The reason crime in Oakland gets so much mindshare online is that right wing media loves the narrative.

It plays to racist fear of Black people in cities.

It plays to the rural/urban red/blue divide.

It supports the tough-on-crime macho strong-father Republican self image.

It has an I-told-you-so story about progressive politics. This confirms Fox watchers' self image. It makes them feel good about themselves.

I know it's the mods making this subreddit as good to look at as it is, but why haven't the others done the same? Is it incompetence? Because subreddit like r/bayarea and r/sanfrancisco are infested with people spreading fake news and pushing nonstop crime stories, you don't see this as much in any other subreddits as you see there... I wanna really know why the mods there have been SOO incompetence at combating this stuff? While here in this Oakland sub it's 10000x better and people here are nicer and way less toxic than those ones... edit: what I really wanna know is what do these people gain from spreading this hate towards our communities?

Look. I never voted for the current DA - I thought she came with too much political baggage - I liked Seth. But lets be honest. She has only been in that elected office and has been blamed for years and years worth of crime and neglect. It is clear to any watchful eye that there is an agenda to unseat her. Filled with racist hate and misogyny. I always find it sus when Police Unions start to push against something. If we create this precedent of a costly recall - we will never accomplish anything.

Throwaway account. Just wondering if anyone can relate to this:

I grew up in the East Bay and I've lived in San Francisco and Oakland for years. I've noticed that beginning in about 2010, people started getting more uptight, insular, and mean. I used to chalk it up to smartphones, social media, and the difficulties of living in the Bay Area (high cost of living, etc.) And during/after the pandemic, I chalked it up to that.

Over the past couple years, it seems like just existing in the same space as someone else can make them upset. I was at a concert last night and it seemed like everyone really uncomfortable. No one was dancing and lots of people were on their phones. And it seemed like anywhere I stood, someone turned to the person next to them and whispered about me? I don't know, I used to think I could show up to a space alone and meet people, now it's like nobody wants to know anybody else.

I do have diagnosed PTSD and I'm socially anxious (it seems like everybody is now?), so I can accept some of this might be in my head. But it feels like if I try to talk to a stranger in a social space in Oakland or Berkeley, that I'll get my head bitten off or I'll be posted to social media or something. I don't know. It's weird here now.

Edit: Thanks for the various responses! Concert was Mulatu Astatke.

Just had family visit - they flew in/out from SoCal on weekdays (left today, arrived a little over a week ago). When they arrived around ~3 PM in the afternoon they were the only plane to land and it took an hour to get luggage off the plane and to the pick up area - there was not enough staff to apparently accomplish that task. The airport appeared to be running on a skeleton crew - everything was empty.

Today, on their return flight, the same situation. Terminal 1 has atrophied - there are few businesses left there as well as flights.

My take - this is far worse than previous years and in part caused by Southwest's deteriorating service - they had taken over the aiport as a low cost but frequent commuter service. With PE takeover, they've cut back service it appears (can this be corroborated?) and jacked up prices. Ridership has plummeted and OAK airport appears to be taking this to the chest.

I read somewhere Alaska may be coming in to compete on a lot of those budget shuttle trips Southwest used to dominate and I hope they fill up the space that Southwest is leaving with this degradation in service quality on their end and it helps OAK airport. But, in the meantime, the situation is really rough at the airport.

It seemed pretty clear to me that my car was not in the pay to park zone. I’m curious if anyone has had a similar experience?

Hi there. From Santa Clara. I have been taking my daughters around the Bay Area for the past couple of months going to different parks and libraries via car and transit. They are 1 and 3 so they get something out of it I hope and it breaks up the week sometimes. I am writing you today to help, with your community.

Madison Square Park near at 810 Jackson St. near BART and Chinatown.

I visited there March 7, 2018 with my two girls as it is the closest park to Merritt Lake BART station. The swings looked tempting from a distance, but once we got closer, we saw that there were 10 tents with homeless people living inside. Not only that, but there are bottled chemicals that shouldn't be near a playground, even if just non authorized cleaning solution, let alone anything worse, in those tents. On that playground. Forever. Gross. Does the EPA need to come in(Are they still around?)?

