If you’ve been following my saga with the Swedish news crew, here’s the latest. I agree to meet in my neighborhood (Adams Point/Uptown) yesterday afternoon and walk and talk with them. They miked me up and we began our trek at Whole Foods, where I pointed out the 7-Eleven across the street where the security guard was shot to death in December.
We walked up to Broadway, where all the boarded up shops are. They asked about each. The camera lady shot every shuttered shop, every graffiti, while I told them what the stores used to be. I apologized for not being able to bring them to where they really wanted to go: International Boulevard, Fruitvale, Hegenberger, West Oakland and the other murder hot spots: just too dangerous for them to be displaying all that expensive equipment.
But they still wanted to go. The man, Stefan, taking notes, asked me how to spell Hegenberger and Fruitvale and I thought, Oi, he has no idea. He was hell-bent on going. You’ve been warned, I said. When we parted, and it was getting dark, I felt a real sense of doom. They’re going to GPS these murder locations and then cruise aimlessly around, getting out of their car and setting up their cameras on the sidewalk. At night. As my police friend called it, a real kamikaze mission.
Stefan told me they’d just returned from Baghdad, where they were shooting a story for Swedish T.V. If they got through Baghdad unscathed, they said, they’d be all right in Oakland. I hastened to tell them how some of the people who commented on my blog said they feared the Swedes were simply here to do a hit piece on Oakland. I told them I didn’t mean to suggest that Oakland doesn’t have many wonderful aspects to it. But they’re not here to report on nice things. I only hope that, if they really do go to the murder neighborhoods tonight, they come through unharmed.
Meanwhile, let’s give ourselves and Brenda Grisham and Carl Chan a pat on the back for submitting 127,000 signatures to get Recall Price on the ballot. Price and her minions are fighting the Recall with a dishonesty that’s extreme even for her. It took a lot of hard work to get to this point, which no one initially believed was achievable; and those of you who volunteered to collect signatures deserve much credit. It now seems likely there will be a Recall election as soon as April. If we can succeed in firing Madame D.A., it will be a national story: Oakland, perhaps the most stubbornly progressive city in America, recalls ultra-progressive District Attorney! And then, if we can recall Thao, we will make history. These are both big if’s—but we’re capable of big things. The Swedes asked me what I thought we can do here in Oakland to turn things around, and I answered, “It took generations of irresponsible government and bad parenting to get into this dilemma, and it will take a generation to get out of it. But we can start by recalling Pamela Price and Sheng Thao.”
Steve Heimoff