This story was updated April 9, 2021 to clarify that the 91-year-old man attacked in Oakland Chinatown, in an incident that was recorded in a video that later wentviral, was not Asian. In East Oakland, where there are shootings that threaten Black lives literally every day, we can stand in solidarity and support that crisis, as we also stand in solidarity in whats happening in Oakland Chinatown to Asian elders, said City Council president Nikki Fortunato Bas, whose district includes Chinatown, in an interview. The department would be required to undergo a one year sustainability period to prove that the reforms can last without the intervention of outside authorities. Nonetheless, many residents are concerned with lifting the oversight too soon., Besides the last five tasks left for the OPD to tackle in order to be in complete compliance, one issue still remains. ?????? [26], The Domain Awareness Center (DAC) is a joint project between the Port of Oakland and the city. We examined crimes by police beats, but a small share of these incidents may have been labeled with police beats that do not actually correspond with their addresses, according to Belew. Having grown up in Oakland, Masouredis was unsurprised by the citys activism. According to the document, more than 1,300 instances of theft were reported at commercial properties like shops, offices and grocery stores that year a 76% increase compared to 2021. A donation to The Oaklandside goes beyond the newsroom. In California and the rest of the western U.S., Chinese immigrants were massacred, burned, and killed in the 19th- and early-20th centuries, violence rooted in white supremacy. Shootings spiked last year, rising from 284 in 2019 to 485. 11 California Cities Make 'Most Dangerous In U.S.' List 2021 Over the course of one day, Jan. 31, Yahya Muslim, a 28-year old unhoused man, allegedly attacked three people in Chinatown. [8] Property crime in Oakland declined by 58% between 1988 and 2009, increased from 2009 to 2012 (a period when the property crime rate remained stable in comparable cities and statewide). These trends arent limited to Oakland: California observed a statewide surge in gun sales over the pandemic, according to Department of Justice data. For most years, they did not add up to a significant percentage of the overall crimes, but in 2021, about 5% of the incidents in the data were missing one or both of these values. Initially, City Council members rejected this idea, asserting that resources and aid would be better concentrated in violence prevention and outreach programs. Whether or not racial or ethnic hatred is ramping up crime in Chinatown right now, fears of xenophobiaprejudice, fear, and hatred of people from different culturesare real and serious. Your donation goes beyond supporting our journalism. His death sparked a series of protests which worked to fight back against the departments excessive use of force. The changes youre seeing in Oakland are similar, in terms of the direction, to what were seeing in the state, he said. The deaths of an old , Oaklands city council approved the implementation of a fifth police academy. We are spending so much resources solving crime but if we can prevent crimes from happening, then we dont have to spend all these resources.. [23] Carjackings occur two to three times more frequently in Oakland than in other cities of comparable size, and police have recorded at least one reported carjacking in every Oakland neighborhood; in 2005-2007, there were 884 carjackings in Oakland and 334 carjackings in San Francisco, despite San Francisco having about twice as many residents as Oakland. [28], The Oakland Riders scandal involved a group of corrupt Oakland police officers who made false arrests, falsified evidence, and engaged in brutality. This article has been translated to Chinese. This page was last edited on 8 February 2023, at 17:14. But Public Defender Brendon Woods said so far there is absolutely no evidence of xenophobia against Asian Americans, and that, connecting this case to a rise in racist violence against Asian Americans is not appropriate and it should not influence the district attorney and the courts as Mr. Muslims case makes its way through the system. Ten Years Post-Reform, How Are Californias Congressional Maps Still Unfair? Calls for increased police presence in Chinatown have come with serious concerns about Black Oaklanders shopping or otherwise spending time in the commercial district being profiled, criminalized, and harmed. Virtual Event. It feels like a breaking point for many people, said Wong. Oakland, California is experiencing its deadliest year in decades as the city faces an unprecedented rise in violent crimes, local Kron4 reports. As of now, the City of Oakland is accepting applications in order to implement the program citywide. As many as a third of all Chinatown businesses are closed permanently or temporarily due to COVID, with notable restaurants closing or signaling they might have to. Although MACRO is still fairly new, residents frustrated with Oaklands Police Department are witnessing real change. This decision came after the city experienced its 100th homicide of the year. [25], In 2013, Oakland