I got together yesterday with an old friend who used to live in my condo building. He moved to Las Vegas a couple years ago, but is visiting Oakland. He parked last night across the street, and when he woke up and went to start his car, he immediately recognized from the sound that his catalytic converter had been stolen.
This isn’t all that unusual these days. But it was a little shocking that it happened right across the street from where I live. I’m on Montecito Avenue, just off Bay Place, a block from Grand Avenue and Children’s Fairyland, in the Adams Point neighborhood of Uptown. People have been murdered nearby. A few years ago, I awakened early in the morning and went down to the lobby to get my newspaper, and when I went to open the front door of my building, it fell off. Someone had taken out the hinges. We’ve also had numerous break-ins into our parking garage. So I know that crime isn’t something we’re protected against.
Which brings up the subject of policing. What is the responsibility of a city to protect its citizens from crime? I would argue that it’s a city’s primary responsibility. If public safety isn’t #1, then what is? Of course, Oakland isn’t the only Bay Area city experiencing a dramatic increase in crime. The murder of that tech executive in San Francisco has reignited calls for more police in that city. Everywhere you go, it seems, the people are demanding protection, protection, protection from predators, and just punishment for those arrested and found guilty of their crimes.
But you’d never know of these public cries for help, if you just follow the antics of our City Council and the current (let us hope temporary) District Attorney, Pamela Price. She’s pulling a Trumpian stunt in calling for the judge who tossed out her horrible plea deal with a triple killer to be disqualified from hearing any cases involving her office.
This is exactly what Trump does all the time: level fake allegations against his perceived political enemies (the way he’s doing against Alvin Bragg), in the hope of muddying up his own criminal behavior. Pamela Price is running scared: she thought she had a get-out-of-jail-free card when she took office. But so startlingly awful has been her self-serving behavior as D.A. that the media and the public are beginning to take notice. Faced with mass resignations within her own office, with former Assistant D.A.s speaking out forcefully against her dictatorial rule, Price is running scared. She sees the handwriting on the wall—RECALL—and, like Trump, will resort to any means necessary to keep her job—even if those means include lying, misconduct and undermining public safety in Alameda County.
We know we have a crime wave in Oakland and the greater East Bay. We know that our elected officials don’t care. Despite their words, their actions show their true motive. They believe they were elected to further the cause of “social justice,” and if some people have to be robbed, mugged, accosted, burglarized, or killed, then so be it: nothing is more important to them than social justice! After all, when you make an omelet, you have to break a few eggs.
Well, you, me, our families and our friends are those eggs that Price, Carroll Fife, Nikki Bas, Dan Kalb and Sheng Thao are breaking. Next time crime strikes you or your loved ones, will it make you feel better knowing that you’re merely an egg in the creation of a gourmet social justice omelet?
Steve Heimoff