But they don’t. It feels good to know that winds of change are sweeping across Oakland. If you’re part of the change—if you want to restore reason and common sense to City Hall—please consider signing up with the Coalition for a Better Oakland, either as a Volunteer or as a Subscriber.
Peace.