implemented a gang violence reduction plan used previously in other cities, Operation Ceasefire, based on the research and strategies of author David M. In this two-part report, we attempt to do so. This week, we asked the district attorneys office whether there is any evidence in Muslims court files that he was motivated to attack past victims because of their race or ethnicity. But the 2021-2023 budget did divert about $18.5 million in funds Schaaf had wanted to give to OPD for alternative violence prevention programs. Antoine Towers, an Oakland Violence Interrupter, chants with other members of SAVE, Soldiers Against Violence Everywhere during a rally in West Oakland. ?? In March 2017, Muslim punched a Safeway employee in Pleasanton. These attorneys, Jim Chanin and John Burris, noted that the Oakland Police Department has recently made significant progress and after years of backsliding there is real momentum toward substantive compliance. Full compliance, however, has not been achieved. This year's even worse. A mural reading "Yellow Peril Supports Black Power" in Chinatown, one of many murals in the area supporting Asian and Black American unity. Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window). Theyre targeting vulnerable people, he said. Virtual Event, April 13, 2023 But there is no clear indication that victims in other attacks by Muslim, which police, witnesses, and victims described as random and unprovoked, were all Asian or members of any specific community, or that hes ever attacked anyone because of their race or identity. [31], The number of OPD officers has varied over time: there were 626 officers in 1996,[8] 814 in 2002,[8] 793 officers[8] or more than 800 officers in 2009,[18] 626 officers in 2012,[8] and 723 officers at the end of 2015. There is something special about activism in Oakland that would incline it to have a protest for Floyd, Masouredis states. Enough with these narratives that are not serving us that continue to divide us. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); 600 more apartments at Brooklyn Basin? tech companies have mass layoffs; one blames rise of AI, Warriors lean into championship DNA, beat Kings behind sublime Curry. It was only in August of this year that two civil rights attorneys called for a possible end to the current oversight. In 2008, homicides were disproportionately concentrated: 72% occurred in three City Council districts, District 3 in West Oakland and Districts 6 and 7 in East Oakland, even though these districts represent only 44% of Oakland's residents. In December, as part of a larger package of cuts, Oaklands city administrator, Ed Reiskin, who is managed by Mayor Libby Schaaf, did cut three beat patrol officers from Chinatown, including an Asian-American liaison officer who is bilingual in Cantonese and English. WebOakland; Crime rates* (2018) Violent crimes; Homicide: 16.2: Rape: 163.4 ** Robbery: 609.9: Aggravated assault: 543.4: Total violent crime: 1273.7: Property crimes; Burglary: 556.4: The shooting occurred at Martin Luther King Jr. Way in West Oakland. Independent, objective, nonpartisan research. Comparing January-Oct. 2020 to the same period in 2021, violent crimes increased by 5%, ranging from close to 17% in Oakland to about 1% in Los Angeles In the According to several members of the Benavidez family, the Oakland police continued to harass eyewitnesses to the Benavidez slayings. In 1979, two officers shot an Oakland teenager, Melvin Black, which spurred a deep investigation into the department and its policies. APEN has been headquartered in Oakland Chinatown since 2002. This dataset, on the other hand, counts crime incidents as they are recorded by the Oakland Police Department, yielding far more detailed information than the UCR statistics. Oakland police chief addresses recent crime spike, alarming But these instances only scratch the surface of the complex, troubling relationship between the department and community.In fact, in 2003, the Oakland Police Department was put under federal oversight after multiple allegations of police brutality and civil rights violation issues surfaced. They probably underestimate the total number of hate crimes occurring across communities in Oakland. (That proposal, which was not successful, did not call for reduced police presence in Chinatown, but Schaaf believes that it was such a large cut it would have necessarily led to a reduction in police patrols across the entire city.). In total, Muslim has been charged at least 10 times with assault, and has never been charged with a hate crime. Most recently, the City of Oakland experienced a wave of major uprisings in response to the death of Minneapolis resident, George Floyd. While there were more reported crimes for all four violent offenses (homicide, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault), about three-fourths of the overall increase in violent crime stems from aggravated assaults, the most common violent offense. Having that amount of weapons on the streets that is a serious contribution to why we saw an increase in violent crime, Holmgren told The Chronicle. Importantly, data also show a troubling rise in The need for fact-based journalism and thoughtful