OAKLAND — The Nov. 5 election in this city is shaping up to be as consequential as they come, with five council races and a recall of Mayor Sheng Thao at stake, but the run-up has been unseasonably quiet — at least in one crucial way.
Police had investigated just one crime in Oakland as a homicide between Oct. 1 and Oct. 27, but that person was shot in September and died this month — marking a staggeringly peaceful month just before an election that has put residents’ concerns about crime front and center.
Research has shown that warmer weather is often correlated with higher crime rates, but record-high temperatures in Oakland at the start of this month so far do not appear to have tracked with more violence.
The statistic contributes to a year of improvement in Oakland, where homicides from Jan. 1 to Oct. 27 have fallen by 32% from the same period of time last year, according to Oakland Police Department data.
Year-to-date crime overall is down 37%, per OPD data, with burglaries having declined by 55%, robberies by 24% and aggravated assault by 15%. Non-fatal shootings in an occupied home or vehicle had also dropped by 32%.
The data is significant at a time when much of the city is clamoring for change. All candidates for City Council, especially newcomer candidates challenging for incumbent seats, have made public safety a central focus of their campaigns.
The campaign seeking to remove Thao as mayor, meanwhile, has focused intensely on crime — leading some of its most notable supporters, such as the local chapter of the NAACP, to forego mention of other woes in Oakland, such as the city’s bleak financial outlook.
Thao’s critics have pointed to the city’s failure last year to apply for a public-safety grant worth millions and her firing of police Chief LeRonne Armstrong as causes of a crime increase in 2023.
But this year’s data, especially the numbers from this month, led the mayor’s anti-recall campaign to declare Tuesday that her “comprehensive public safety strategy is working.”
“By reinstating proven programs like Ceasefire, strengthening partnerships with law enforcement agencies including OPD and (California Highway Patrol), and investing in modern public safety technology, we’re seeing meaningful results for Oakland residents,” the campaign said in a statement.
Dylan Qin, 8, takes part in a press conference outside of City Hall calling for Mayor Sheng Thao to resign in Oakland, Calif., on Sunday, June 23, 2024. Efforts to remove Mayor Thao from office are headed to the Nov. 5 election. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)
In a series of interviews ahead of next week’s election, the mayor has pointed to the revival of Ceasefire — an anti-violence program that lost resources during the pandemic — as the reason for a drop in crime.
Oakland may also be catching up to other relatively large California cities that rebounded after crime surged during the pandemic. San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles and Long Beach all saw crime level off in 2023 from previous highs.
Thao, meanwhile, has championed the …read more
Source:: The Mercury News – Entertainment
