Sheng Thao is out there assuring us that crime in Oakland is down and we’re once again a safe city, thanks to her vision and guidance.
"What we're seeing now is that our crime rates, they are trending downwards," said Thao last week. "And I see that this is only going to improve.”
Of course, the fact that Thao is freaking about getting recalled might have something to do with this gross distortion of reality. She’s betting that enough people are ignorant enough of the actual facts that they’ll take her word for it and refuse to sign the recall petitions.
“Oh, honey,” goes a conversation in Thao’s fantasy between a couple, “did you see where Mayor Thao said crime is down?”
“Oh, that’s wonderful news, sweetheart.”
“Sure is! Now we can feel safe again going out at night.”
Unfortunately, the fantasy Thao lives in is completely disconnected from reality. The fact is that crime is on the rise, in some cases dramatically. And in certain neighborhoods, the rise is historic.
Consider data provided by the Oakland Police Department in their Weekly Crime Report. The report divides Oakland into six Police Areas. It’s a very dense, data-driven report, but for present purposes let’s begin our analysis of the most current report by examining a single factor—overall violent crime (homicide aggravated assault, rape and robbery)—over the three-year period 2022-2024.
Here’s Violent Crime over that span by Police Area:
Area 1: downtown, West Oakland – down 10%
Area 2: North Oakland, Uptown – up 25%
Area 3: Fruitvale, Central Oakland – up 18%
Area 4: East Oakland, Mills – up 12%
Area 5: East Oakland, Knowland Park – up 2%
Area 6: Coliseum, Airport – up 10%
So much for the disinformation Thao is spreading about crime “trending down”! While we should be grateful that, at least in West Oakland, there’s less violent crime, let’s remember that crime rates in that troubled part of the city were so astronomically high that even a small temporary decrease in their number is enough to cause the comparative rate to drift downward. But does anyone think that West Oakland now is “safe”?
In fact, violent crime is metastasizing into areas where historically it hadn’t previously thrived. My own neighborhood, Uptown (Area 2) has seen an increase of 25% in violent crime over the last three years, the largest increase of any Police Area in Oakland. I myself have been assaulted twice in the last year, for the first time in my 40 years of residency. I know that personal anecdotes don’t necessarily tell the whole story, but everybody in my neighborhood knows how unsafe it’s become. All those shuttered shops are part of the collapse, too. They’re also victims of crime.
The San Francisco Chronicle did a pretty good article on the crime situation in Oakland just two days ago. Here’s the take-home paragraph: “Overall, reported crimes in Oakland rose 18% in 2023 compared to 2022, with violent crime up 21% and property crime up 17%. The surge was driven by a jump in robberies and motor vehicle thefts, both of which were up significantly from the year before — robberies rose 38% between 2022 and 2023, and motor vehicle thefts by 45%.” This is yet more solid evidence that Thao is simply lying when she claims that crime is trending downward. Is she not aware of the actual numbers? That’s hard to believe, since she’s mayor. Would she lie about something so important and so easily discredited?
Well, I’ll let you answer that one.
Steve Heimoff