This Saturday, July 10, between noon and 2 p.m., there’s a big march happening in Oakland that everyone should go to.
Called “Stand Up for a Safe Oakland!!!,” it’s the brainchild of Oakland Police Department Chief LeRonne Armstrong, and is sponsored by OPD. (You can find complete information at #SafeOakland.)
The Chief, I think we all know, has been broken-hearted about the violence in Oakland, including East Oakland, where he grew up. And he’s been outspoken in his scathing criticism of the Oakland City Council, which two weeks ago had the nerve to cut OPD’s budget by more than $18 million—and then tried to hoodwink the public into thinking they’d actually increased the budget!
Fortunately, nobody believed Fife, Bas, Kaplan & Co., and History has now recorded that they gutted the police department during an historic crime wave.
What the Chief, with the backing of Mayor Libby Schaaf, is doing is very important. This is the first time, to my knowledge, that OPD has ever organized a large public gathering and march. Those of us who support OPD, and agonize over rising levels of violent crime, celebrate the march, and will certainly be there. But predictably, the anti-cop “woke” crowd is outraged. All you have to do is look at the tweets at OPD’s twitter page.
It’s sad that some people are so filled with cynicism and hatred that they can’t celebrate a march for peace! Someone complained about “OPD special events fees,” as if Chief Armstrong were raiding Oakland’s meager treasury. Someone else demanded to know “Who approved it” and “how much overtime” the march will cost. Someone called it “a purely symbolic gesture.” Another person accused Schaaf and OPD of waging “a PR war against the [city] council and police reform,” and actually claimed the march for peace “is emboldening white supremacists in the Oakland Hills.” Somebody asked, irrelevantly, “What percentage of cops even live in Oakland?” And finally, my favorite: “Black men are safer in a white backwoods village of West Virginia than in Oakland.”
Actually, that’s the one remark I agree with. Black men are not safe in Oakland, but that’s not because of cops, it’s because of other Black men. The city just experienced its 67th homicide of the year, and most of the murders have been gang-related. It’s because of this that Chief Armstrong, himself a Black man, organized this march. With a vicious City Council out to fire him and destroy his department, with uninformed people like those complaining on Twitter about the march for peace, it’s the least Chief Armstrong can do. Symbolic? You bet. But at this point, the good people of Oakland need a symbol.
Please show up! The march commences at noon at the Lake Merritt Amphitheater, on Lake Merritt Boulevard at the south end of the Lake. From there it goes to the Cleveland Cascade, on Lakeshore. This is an opportunity to support peace and to support OPD. Thank you, Chief Armstrong, for doing it.
Steve Heimoff