I was so pleased yesterday to see Huy Nguyen, the president of the Oakland Police Officers Association (OPOA), call on Sheng Thao to resign “immediately.” Sgt. Nguyen correctly cited the crime wave that Thao has shown no inclination or ability to fight because she fundamentally does not believe in policing. (Here’s a video from KTVU.)
Thao, for her part, responded with a whiney complaint about OPOA “playing politics…We need to come together,” she said, claiming that her “comprehensive approach for public safety is working.”
Well, that’s a howler. Clearly it isn’t working. Oakland needs to replace its entire leadership, including the City Council, and replace it with smarter people who really care about us, instead of catering to the race ideologues who don’t.
I told Sgt. Nguyen how glad I was that OPOA finally has seized the reins and decided to fight back against the woke state. For years, I had a very fine relationship with Sgt. Nguyen’s predecessor, Sgt. Barry Donelan, a good man and a good cop. But I used to ask him why OPOA wasn’t more aggressive in defending their cops. It was always my impression that the union could have, and should have, been out there every day, denouncing the defund the police cult, naming names and kicking ass. You’d see cop haters like Sheng Thao, Cat Brooks, Nikki Bas, Carroll Fife and Dan Kalb in the news all the time, demanding massive cuts to OPD’s budget, while OPD/OPOA remained silent. As a result, all the public ever heard was the anti-cop hatred from woke politicians. I didn’t understand then why OPOA didn’t fight back, and even though I understood the delicacy of OPOA’s position in a town where so many people hate cops, I still thought the silence was wrong and, even worse, counter-productive.
I don’t know of any behind-the-scenes conversations that resulted in Sgt. Nguyen’s statement yesterday, but it sure did come as a breath of fresh air. And I hope it’s only the beginning. OPOA can’t just depend on third-party organizations, like the Coalition for a Better Oakland, to defend OPD. OPOA should do that themselves. With yesterday’s demand, it appears the union finally has found its spine and is fighting back. We support our cops 100%, we support Sgt. Nguyen, we support OPD and OPOA, we support Chief Floyd Mitchell, and we are proud of the women and men who put their lives on the line every day and night to protect us.
Steve Heimoff