A blue city mayor facing a recall election touted that crime was “down” in a recent speech, but the city’s police association doesn’t think the Democrat’s claim holds water.
In her State of the City address, Democratic Mayor Sheng Thao claimed violent and non-violent crime such as “burglaries, car thefts, and break-ins” were down, saying the city’s overall progress was “nothing short of inspiring.” However, Oakland Police Officers Association (OPOA) President Huy Nguyen told the Daily Caller News Foundation that Thao is taking a premature victory lap, as certain crime data will be incomplete until at least early 2025.
“The number of homicides, those numbers are accurate,” Nguyen told the DCNF. “But other crimes across the board are not accurate because the reporting system is not up to date, and that we won’t have that information until a little bit past after the end of the year, when our staff is able to catch up in the reporting process.”
Thao is facing a recall election in November after a massive crime wave hit the city under her watch, with a 2023 city-wide crime report showing motor vehicle theft up 44% from 2022, robbery up 38%, violent crime up 21% and overall crime up 17%. A July poll showed strong support for her recall, with 56% of respondents agreeing she should not hold office, according to David Binder Research.
The mayor’s office pointed the DCNF to the Oakland Police Department’s most recent Oct. 6 crime figures when asked for comment. The data shows violent crime down 19% compared to 2023, motor theft down 25%, burglaries down 54% and larceny down 29%.
The data also showed a 2456% increase in the burglary category labeled “unknown,” and a 3% increase in robberies with a “other dangerous weapon.”
“The best way somebody described it to me was [that] we’re trying to keep a patient in the ICU alive,” Nguyen told the DCNF.” It’s very disheartening, and we should be able to serve people. We shouldn’t cut the resources that we have. It’s going to be completely bare-bones to the point that we will only respond to 911 calls, and then we’re going to have to cut a lot of other calls.”
Every year, the Mayor of this beautiful City is asked to give an update on the state of our city… To share where we stand as a community and where we aspire to go.
You can watch the full presentation here: https://t.co/eX73WhtWTM
— Mayor Sheng Thao 盛桃 (@MayorShengThao) October 16, 2024
“At last year’s state of the city speech, I stood up here and I stated that public safety is my top priority and that the surge in crime last year we were experiencing was unacceptable,” Thao said during the speech. “We had to take a hard look at our situation and we had to act … in partnership with our excellent Oakland police officers and the department of violence prevention I can tell you today that crime is down.”
Thao’s house was also raided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in June as part of an unspecified investigation. She insisted that she was innocent and said that she would “not be threatened out of this office.”
She also fired former Oakland Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong in February after he was placed on administrative leave for allegedly mishandling investigations into a hit-and-run involving a police car and a weapons discharge by an officer.
Recall Sheng Thao, the group leading the effort to oust the mayor, alleged that the termination was with “no cause,” saying that an arbitrator report exonerated him.
Thao cut the Oakland Police Department’s (OPD) numbers, reducing the sworn officer count from 728 to 678, according to Oaklandside in August. Nguyen told the DCNF that if the Oakland Coliseum sale doesn’t go through, the force could go down to only 600 officers.
“If we continue to create this environment, this city is going to be business-less,” Nguyen told the DCNF. “You look at all these small businesses, their businesses are constantly being broken into. They’re struggling to get insurance policies.”
One small business owner, Oscar Edwards, said he might be put out of business by crime, as thieves robbed his business twice in February, according to KRON 4 News in April.
“I’ve never seen it to where the economy has been the way it is, and then the city not helping out the small businesses the way they should be,” Edwards told KRON 4.
JJ Jenkins, a bar owner, had to close his business early after a Juneteenth shooting resulted in 14 people injured a few blocks away from his establishment, according to the San Francisco Chronicle in July.
“It’s chaos,” Jenkins told the Chronicle. “Every time I think the pendulum has swung, something like Juneteenth [shooting] happens. And I don’t think it’s done yet. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.”
Large chains have also felt the crime wave. In-n-Out Burger, A California fast-food staple, decided to close its location in January due to crime, according to the Associated Press. It was the first time the chain had closed any restaurant in its history.
“Her legacy is going to be the destruction of the police department,” Nguyen told the DCNF.
(Featured Image Media Credit: Screenshot/YouTube/Sheng Thao for Oakland Mayor 2022)
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