Many of us have been watching New York’s new mayor, Eric Adams, closely, because he was a Democrat elected on a strong public safety, anti-crime platform that included support for the police. That coincides with the position we take at the Coalition for a Better Oakland, and we hope it will prove a harbinger of what can happen here next November, when Oakland elects its own new mayor.
On Sunday, Adams was on the T.V. program This Week with George Stephanopoulos, and when the topic of “defund the police” came up, Adams hit the Left, hard. He quoted, and agreed with, a former N.Y.C. Police Commissioner who had said that progressive policies led to a nationwide increase in crime in “Democrat-led cities.” Adams, a Black man and a former cop himself, noted that “trust” has lately been building for police among Americans, but warned that that trust is in danger of eroding because of a shocking increase in crime. “We can't rebuild that trust,” Adams cautioned, “by allowing those who are dangerous and that have a repeated history of violence to continue to be on our streets.”
We here in the Bay Area know all too well what Adams is talking about: the revolving door at the Court House, whereby thugs are routinely arrested, held briefly, and then released back into the public because of soft-on-crime progressive District Attorneys. Indeed, this is exactly why San Franciscans are poised to recall Chesa Boudin in June.
Oaklanders, too, have had it with dangerous, predatory felons who time after time are set free by DAs and progressive judges. Normal citizens, who pay taxes and obey the law, can’t figure out why these carjackers, muggers and sideshow freaks, with multiple records of arrests, are just pumped right back into society, where they predictably recidivise.
Take Frank James, for example. He’s the guy who shot up the subway in New York last week. James had a long, horrible criminal record, all the way back to 1992. He had posted on YouTube, before his attack, that he wanted to kill people, and that he hated white people because they discriminated against him. Adams pointed out that police have the ability to use artificial intelligence “to identify those who are talking about violence” and stop them. But progressive politicians won’t allow that to happen, because they’re more concerned about so-called “civil liberties” than about preventing violence and death. To quote Adams’ police commissioner, progressive politicians have “lost sight of the victims of crime [and] are not doing what public safety is intended to do,” which is to round up predators and keep them locked up.
I wish Oakland had a mayor like Eric Adams, a man who will stand up for what is right, instead of knuckling under to the racists who can never bring themselves to criticize anything than happens in the Black community, but instead blame every murder, carjacking and theft on white people’s “racism.” They’re sick, these progressives, and, at least in New York, a brave, smart mayor is standing up to them.
Steve Heimoff