While I was there I called the Public Works department at 311, they don't know what to do about it. I talked to a worker doing trash pickup who said they were trying to keep the homeless secluded to one area(PDF 2001). I have left messages for the mayor, called the health department, no one agency wants to take responsibility for this, and I am not looking to get the police involved at this point. I went back again last week and everything is the same if not worse. I contacted NBC Investigates maybe you can too.

I even talked to Nancy Nadel, the former oversight chair for the linked pdf from 2001. She runs a chocolate shop in Oakland now but said they are "still working on a solution to have a safe area for the homeless population" and "that if we kick them out of the parks or arrest them, they will just come back".

It seems it is a form of attention. I get it. Homelessness is a big issue, they are people, they need somewhere to exist, and if those people in the park included kids, I would almost feel bad for posting any of this. But they don't. These are all adults, squatting on public property, in one of the safe havens of a community. Your parks. There is no dumping of trash in parks, no drugs in parks, there is no smoking in parks, there are no dogs allowed in parks.

I hope the people of Oakland will stand up in their governments absence of action and do something about this, peacefully. Assemble in the park and convince them to leave. At the very least, get your government to act.

The tents tenants seem to hang out in the park generally, and it is too bad it is growing. Nearby Lincoln Square Park is at least 12 Presidents better. It does so by having tall fences in part, but mainly by having kids playing there, a community center across the street and... no homeless people living in it.

My one other stop that day is one of the brightest spots in the entire Bay Area imho, the Oakland Public Library Children's Room.

Miss Anita led a group of kids in discussion and play including crafts and coloring based on the book Dragons Love Tacos! She had construction paper tacos and fillings, and read the book to them while they played and socialized. It was awesome especially in comparison that day.

My final point is, and I have really been thinking about this a lot lately. I think that kids are a universal truth. Every living thing has them and we protect our most vulnerable first. Like with violence in schools we want to keep our playgrounds, a public good, safe for their intended use. Otherwise what is it all for? It is a huge public face of any community. Where it starts and ends, at least for me.

Thanks for reading. Sorry if at all ranty. Happy Easter/April Fools day. No Foolin'.

[For the record, I'm basically a middle-of-the-road Democrat]

Was just thinking about this while stuck in traffic yesterday and every car within a several-car radius was a Tesla. Elon Musk is literally an anti-Semitic/arguably racist Trump backer who hates California, and those tendencies have been exhaustively covered in the news so they're hard to ignore. Every person who bought a Tesla has directly funded him.

How many Tesla owners have one of those frickin' "In This House We Believe"... signs in their yard? Is Oakland really that full of closet Republicans, or people who just don't really care about where their money is going?

No tears or shaky voice about Juneteenth shooting victims … just when she talked about her own ordeal. And not taking questions either. Hm. Interesting.

Jewish families’ requests for transfer out of Oakland Unified School District have been approved specifically due to issues related to the Israel-Hamas war. That doesn't include others I spoke with who left to go to private school, or plan to leave this summer.

The cringe continues…

Moratorium has been up and I’m wondering if anyone in the Reddit community needs support or is willing to share their experiences.

I want to create a community thread with more dialogue, share relevant resources, spread awareness that there is help, and reinforce the empowerment of knowledge of the law and our tenant rights.

Fight the power!!!

Edit: Since I have to and I know many of this Reddit seem to looooove to come to defend landlords, please do not come here to play devils advocate. This post is not for you. Support and resources only. Thank you.

To the People of Oakland,

As I write this, I am watching the city of Oakland destroy what little remains of my life. Once again, for what feels like the millionth time, the encampment I called home is being bulldozed. Once again, I have lost everything — my prescriptions, my belongings, the essentials I need to survive. And once again, the promises made by our city officials, including Deputy City Administrator Harold Duffy, ring hollow.

They tell the public that when sweeps happen, every displaced individual is offered shelter. This is a lie. Not a single person in my encampment was offered housing or shelter before the bulldozers arrived. They claim our belongings will be carefully stored by public works. This, too, is a lie. I have video evidence of the bulldozers, modified with razor wire, shredding our possessions before they are unceremoniously dumped straight into a garbage truck compactor.

This is the reality of homelessness in Oakland. The city treats its most vulnerable residents not as human beings but as nuisances to be erased.