analysis has never been greater. It was only in August of this year that two civil rights attorneys called for a possible end to the current oversight. If you take out the handful of older, "cold" cases that were solved during 2022, the clearance rate in Oakland just 27%, an analysis by the S.F. The reporters and editors on The Oaklandside are dedicated to sharing the mic, reporting on systems, not symptoms, and providing you with the information you need to be an informed resident of our city. (Auto burglaries increased sharply in 2019, which may make the 2020 decrease look larger than it is in historical context.). Additionally, the story FBI crime data tells is incomplete: it tracks only eight crime types, and counts them according to a hierarchy rule in which an incident with both a murder and a theft would count only as a murder (the less-serious crime is excluded). Last June, Oakland quietly began publishing detailed, long-term data on crime incidents on its city website. According to U.S. census data, the commercial district of Chinatown is home to about 3,000 Oaklanders who are mostly Asian and significantly older than the rest of Oakland. [32], The Chauncey Bailey Project wrote in 2008 that detective caseload for OPD was more than any other major city in California, except Fresno,[33] and that, in that year, the Police Department had the lowest homicide clearance rate among California's large cities because the department is understaffed and the detective work in certain instances is not as thorough because there are simply not enough officers.[34]. We need transformative justice to make changes to a system that is failing all of us.. It includes the police beat where each incident occurred, which is not available in Oaklands FBI reports, and allows a closer look at the geography of the citys reported crime. [We need to] get away from demonizing, or finding someone to blame or punish. Walking through Chinatown, especially when were not in a pandemic, is a joyful, sweet experience of pink pastry boxes shared between grandparents and grandchildren theyre picking up from school, small groups of elders laughing together as they stroll to the park or get dim sum, she said. Overview of crime in Oakland, California, U.S. *Number of reported crimes per 100,000 population. Alongside Muslims physical attacks, Chinatown has experienced a recent uptick in robberies and petty theftwhich well explore in part two of this report. [1] The population numbers are based on U.S. Census estimates for the year end. [22], Total crime in Oakland dropped by 41% from 1987 to 2012, but the city has consistently been among the highest-crime cities in California; in 2012, Oakland had the highest total crime rate of any California city with 20,000 or more people, with 8,587 total crimes per 100,000 residents, compared to a statewide average of 3,182 total crimes per 100,000 people. Homicides in Oakland, California have surged 400% citywide in 2021, according to the latest crime analysis data shared by the city's police department. Planning started in 2009 as part of a nationwide initiative to secure ports by connecting motion sensors and cameras in and around the shipping facilities. Last June, Oakland quietly began publishing detailed, long-term data on crime incidents on its city website. I dont see it as Blacks against Asians. ? The recent physical assaults caught on camera have drawn international attention and response. It also helps your family, friends and Oakland neighbors have access to reliable, independent reporting. "[18] Crime experts said that the city's low homicide clearance rate undermined efforts to control violence. Preliminary data from four of Californias major citiesLos Angeles, Oakland, San Diego, and San Franciscoshow increases in property and violent crime numbers this It expects profits to increase because sales to dealers should rise 5% to 10% over last year despite high interest rates and inflation. Others have suggested that the scaling back of police forces in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests and riots may be contributing to the rising crime rates. In Oakland you have a 1 in 16 chance of becoming a victim of crime. The sewer rate increases are set to occur in increments over the course of the next 10 years, starting two years after the approval. While this news is disconcerting, it is worth noting that overall reported violent and property crimes are now similar to pre-pandemic levels; property crime was at a historic low in 2020, and violent crime was relatively low as well, similar to levels of the late 1960s. To find out what personal data we collect and how we use it, please visit our Privacy Policy, http://thepostmillennial.com/oakland-homicide-rate-up-300-in-2021, Oakland homicide rate surges by over 300 percent in 2021, REVEALED: Jeffrey Epstein met with current Biden CIA Director, Obama White House attorney after sex crimes conviction, 12 year old confronts school board after he was told his 'there are only 2 genders' shirt was a disruption, Two teens killed, four injured during early morning shooting at Mississippi house party, Tim Scott expected to announce 2024 presidential bid, Momfluencer convicted after