I make no secret of the fact that I support the Oakland Police Department. I’m proud of it; I wish everyone felt the way I do. At the same time, I despise the anti-police groups that for years have tried, with some success, to emasculate and demoralize OPD. Chief among these (and there are many) is the Coalition for Police Accountability (CPA), comprised of far-left wokes who have targeted OPD and continue to spread the Big Lie that Oakland cops are rampaging murderers whom society needs to control and hold accountable. According to these leftists, the “relentless drum of police immunity and propaganda” needs to be exposed and resisted. If this sounds like the B.S. we hear from Pamela Price, it’s no coincidence. Before she was elected District Attorney, Price helped CPA with pro-bono legal counsel when the group was seeking its nonprofit status.
Make no mistake, CPA and Pamela Price represent the tip of the iceberg that is destroying Oakland murder by murder, crime by crime, shuttered shop after shuttered shop. Together with the Police Anti-Terror Project (APTP), they are the Axis of Evil in our town, dedicated to destroying our physical and economic security in the name of their particular crusade. This is where insane notions like defunding and eventually abolishing the police, and shutting down all the jails and prisons, are hatched and released into the political atmosphere. These noxious ideas permeate politics in Oakland, with far too many naïve people buying into them.
CPA made news the other day when their chair, Millie Cleveland, said she wants the City of Oakland to hold a “virtual public interview process” before Mayor Thao chooses from among the three candidates forwarded to her by the Police Commission to become the new Police Chief, after Thao unjustly fired LeRonne Armstrong earlier this year. Under Cleveland’s plan, the public would “submit questions ahead of time.” This sounds very small-d democratic, but it’s not. As Cleveland and the rest of the wokes know, anytime there’s a public meeting in Oakland about something the Left cares about, they flood the meeting with their own noisy bullies. Whether it’s a live City Council meeting or a digital Zoom, we’ve seen time and time again how far-left activists, with apparently plenty of time on their hands, swamp these meetings, intimidating opposition voices, and rehashing their tired old arguments. This is not democracy, it’s mob rule, and moreover is just a way of postponing making a decision. Oakland needs a police chief now. It’s been nearly a year since we had one, and we don’t need another City Council meeting for leftist anarchists to masturbatorily spout their nonsense into the echo chamber.
We don’t yet know if the Mayor or City Council will call for such a digital meeting. Nor do we know whom the three candidates are. I’m not terribly hopeful there’s anyone decent on the list (although there’s a rumor going around that Armstrong is on it). The Police Commission is as anti-cop as CPA or APTP, meaning that anyone they would consider for police chief is not going to be tough on crime. Even if there are some decent candidates on the list, Thao won’t select them. She’s already said she would never consider rehiring Chief Armstrong, which just shows how out-of-touch Thao is, when vast sections of the Oakland electorate, including the NAACP, have urged her to bring the beloved Chief Armstrong back. Sheng Thao is more beholden to her corrupt union paymasters than she is to the innocent, long-suffering people of Oakland, and the unions don’t like Armstrong because he was getting too popular among voters. We’re following this developing story of the next police chief, and will keep you informed, as always.
Meanwhile, the Federal monitorship of OPD that’s been going on for more than twenty years remains in effect so that the monitor, Robert Warshaw, can continue to draw his hefty salary. But Warshaw did say, on Monday, that OPD “is making commendable efforts to not only be in compliance, but to create solid foundations that will facilitate sustainability.” That’s so sweet of him. Let’s hope that this time, he and his co-conspirator, Judge Orrick, actually take their cloven hooves off OPD’s neck and let them do their job.
Steve Heimoff