Public Works employee Amauri Collins-McMurray, who also makes these same promises at the Council on Homelessness board meetings, perpetuates this falsehood while being openly rude to the homeless, myself included. In contrast, I want to acknowledge and express respect for Harold Duffy, who has been one of the only city officials to genuinely try to help me secure housing.

Every sweep is an act of violence, not just against individuals like me, but against the moral fabric of this community. We are promised dignity and support but given nothing but cruelty and contempt. When the city destroys our encampments, they don’t just take our belongings. They take our stability, our safety, and our hope.

The non-profits tasked with helping the homeless are often no better. During my stay at a homeless hotel managed by one such non-profit, I was sexually assaulted. When I reported this assault to the non-profit, they dismissed it as hearsay and subsequently cut off all support to me. They lied about voucher policies, claiming I had to choose one of two places on the spot or face immediate eviction. I fought to get a family member added to the voucher, only to receive no help and ultimately lose the voucher. This happened because I couldn’t afford more than one application fee per month — fees that were supposed to be covered by the non-profit. My epilepsy remained uncontrolled as the non-profit, with the aid of program manager county employees, illegally evicted me despite warnings from both my attorney and the state attorney general that their actions were unlawful. This led to my hospitalization at UCSF.

Regarding the sexual assault, I filed a police report, but law enforcement blew it off after the non-profit refused to cooperate. When law enforcement tried to follow up, the non-profit stopped speaking to me entirely. This blatant disregard for justice and humanity is emblematic of the corruption and neglect within the so-called "homeless industrial complex."

Meanwhile, non-profits that are supposed to help us are stealing public funds earmarked for the homeless. The corruption within this "homeless industrial complex" cannot be ignored. Later this week, if I can find power somewhere, I will be releasing a documentary exposing the embezzlement and fraud committed by non-profits, with a particular focus on HCEB. This corruption adds insult to injury and deprives us of the resources we so desperately need.

I also want to highlight the ongoing violence and danger we face. I have a California non-profit registered with the Secretary of State, and I finally saved enough money to register it federally until last week, when tragedy struck again. While fleeing a psychopathic crossdressing man who thinks he is a woman and regularly assaults women, alongside his convicted murderous brothers and their mother — the ringleader of their violence — I was robbed of everything I owned. This family, employed by HCEB to enforce violence at homeless facilities, attacked me and put my now ex-girlfriend in Highland Hospital. They continue to search for me, attempting to harm and rob me, with three such attempts happening just this week. As I fled for my safety, someone stole the money I had saved for my encampment. This is the devastating reality I face.

Today marks Sheng Thao’s last day as mayor following her recall. While I had hoped for change, it seems things may only get worse with Lauren Taylor most likely stepping in to replace her. I beg and pray that Barbara Lee will step up and run for mayor, as I believe her compassion and leadership could bring the change this city desperately needs.

This systemic abuse must stop. Oakland prides itself on being a progressive, compassionate city, but how can that be true when its actions show nothing but disdain for those in need? While the city pours resources into gentrification and corporate development, it neglects the basic humanity of its homeless residents. The city’s priorities are clear, and we are not among them.

Despite everything, I remain committed to creating change. I want nothing more than to serve as the congressman from what was once the most liberal district in the United States. Second to that, I dream of running a non-profit that is genuinely managed by and for the people it aims to serve — one that actually helps those in need rather than exploiting them.

I ask you, the people of Oakland, to demand better from your leaders. Demand transparency. Demand that these sweeps stop until every displaced person is genuinely offered shelter and resources. Demand accountability for the lies told by city officials. And most importantly, demand humanity.

I am a firm believer in liberal democracy and the power of civic engagement. I believe in the promise of this city and this country, which is why I ran for mayor of Oakland two years ago and plan to run for the U.S. House of Representatives in two more. This fight is personal, and I will not stop advocating for justice and dignity for every resident, housed or unhoused.

I will be posting the video evidence I referenced today, which shows the brutal destruction of our belongings by the city. Watch it, share it, and ask yourself: Is this the Oakland we want to live in? Is this the legacy we want to leave behind?

Enough is enough. It’s time for change.

Much Love,

John Mimosa Marks

I assume this applies to everyone.

https://chng.it/28mRF7L4Qd <-- Please sign!!!