lying about the attempted 'kidnapping' of her children, Second Amendment advocacy groups sue Washington over 'assault weapons' ban. Although MACRO is still fairly new, residents frustrated with Oaklands Police Department are witnessing real change. What is the crime rate in Oakland, CA? This is part one of a series; read part two. In November 2019, Muslim threw a chair at an Uptown bakery employee, cutting the mans face open. According to the figures in the article, my minimum bill would be $51. [6][7] From the period 1987 to 2012, crime declined significantly, but the city continued to struggle with persistently high rates of homicide and violent crime,[8] fluctuating over time. Before joining The Oaklandside as News Editor, Darwin BondGraham worked with The Appeal, where he was an investigative reporter covering police and prosecutorial misconduct. document.getElementById( "ak_js_2" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Your support is powering our newsroom! National media outlets from Fox News to The Guardian have picked up various threads of the story. September 2006 - Two women were killed in a drive-by shooting. Shootings spiked last year, rising from 284 in 2019 to 485. While he said theres no simple explanation for these increases, one component he noted is that the department has observed a significant increase in the number of guns in circulation. If I use electricity, my bill would increase by 50-70%. WebOakland crime rates are 175% higher than the national average. Your donation makes this and all our other local reporting possible. Note: Because the rates of crime are so low in America, we use "per 100,000 people" to make the number a bit easier to compare across locations visually. In one video that has been viewed millions of times, a 91-year-old man strolling along 8th and Harrison is violently shoved, headfirst, into the pavement. Join the ranks of independent, free thinkers by supporting us today for as little as $1. National surveys have shown that victims of many types of crime, particularly sexual assaults and lower-level thefts, are unlikely to report their incident to the police. The program, as an alternative to policing, operates seven days a week, with three teams that each include an EMT and a case intervention specialist. In its conception, MACRO was tested in communities that were deemed most vulnerable and underserved. And until data for last year is released, we wont know the impact of the pandemic, and associated hate and fear, on these statistics. Suspects and defendants in the couple of Oakland Chinatown cases that have garnered widespread attention in recent weeks were Black. Oakland and Long Beach, California, had comparable populations in 2019 (434,036 vs. 467,974), but Oaklands violent crime rate was more than double the rate in Long Beach. Across social media, many have claimed that the shocking assaults and the perceived uptick in robberies represent hate crimes, lingering effects of well-documented rise in anti-Asian sentiment and attacks that swelled at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. This website uses cookies to analyze site traffic and to allow users to complete forms on the site. But its unlikely that reporting rates change significantly from year to year, he said, so looking at trends over time is a generally more reliable way to track property crime than looking at the raw numbers. The department has been monitored by a federal judge for more than 18 years now. The police department reported shootings, assaults, robberies and burglaries all went up compared to 2020. Some we spoke to noted that the Oakland Police Departments headquarters are located just outside the border of Chinatown, and that while many of the shocking incidents that have garnered widespread attention in recent weeks took place two or three blocks away from OPDs main building, that presence didnt deter or interrupt these crimes. The surge includes a 150 percent increase in carjackings and a 115 percent increase in firearm-related assaults. Another reason Oakland saw such dramatic increases in homicides and assaults, Holmgren said, was the pandemics effect on the citys robust network of violence prevention groups, which some experts credit with helping dramatically reduce homicides in the city from 2013 through 2019. , a statute enacted in 2014, requires police staffing [to] remain at a certain level. If Oaklands police force falls below 678 officers, the Department runs the risk of losing tax and parking revenue usually funneled into crime prevention programs. Oakland Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong further articulated the institutional interest in increasing officers on the streets, arguing that more police academies will help to fill the gap as more Oakland officers are leaving the force., In a Police Commission meeting on Thursday, two days after the city councils meeting, Chief Armstrong assessed the recent significant decline in police officers, pointing to, criticism from Oakland community residents, as the driving force behind Oaklands officer shortage. The Berkeley Political Review was founded in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks by U.C. These are the