Oakland NAACP Denounces Lax Law Enforcement

The Oakland, CA chapter of the NAACP issued a statement Thursday titled End Oakland’s Public Safety Crisis.

Oakland residents are sick and tired of our intolerable public safety crisis that overwhelmingly impacts minority communities. Murders, shootings, violent armed robberies, home invasions, car break-ins, sideshows, and highway shootouts have become a pervasive fixture of life in Oakland. We call on all elected leaders to unite and declare a state of emergency and bring together massive resources to address our public safety crisis.

African Americans are disproportionately hit the hardest by crime in East Oakland and other parts of the city. But residents from all parts of the city report that they do not feel safe. Women are targeted by young mobs and viciously beaten and robbed in downtown and uptown neighborhoods. Asians are assaulted in Chinatown. Street vendors are robbed in Fruitvale. News crews have their cameras stolen while they report on crime. PG&E workers are robbed and now require private security when they are out working. Everyone is in danger.

Failed leadership, including the movement to defund the police, our District Attorney’s unwillingness to charge and prosecute people who murder and commit life threatening serious crimes, and the proliferation of anti-police rhetoric have created a heyday for Oakland criminals. If there are no consequences for committing crime in Oakland, crime will continue to soar.

For far, far too long there has been a widespread delusion that being soft on crime is somehow “pro-civil rights” and, conversely, that those of us calling for effective law enforcement and proportionate punishment for serious crimes are somehow “anti-civil rights.” It is a breath of fresh air to see a chapter of this venerable organization recognizing that the opposite is closer to the truth. The paragraphs above read very much like statements that CJLF has made over the years.

Indeed, the final sentence is one of the main points of this blog and the inspiration for its name.

KTVU has this report.

Lack of economic opportunity is often cited as a “root cause” of crime, but the statement correctly notes that this causation can flow the other way as well. Crime can kill off economic opportunity.

People are moving out of Oakland in droves. They are afraid to venture out of their homes to go to work, shop, or dine in Oakland and this is destroying economic activity. Businesses, small and large, struggle and close, tax revenues vanish, and we are creating the notorious doom-loop where life in our city continues to spiral downward. As economic pain increases, the conditions that help create crime and criminals are exacerbated by desperate people with no employment opportunities.

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Our youth must be given alternatives to the crippling desperation that leads to crime, drugs, and prison. They need quality education, mentorship, and, most importantly, real economic opportunities. Oakland should focus on creating skilled industrial and logistics jobs that pay family sustaining wages, and vocational training so Oakland residents can perform those jobs. With this focus we can produce hundreds, if not thousands, of the types of jobs desperately needed to stem economic despair. Unfortunately, progressive policies and failed leadership have chased away or delayed significant blue collar job development in the city, the Port of Oakland, and the former Army Base. That must change!

If more civil rights organizations saw the light and came forward, we might be able to put crime back on the downward trend that it was on from the mid-1990s until recently. Many of the legislators and district attorneys who are adopting destructive policies campaign on the pretense that they are supporting civil rights and the interests of minority groups. Yet the reality is that the danger from criminals is by far the greatest threat to law-abiding people.

The statement continues:

We urge African Americans to speak out and demand improved public safety. We also encourage Oakland’s White, Asian, and Latino communities to speak out against crime and stop allowing themselves to be shamed into silence.

There is nothing compassionate or progressive about allowing criminal behavior to fester and rob Oakland residents of their basic rights to public safety. It is not racist or unkind to want to be safe from crime. No one should live in fear in our city.

“Shamed into silence” is indeed a huge part of the problem. I wish I had a dollar for every time someone has called me a “fascist” or a “racist” merely for advocating for effective enforcement of the criminal law. But many people do not have as thick a hide as I do, and many live and work in social and employment environments where such an accusation can make one a pariah or get one fired, no matter how obviously false it may be.

We need our elected leaders to take responsible action to ensure public safety. The best way to start is to declare that we are in a public safety emergency. Then marshal resources to address crime and create economic opportunities, training, and youth mentoring so people can work and live productive lives.

Good luck with that, but I do not there is any chance more than a handful of the current leaders will see the light. We need to replace them.