LeRonne Armstrong is CBO’s Person of the Year

He’s an obvious choice. No one has done a better job of trying to rescue Oakland from the blight of crime than former Chief Armstrong. He is “former” because, of course, Sheng Thao unjustly fired him, which is a main reason why we’re going to recall her.

I was honored that Chief met with me for an interview. I’ll be publishing our longish conversation, as soon as I can transcribe the recording, sometime early next week. We met at Sweet Bar, on Broadway. After we parted company, I was in the mood for fish tacos, so I wandered over to Telegraph and into Ole Ole, a burrito joint that also has fine tacos. I was inside the store, looking at the menu, when out of the blue my body tensed and something from behind grabbed my head and yanked off my sunglasses. The person then left the store, with my glasses in his fist.

Maybe I shouldn’t have, but I ran after him and screamed at him to give back my glasses. A bunch of people turned to watch. The thief threw my glasses at me and walked away. I picked them up: he had deliberately twisted them out of shape. “Why did you do that?” I yelled. “They’re prescription! You can’t even use them!” I was pissed, and would have fought if it came to that. In my view he assaulted me because I’m old and, he figured, an easy victim. And because I’m white?

There was an old guy without legs in a wheelchair who was watching. He wheeled himself over and saw that I was shaking. In fact I could barely stand, my knees were so rubbery. I was physically unhurt but emotionally wrecked. The old guy, bless his soul, tried to calm me. He said I ought to be thankful it wasn’t worse; the thief could have stabbed or shot me. We talked for a while, then fist-bumped goodbye. I went back into Ole Ole and ordered my fish taco. The kid behind the counter, who’d seen the whole thing, wouldn’t let me pay. He had a kindly face and a beautiful smile. I gave him a good tip. I’m so grateful to the old man and to the kid. It just shows that there are kind, decent people in our sorry city.

I’m aware of the irony that two minutes after I had coffee with the former Chief of Police of Oakland, I was assaulted in broad daylight. It makes me feel bad that thugs like my assailant are out there on our streets, but it makes me feel good that Chief Armstrong, who lives in Oakland, is around. Such an honest man, so sincere and good-natured and strong. He was horribly wronged by Thao but is gracefully free from feelings of retribution or vengeance. I’ll let his words speak for themselves when I publish the interview, but for now I’ll just say we should all be enormously angry at Sheng Thao for the truly awful thing she did in firing him. So corrupt, craven and cowardly.

Have a wonderful, safe weekend.

Steve Heimoff