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Oakland's Top Cop Batts MIA During Gang Injunction Drama
Oakland police Chief Anthony Batts
The Oakland city attorney's office and police department are set to make a presentation about the city's controversial gang injunctions at a Public Safety Committee meeting tonight, but don't expect to see the chief of police there.
Police Chief Anthony Batts, a big supporter of the injunctions, is on vacation this week, and sources say he'll also be out of town next week for a conference.
Tonight's 5:30 p.m. meeting at City Hall will focus on the cost and effectiveness of the injunction in North Oakland and the costs of the proposed injunction in Fruitvale. The report has already been posted to the city's website.
While the city attorney's office has said it's too soon to measure the impact of the injunction on crime, the report notes some successes: during the first six months of North Oakland's gang injunction, drug activity dropped almost 70 percent, and only one defendant was arrested inside the safety zone. While some crimes increased, there have been no reported violations of the injunction.
Council members requested the report after public outcry during a meeting in January. Critics of the gang injunction have continued organizing efforts and are expected to turn out in droves for tonight's meeting. Critical Resistance, the main group organizing against the injunctions, hosted a press conference this morning highlighting violence reduction programs and alternatives to gang injunctions already in place in the city.
A judge plans to continue hearing evidence Wednesday during the continuation of the hearing for a preliminary gang injunction in Fruitvale.
Shoshana is the crime and punishment reporter for The Bay Citizen. Send/call tips to swalter@baycitizen.org or 415-821-8524. Before moving to the Mission, she wrote about runaway monkeys, murders and all sorts of mayhem as a ...
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Charlie Hustle
Police need to be put on foot, horseback, or bike, in the areas where they have the heaviest problems. This will obviously cause officers to become more involved in the communities they patrol. This also will mean that those who operate illegally in those areas, won't be able to do so in the same manner or fashion. 663 officers so manpower shouldn't be an issue. Plus operation of horses, bikes, or walking is a lot cheaper than gas and vehicle maintenance.
Max Allstädt
663 officers is a total manpower issue. We had 803 at our peak.
I agree that we need walking patrols, but it's really difficult to implement them: Oakland is 59 square miles, that's a LOT of turf. Plus, we have a settlement agreement because of the Riders Scandal. It requires a huge number of internal affairs officers which reduces our ability to put men on the street.
Also, 663 officers, 40 hours a week each before overtime. There are 168 hours in a week, so at any given time you've got only about 165 officers on duty. Some of them are doing investigations. Some of them are doing internal affairs. Some of them are doing administration. And a portion are available to patrol, but no where near as many as necessary. Even if we had 120 available to patrol (and we dont) that's only 2 per square mile of city. Not enough.
We need more cops. We need them walking beats. We need them accountable. We need them effective.
We have a LOT of work to do.
Charlie Hustle
Ok, I here that. But I would argue that regardless of wut it takes, this needs to be done. Change starts small, but it has to start somewhere. I'm hearing the minority community again and again point out trust issues, and nothing I've seen or been through tells me that the department is handling this. I say been through, because I've been approached by the police in many times in my life on both fronts. I.e. best of attitude, polite dialog, and a genuine feeling of service and protection. And jacked up attitudes, with derogatory comments, color based assumptions, and a feeling of helplessness to a seemingly almighty power. A citizen should never have to fear that which is suppose to protect them. As much weapons training as the police have, they still manage to kill so many people. When something as simple as a bullet in the leg would usually suffice. I know the job ain't easy in so many different ways. But its what they signed up for. I wouldn't mind more police if the current ones knew how to interact with the culture and environment around them, but without that brick, no foundation for the new recruits to take and build on.
I believe in people, so I believe in the police. But Oakland needs a new direction, stat, and this is how I see the police gaining back community support. Be more active in it......
Jay Donahue
For clarification, Stop the Injunctions Coalition (STIC) is a group of community organizations and individuals who have come together to fight gang injunctions in Oakland. Leadership has been taken up by different groups for different tasks or events and has always been shared. Critical Resistance is one organization that is a member of STIC and there are many other organizations that have taken up work for STIC. A number of other organizations were represented at both the press conference and the Public Safety Committee hearing who are all involved and have a stake in this fight. We are all leaders.
And in response to some of the above comments, more cops on the streets will never equal safety for low income and working class communities of color. Policing is the practice of enforcing law and social control through the use of force and is closely linked to the enforcement of Black Codes and Jim Crow. Racial profiling is no accident, nor is it some random term devised in the 1990s by activists. It is very real, purposeful and historically rooted.
Violence in our community is based in poverty, joblessness, lack of education, and lack of self-determination. Putting more cops on the streets instead of funding much needed programs or allowing communities to determine what works best for their members only means this violence will continue.
Ben Baer
The problem is a large sector of Oakland's low-income communities do not know what works best for them. They are drug and alcohol addicts who do not raise their children. And you think they are in a position to proscribe solutions? If this dysfunctional section of Oakland's culture and environment just started taking responsibility to parent their children, crime wouldn't be so rampant and the police wouldn't have to be called in so much to deal with both their children and their domestic issues which are one of the top calls to the police in Oakland. Helloooo-is this racial profiling too?