When the San Jose Police Department conducted that amazing sideshow bust last weekend, in which many cars were impounded and more than 700 people arrested as police blocked off all possible escape routes, a lot of us wondered why Oakland can’t do the same thing. After all, our sideshow problem is far worse than San Jose’s, and yet we seemingly let these scofflaws get off scot-free.
The answer is contained in two words and four syllables: City Council.
To be perfectly clear, the Oakland Police Department does have the authority to impound cars that participate in sideshows, and on occasion, they do. For instance, last May OPD towed 60 cars and arrested two people in a sideshow downtown. But this kind of intervention seems to be the exception rather than the rule. As CBS Bay Area News reported last month, “Big sideshows with a few hundred spectators erupted in two Bay Area cities overnight but the responses from the Oakland and Vallejo police departments were very different. Neighbors said Vallejo police went in and broke up a sideshow very quickly. Over in Oakland, neighbors said the police watched a sideshow from a distance and did nothing.”
The common perception, at least, is that OPD tends to let sideshows happen, rather than act with vigor and force to stop them. A high OPD official I talked with responded that “our challenge [at OPD] in circling [sideshows] is usually resources - we just don’t have as many cops available.” This is, of course, related to OPD’s shortage of cops, itself a reflection of the City Council’s historic refusal to adequately fund the police department.
But there’s a further difference between Oakland and cities like San Jose: According to the official I interviewed, “What we can’t do is issue citations as San Jose did to those that attend as pedestrians to spectate.” This is because San Jose’s Municipal Code specifically allows the issuance of such citations, while Oakland’s does not. However, this may be about to change.
Last Monday, the 14th, at a special meeting of the City Council’s Public Safety Committee, Council member Noel Gallo introduced “An Ordinance…To The Oakland Municipal Code Imposing Fines And Penalties Against Organizers And By-Stander Participants Of Sideshows.” The proposed Ordinance specifically defines “participants” as “any person who is present at a Sideshow, Street Race or Reckless or Driving Exhibition, or the site of the Preparations for either of these activities, for the purpose of viewing, observing, watching, or witnessing the event as it progresses.” This broad definition pretty much covers anyone who consciously and deliberately attends, and remains at, a sideshow. (No specific penalty or punishment is cited in the Ordinance.)
The full Public Safety Committee unanimously approved to advance Gallo’s ordinance; it now goes to a vote of the City Council on Dec. 6. I have to admit being surprised that this Public Safety Committee approved it; my source, the high police official, was similarly mindblown (“shocking,” he called it, in a positive sense). What’s so surprising is that the Council’s most left-wing members, including Fife, Bas, Thao and Kaplan, actually voted for something which can be perceived as anti-crime, a most unusual thing for them to do. But what we can’t know is why. This is not a done deal; Dec. 6 looms, and we really don’t know if, perhaps, the Council voted to advance the Gallo crackdown for political reasons (so they could claim to have anti-crime cred), knowing full well they’ll be able to kill it on Dec. 6 and perhaps no one will be watching. But we will be.
Meanwhile, two things are clear: cities can crack down on sideshows if they really want to (there’s nothing unconstitutional about it). The other conclusion is that, more than ever, OPD needs more cops—at least 900, but preferably more than 1,100, as Chief Armstrong has said. We still have, sadly, anti-police voices in Oakland who claim that the city simply can’t afford even 900 cops. That is a deliberate lie. It comes from individuals who have a high tolerance for crime, and who believe it’s better to invest the taxpayers’s money in social justice schemes meant to resolve the root causes of crime, rather than to deal with real crime as it occurs on real streets in real time.
Steve Heimoff