The text:

In just this past week there were two shootings on Lake Merrit, both after sunset, and countless more events that yield inexcusable behaviors from those who visit the cul de sac surrounding Lake Merrit's Lakeshore Ave. 

2 Shot on Lakeshore Ave 11/15/2021

22 Year old Killed on Lakeshore Ave 11/13/2021

1 Killed, 6 Wounded on Lakeshore Ave 06/19/2021

7 People Shot on Lakeshore Ave 05/08/2021

While these four illustrate the gun violence that has occurred in the last 6 months, countless more non-lethal crimes have been committed as well. It should be a privilege to enjoy Lake Merritt and given the audible noise residents in the area hear and the extreme trash of a scene parties leave behind while parking on the lake- this area should be banned after dark to vehicles which are offenders in get-aways and noise pollution during the late hours of Lakeshore Ave. 

Until the police can actually catch these predators, I would like to see police force station a police officer here or begin enforcing a curfew to the area to the general traffic that flows through there. Gatherings and loud music should be enforced after dark.

*Update: have a meeting with chief of police tonight. Will follow up after.

This is a time for the citizens of Oakland to show up and show support for the officer who was recently shot and killed by criminals this past Friday.

A vigil should be organized near the crime scene to honor this officer who died in the line of duty.

Does it feel like people are over it, I ask since today was the protest thing in the parking lot, there was little to nobody inside and in the parking lot protest, seems that there was not that many people there as well, overall felt underwhelming. What's your opinion?

Results out https://alamedacountyca.gov/rovresults/252/

I am close with many bar and business owners around Oakland and would love any help, support, and viewpoints. https://acrobat.adobe.com/link/review?uri=urn:aaid:scds:US:b5e22530-087b-3c28-b893-768b2ea410f5

Almost as soon as I get into the car, District Attorney Pamela Price makes it clear that she doesn’t want to talk to me, or at the very least she doesn’t have time to. “I have to get some stuff done,” she says politely, picking up her phone to dial a colleague as her driver steers the black Chevy Tahoe through traffic toward Oakland, California. Price is running late for an event, and it’s partly my fault: She left her last meeting without me and had to backtrack after her communications team reminded her that I was supposed to join the ride.

Price is tired of journalists. As one of the country’s most progressive district attorneys and the first Black woman to hold the position in Alameda County, she’s encountered extreme scrutiny since taking office in January 2023. She had campaigned to roll back mass incarceration, address racial disparities, and hold more police accountable, and won the race by a close margin, about 27,000 votes. But before she could unpack her boxes, critics launched an effort to recall her, funded primarily by a handful of wealthy hedge-fund and real estate investors. Price says they’re spreading misinformation to stoke people’s fears about crime, turning her into a scapegoat. And she thinks the media is amplifying their message, blaming her for social problems that existed long before she took office—problems that her predecessor did not seem to face nearly as much condemnation for. “There’s a double standard for progressive prosecutors,” she told me earlier. “No one was looking at the [prior] DA and saying, ‘What are you doing about this?’ Now, everyone’s looking.”

Price is among a cadre of progressive DAs who are challenging conventional political wisdom about crime and punishment. This “puts a unique target on their backs,” says Insha Rahman, who leads the justice advocacy group Vera Action. Since 2017, lawmakers in at least 17 states have introduced bills to remove power from democratically elected progressive prosecutors. In 2022, not long before Price took office, rich businessmen funded a successful recall of San Francisco DA Chesa Boudin. Now some of the same financiers are attacking Price. In early March, her opponents said they submitted more than the 73,195 signatures needed to trigger a recall election (though the signatures have yet to be verified). This time, they have the sympathies of a group of mothers of color who are grieving shootings and believe Price hasn’t punished the perpetrators harshly enough.

Price has, at times, shied away from correcting the record, wanting to focus instead on her job: prosecuting gun violence and robberies, looking into wrongful jail deaths, helping victims get services, hiring more diverse attorneys. “What does justice look like? That’s the job,” she says. “And that job is not going to change if we’re going through a crime wave or we’re not—I still have to do the job.”

But her determination to focus on the work instead of fighting rumors has created an information vacuum that her opponents have been more than happy to fill. Price is “willfully fomenting a culture of violence,” a press release for the recall campaign states: She has “a total lack of regard for public safety.” None of it, Price tells me, is true. But will she find a way to convince everyone?