things we doif we see someone carrying a high name-brand purse, it doesnt matter what color the skin is. In addition to analyzing this data, we spoke with crime researchers, community advocates and police department members to put recent trends in context. Oaklandwith a population roughly half of San Franciscossaw 134 homicides in 2021 compared to 102 in 2020 and 74 in 2019, according to the citys crime reports. The mayor has stated that there are no plans to bring removed officers back to Chinatown at this point. Property crime rose nearly 7% (ranging from about 3% in Los Angeles to 13% in Oakland), when comparing the first ten months of 2021 and 2020. For some people who have been working on the ground in Chinatown for years or decades, the sudden influx of attention, volunteer foot patrols, GoFundMe campaigns raising tens of thousands of dollars in a matter of days, and more has been overwhelming. The AGs office makes this data available to the public, and while numbers arent posted yet for 2020 and 2021, it does provide a view into which communities in Oakland have reported hate crimes in the past. UC Berkeley's only nonpartisan political magazine, On Tuesday, September 21, 2021, Oaklands city council approved the implementation of a fifth police academy. Why have recent crimes in Chinatown attracted searing attention locally and even internationally, while gun violence has spiked dramatically in parts of East Oakland for months with less sustained concern and civic response? Are we really seeing a unique uptick in crime there, unlike years past, and divorced from whats happening elsewhere and to other communities in Oakland? Since Thursday, August 6, 2020, five people tragically lost their lives in our city to gun violence. For decades, the Oakland Police Department has struggled to build trust between itself and the community, as the department has been under fire for issues of police brutality and misconduct practically since the development of Oaklands Black Panther Party in 1967. For example, while car theft has increased since 2019, auto burglaries (such as smash-and-grabs) have dropped from their high in 2019. These Oaklanders overcame fear and gathered in a park known for shootings. These five areas include: completing internal affairs investigations within a required time frame, internal affairs complaint procedures, use of force investigations, tracking who OPD officers stop and why and consistency of discipline against OPD members. If lifted, however, the federal oversight would not stop immediately. Cal Am is asking to increase charges by $9.4 million (10.52%) in 2024, by $2.5 million (2.48%) in 2025, and by $3.4 million (3.36%) in 2026. ??? [8] In 2012, there was one robbery per 91 residents, the highest rate in the United States. Oakland released detailed historical crime data. To help better understand the datas major pitfalls, we spoke to Rik Belew, a computer scientist and data analyst who has spent years working with the OPD on data accuracy and transparency. Oaklands Response to Remarkably Higher Crime Rates By AvaFinn on December 10, 2021 On Tuesday, September 21, 2021, Oaklands city council approved the implementation of a fifth police academy. Although Oakland has seen a particularly steep increase, it is not unusual for major cities to be experiencing a 50 to 100 percent rise in homicides. Surveillance footage of some incidents has also been widely viewed and decried as more evidence of anti-Asian sentiment. In Oakland, homicides rose from 78 in 2019 to 102 in 2020, the highest single-year increase in the region. And Magnus Lofstrom, a senior researcher at the Public Policy Institute of California, said that homicides and assaults are up in many other major California cities, too. The Oaklandside relies on reader support to remain free for everyone in our community. A group of Oakland officers, known as the Riders, were specifically called out for their dehumanizing and brutal approach to policing. If you value what you get from The Oaklandside, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can continue doing the local reporting that matters to you. Ava is an American Studies major here at UC Berkeley with a concentration on Race, Politics and Public Policy in the United States. A new report shows the most dangerous cities in the USand the safest places. And most of the police beat areas representing the citys northern half didnt have enough assaults to reasonably compare 2019 and 2021 rates. S.F. We examined reported crime numbers for Los Angeles, Oakland, San Diego, and San Francisco between January 1, 2020, and October 31, 2021. All four cities saw increases in homicides (Oakland 38%, Los Angeles 17%, San Diego 11%, and San Francisco 5%). [8], Robbery rates in Oakland declined by 60% in the seven years between 1993 and 2000, but thereafter increased, more than doubling between 2000 and 2012. But these instances only scratch the surface of the complex, troubling relationship between the department and community., In fact, in 2003, the Oakland Police Department was put under, after multiple allegations of police brutality and civil rights violation issues surfaced.

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