Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Oakland In The News.....again

Oakland California, or as it is more affectionately known by its denizens "Oak-town" or more simply "O-town", is again in the news today.

The Oakland Police Department is getting ready to show the door to eighty officers, ( and as I write this, I hear the notices have gone out as talks have reportedly failed) and issued a list of crimes and incidents they will no longer respond to. Hey, nothing like handing out a laundry list to the criminal element and saying, "Here boys, do these things. We won't bother you."

Now Oakland has 776 uniformed officers and a population of around 400,000 give or take a few thousand illegal aliens. Oakland is another "sanctuary city" just like Maywood in Southern California.

Oakland is suffering from a serious budget shortfall, rising crime rates, businesses have fled the city. For years, Eastmont Mall was a veritable ghost town as stores loaded up their trucks in the dark of night and fled. At one point the mall had a 70% vacancy rate. It was one of the places I used to service equipment in, and we were warned not to be in the neighborhood once it started to get dark. Actually, that warning still stands.

Eventually, the Old JC Penny's location became part of the Alameda County Health Department (basically a social services center), and Mervyn's Department Store became a police station. Kind of tells you exactly what kind of place it was and still is to a large extent.

Downtown Oakland isn't much better, and the gentrified Clay Street area is starting to look worn, although it was a very nice attempt by the city to clean itself up.

The OPD released a partial list of crimes they will not respond to after the 80 officers were laid off. I'm sure many of you have seen it.

  • burglary
  • theft
  • embezzlement
  • grand theft
  • grand theft:dog
  • identity theft
  • false information to peace officer
  • required to register as sex or arson offender
  • dump waste or offensive matter
  • discard appliance with lock
  • loud music
  • possess forged notes
  • pass fictitious check
  • obtain money by false voucher
  • fraudulent use of access cards
  • stolen license plate
  • embezzlement by an employee (over $ 400)
  • extortion
  • attempted extortion
  • false personification of other
  • injure telephone/ power line
  • interfere with power line
  • unauthorized cable tv connection
  • vandalism

Are these people for real? Seriously?

The only upside I can see is people can now get free power and cable TV and lie to the cops about it.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...
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Bitmap said...

I'll bet officers would come to personally investigate if any of those offenses were committed at an officer's home, or any member of the city council's home.

HermitJim said...

Seems to me that this is absolutely insane! What WILL they respond to?

I certainly don't want to live there! Bad enough to be here in Houston!

Mayberry said...

And that is what the beginning of SHTF looks like...