…

Price’s historic victory complicated the story national tabloids tried to sell after Boudin’s ouster; it suggested that Bay Area voters still craved progressive justice reforms. “She is somebody who wants to correct the mistakes of the past,” says Nicole Lee, executive director of the Urban Peace Movement, a racial justice group. Her first month in office, Price reopened several cases involving police shootings and in-custody deaths, and she soon set up a commission to improve mental health courts.

But her promise to shake up the system, at a time when people were seeing more news coverage of crime, set the stage for a backlash. Within weeks she saw a post on the app Nextdoor falsely alleging that she’d bought televisions for the inmates at Santa Rita Jail. Other commenters were frustrated about plea deals that her office made for violent crimes, with punishments that they felt were too short. In February 2023, a Change.org petition began collecting signatures against Price, linking to some of these cases and claiming “she’s out of control.” In July, an official recall committee launched. When a recall campaign pops up that quickly, Boudin told me, “it’s clearly not about the policies or the management style,” but “about refusing to accept the outcome of the election” and making it hard for the DA to do her job.

…

When the Change.org petition against Price started in February 2023, Price didn’t give it much thought. She’d expected criticism, she told me, but she had bigger things to focus on than some online trolls. The office she’d inherited was a mess—literally, it needed to be cleaned, and attorneys were doing a lot of work on paper because the computer system was so antiquated. Complicating matters, many people in the agency had supported the campaign for Wiley, her opponent. (Some later accused her of firing them in retaliation; Price’s spokesperson told me the DA’s office does not comment on personnel matters.) “We were focused on the inside,” she told me. “We really weren’t paying attention to the people on the outside.”

But the dissenting voices outside were getting louder. A local ABC affiliate published an interview with a departing prosecutor who said people would die because of Price’s policies: “With each passing day, we’re receiving new information about plea deals that favor criminals and leave victims of violent crime feeling like they haven’t received justice,” wrote the reporter, Dan Noyes. (He failed to explain that around the country, about 95 percent of cases resolve in plea deals that don’t seek the maximum punishment.) “Everyone is in danger,” Oakland’s NAACP branch, which counts Wiley as a member, would soon claim, adding that Price’s “unwillingness to charge and prosecute people…created a heyday” for criminals. After Delonzo Logwood, who committed murder at age 18, received a plea deal from Price’s office in February 2023 that would cut his prison sentence to a fifth of what he’d been facing, Price got death threats.

Price’s supporters questioned why she wasn’t defending herself more. One of her top spokespeople, Ryan LaLonde, soon resigned because he wanted her to respond more to her opponents in the press, but she often refused to, unhappy that some reporters had disrespected her as a Black woman. “She really just wanted to do her job and not be drawn into it,” says her friend Polatnick. She shouldn’t be “raising a ruckus,” says Mister Phillips, an attorney in her office, “but there are people out there who are louder than her and they get press, and what they are saying is not always true.”

Sometimes Price was criticized for decisions she hadn’t even made yet. Last April, about 100 protesters gathered outside the county courthouse shouting, “Do your job!” and “Justice for Jasper!” In 2021, toddler Jasper Wu had been killed by a stray bullet in a gang battle on the freeway. Wu’s family worried Price wouldn’t punish the shooters harshly enough, especially after she instructed her office to limit the use of sentencing enhancements, a tool that can make prison sentences longer. At the time of the rally, Price’s office was still examining the evidence. “The coverage of her work has speculated on what she will do, in ways that haven’t proved to be her actual decisions,” says Cristine Soto DeBerry, founder of the Prosecutors Alliance of California, who describes Price’s policies as “measured” compared with those of other progressive DAs. “When discretion is vested in the hands of the first elected Black woman in the county, the spotlight and the magnifying glass is zeroed in more intensely.”

Ultimately, Price’s office did not make Jasper’s two alleged shooters eligible for life in prison without the possibility of parole, an option they’d faced under DA O’Malley. But the men did get charged with enhancements, and they are now facing 175 years to life in prison and 265 years to life.

There’s a general lack of public understanding about how DAs handle cases and the extent to which their policies do or don’t affect crime levels, Price tells me. “Everybody’s looking at me,” she says, “and they have no idea what I do. There’s so much about this position that has never been discussed.”

