I’m not taking credit for convincing Pamela Price to finally concede losing the Recall election. But she did stubbornly refuse to recognize the landslide results until I published my critical post last Monday, two weeks after the election, so maybe she read it and thought, “If I’ve lost Heimoff, then I’m toast.”
Maybe not. Anyhow, she said some pretty stupid things in her little good-bye missive, in front of a hand-picked audience for whom Price walks on water. Here’s a sampling, with my comments.
“I fought to bring change and hope to a broken criminal justice system.” Funny thing about that changey-hopey thing, Ms. Price. The public hated it. They welcomed your soft-on-crime approach about as much as a case of ebola. When you talk about “hope,” I ask: Hope for whom? Not for the law-abiding people of Oakland, who had no hope for public safety once you took over. No, you gave hope to criminals. The feral brats who shoplift and mug knew they could get away with it because you, Ms. Price, would never indict them. The only “change” you brought about was that Oakland is now more broken than ever.
Price said she “diversified” the District Attorney’s staff. Message to Ms. Price: nobody cares about diversification. When there’s a fire, we don’t care if the firefighters are White, Black, Asian, Latino or polka-dotted. Same with crime. We don’t measure the success of law enforcement by employee race percentages, we measure it by decreases in crime. You were and are so neurotically obsessed with race that you were unable to do your job fairly and effectively. You may not realize it, Ms. Price, but your era of racialized politics is over. Americans are sick and tired of everything being reduced to skin color, thank God. Which means we’re sick and tired of boring virtue signalers like you.
Then Price gave this advice to her successor: “Stay the course of holding public officials accountable and law enforcement officers accountable for their actions.” As if the next District Attorney wants to get recalled like you just did! Whoever ends up being D.A., they will have learned from you what not to do. They’ll indict thugs below the age of 25, which you refused to do. They’ll file enhanced charges wherever appropriate, which you refused to do. They’re not going to favor Black criminals just because they happen to be Black. And they’ll provide true justice, compassion and closure to victims, as you would not, especially if they were Asian.
Price also bragged about how, in a last-minute act of vindictiveness, she indicted seven Sheriff’s deputies in the death of a Santa Rita Jail criminal, Maurice Monk, who was found dead in his cell. (He’d been arrested for refusing to get off an AC Transit bus.) No one is alleging that the deputies killed Monk or in any way abused him; the circumstances of his death remain murky and may well have been related to illegal drug use. It appears likely Price’s indictments are simply her final angry, defiant blows against cops before she no longer holds power over them. (I personally believe those deputies will never be convicted of anything.)
Price concluded, “I leave this office in a much better place than how we found it.” (Note the use of the royal “we.”) No, Ms. Price. The Alameda County D.A.’s office is demoralized, filled with resentment, frightened for its future, seething with negative energy. It’s lost some of its most talented professionals, like Butch Ford, whom you fired because he rightfully criticized you. You’ve also left Oakland a much worse place: your racist policies tore our city apart. You made people afraid to go to the flatlands, afraid to leave their homes at night, afraid of being robbed, afraid to even park their cars or walk their dogs. It’s not surprising that the heaviest votes against you occurred in poor Black and Latino neighborhoods, where they saw right through your jive.
It will take years to recover from your nightmare reign, Ms. Price, but I promise we will.
And with that, Pamela Price leaves this blog, never to return.
Steve Heimoff