HHS Tells Federal Workers in San Francisco to Stay Home

Piling on to Kent’s recent post, out-of-control crime is not only destroying the quality of life in San Francisco.  While homicides in Oakland have dropped by 14% so far this year, burglaries have increased by a whopping 41% and robberies are up by 20% according this CNN story.  In late June a sixty-year-old retiree was shot and killed in broad daylight while doing yardwork.  Responding to the almost daily shootings, burglaries and robberies, Oakland police are telling residents to buy air horns to alert neighbors to intruders and put bars on doors and windows.  While city leaders are promising to find ways to prevent crime, some residents have had enough.

Lifetime Oakland resident Kristin Cook is picking up and moving to Texas to protect her teenaged son,  “I love Oakland….I can’t take it anymore.  I got to the point I was too scared to leave my house,” she told reporters.

Along with a soft-on-crime Mayor and city council,  last fall Oakland voters elected progressive Soros-backed District Attorney Pamela Price, who has promised to underprosecute black offenders to make up for racism.  In late July the NAACP and prominent pastor Bishop Bob Jackson demanded action, noting that African American neighborhoods are disproportionately victimized by crime, they blamed “failed leadership” for creating “a heyday for Oakland criminals.”

District Attorney Price would have none of this, “We are disappointed that a great African American pastor and a great African American organization would take a false narrative on such an important matter,” the office said in a statement.   A grass roots campaign to recall Price is currently underway.   The only false narrative here is coming out of Price’s mouth.

Across the bay, Fox News reports that since the beginning of the year,  homicides are up over 20% with robberies and motor vehicle theft increasing by 14% and 13% respectively, according to San Francisco police data.   On August 4th, an Assistant Secretary of the Federal Department of Health and Human Services told federal employees working in the city’s 18-story federal building not to come into the city for work.  “we recommend employees….maximize the use of telework for the forseeable future.”

We have all heard about the exodus of businesses including T-Moble, Saks, Nordstrom, Whole Foods and Walgreens, but recent census bureau data report that roughly 70,000 residents have left city as well.  A recent survey of BART riders found that 53% know someone who has been a victimized on rapid transit.  46% say that they have personally witnessed a crime and 44% say that they have never or rarely seen a police officer on the train.

The head of the San Francisco Police Officers Association told reporters that drug crimes in the city have gotten worse than in the 1980s, at the peak of the crack epidemic.

It will take a sea-change in the political leadership in both Oakland and San Francisco to begin a genuine effort to make these once-great cities clean and safe to visit and live in.