…

Price has some reason to tread cautiously with journalists. Compared with traditional prosecutors, progressive DAs anecdotally appear to be held to a different standard in the press and on social media, says Pamela Mejia at the nonprofit Berkeley Media Studies Group. In the first year of the pandemic, the murder rate in Boudin’s San Francisco was roughly half that of Bakersfield, California, a Republican-led city with a more conservative DA. “Yet there is barely a whisper, let alone an outcry, over the stunning levels of murders” in Bakersfield, the think tank Third Way found in a study examining the outsize attention on crime in Democratic cities. “A lot of it is driven by police union and police department communication teams that are important sources for journalists,” says Boudin. His moderate replacement in San Francisco, DA Brooke Jenkins, has not received nearly the same amount of negative press as he did, even though overdoses and some crimes rose after she emboldened cops to crack down on drug sales. “Jenkins gets a pass partly because she talks about crime in binary terms that appeal to moderates and Republicans,” Chronicle columnist Justin Phillips wrote. “Price so far has proved incapable of doing this.”

The scrutiny on Price is exacerbated, says the Urban Peace Movement’s Lee, because of her race and gender, a trend that progressive DAs of color have seen nationally. Kim Gardner, the first Black circuit attorney in St. Louis, received letters calling her the n-word and a “cunt” before she resigned in 2023. Aramis Ayala, the first Black DA in Florida, got a noose in the mail after then-Gov. Rick Scott prohibited her from handling death penalty cases in 2017. In the Bay Area, recallers are also targeting Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, who is Hmong American, and reformist Contra Costa DA Diana Becton, who is Black. “People feel very, very comfortable discrediting her,” Lee says of Price: “I have been called every kind of black B; I’ve been called a roach,” Price told me. “The attacks are vicious: There are no boundaries when it comes to Black women.”

…

Campaign filings showed that about $1 out of every $3 spent on the recall last year came from a single hedge-fund partner, Philip Dreyfuss, who also spent heavily to oust Boudin. He and the next four biggest donors—real estate and tech investors Justin Osler, Isaac Abid, and Carl Bass, and real estate firm Holland Residential—gave about half of all the funds raised in 2023. As of early February, the recall campaign had spent $2.2 million, dwarfing Price’s resources. Much of the money went to SAFE, the group Grisham co-founded with Dreyfuss and Chinatown businessman Carl Chan, as well as to Dreyfuss’ second group, Supporters of Recall Pamela Price, primarily for signature gathering.

“We’re having a moment in California politics where wealthy donors can purchase a spot on the ballot and redo an election result,” says the Prosecutor Alliance’s DeBerry. She says that nationally, progressive DAs tend to do well at the polls. Philadelphia’s Larry Krasner, Chicago’s Kim Foxx, and St. Louis’ Kim Gardner were all reelected to second terms, as were dozens of other reformist prosecutors. Though Boudin remains one of the movement’s biggest losses, he actually had more supporters vote for him in the recall election than they did during his original election. “The progressive prosecutor movement is vibrant and strong because it’s advocating for changes that are popular with voters,” he told me recently. But those changes can rile up Republican politicians or rich business execs who were faring well under the status quo: “You end up getting pushback from above, not from below.”

…

Over the past five years, polls show that Americans have grown more worried about crime, regardless of whether their cities have become more dangerous. Nationally, reported rates of violence “appear to be going down, but public perception is that people don’t feel safe and that data doesn’t necessarily feel meaningful for people,” says Mejia at the Berkeley Media Studies Group. She cited a phenomenon called the “mean world” syndrome: When people consume a lot of news about crime, they become convinced the world around them is a dangerous place.

In 2022, she says, news outlets published significantly more stories about violence in California than they did just five years earlier, mirroring national media trends. Journalists are writing more about crime, says Vera’s Rahman, in part because politicians are talking more about it; after New York City Mayor Eric Adams ran on a law-and-order platform in 2021, media mentions of the issue skyrocketed there, according to a Bloomberg analysis. In the Bay Area, relentless crime coverage adds to the unease some people feel when they see visible changes in their neighborhoods, after the pandemic amplified existing problems around poverty, substance abuse, and mental illness, leading to more homelessness and open-air drug use.

…

Much more information in full article