News/Commentary

Oakland NAACP comes out swinging against crime, blasts local Dems who backed ‘defund the police’

July 30, 2023 | | Print Article

The Oakland branch of The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has come out swinging against local crime.

In a highly unexpected open letter released Thursday, the left-wing organization slammed local “elected leaders” over their “failed leadership” and demanded said leaders declare a state of emergency because of the crime epidemic.

“Oakland residents are sick and tired of our intolerable public safety crisis that overwhelmingly impacts minority communities. Murders, shootings, violent armed robberies, home invasions, car break-ins, sideshows, and highway shootouts have become a pervasive fixture of life in Oakland,” the letter begins.

“We call on all elected leaders to unite and declare a state of emergency and bring together massive resources to address our public safety crisis. African Americans are disproportionately hit the hardest by crime in East Oakland and other parts of the city. But residents from all parts of the city report that they do not feel safe,” it continues.

Crime statistics from the Oakland area suggest residents are 100 percent in the right to not feel safe in their own neighborhoods.

“The letter arrived at a time where the city is struggling to catch up with crime sprees that have intensified in recent months. North Oakland has seen a 22% increase in robberies over last year and an 18% increase in violent crime,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

“Law enforcement officials say they’re overwhelmed and strapped for resources, noting that officers witnessed 100 robberies in a single week by alleged perpetrators who are sometimes as young as 12 years old,” the Chronicle reported Friday.

The letter goes on to note how women are being “targeted by young mobs and viciously beaten and robbed in downtown and uptown neighborhoods,” Asians are being “assaulted in Chinatown,” street vendors are being “robbed in Fruitvale,” etc.

The letter then begins to assign blame for all this crime.

“Failed leadership, including the movement to defund the police, our District Attorney’s unwillingness to charge and prosecute people who murder and commit life threatening serious crimes, and the proliferation of anti-police rhetoric have
created a heyday for Oakland criminals. If there are no consequences for committing crime in Oakland, crime will continue to soar,” the letter reads.

“People are moving out of Oakland in droves. They are afraid to venture out of their homes to go to work, shop, or dine in Oakland and this is destroying economic activity. Businesses, small and large, struggle and close, tax revenues vanish, and we are creating the notorious doom-loop where life in our city continues to spiral downward,” it continues.

By “doom loop,” the writers of the letter likely meant the way in which bad economic conditions generate the impetus for more crime.

The letter continues by explicitly calling for a state of emergency.

“We are in crisis and elected leaders must declare a state of emergency and bring resources together from the city, the county, and the state to end the crisis. We are 500 police officers short of the number that experts say Oakland needs. Our 911 system does not work. Residents now know that help will not come when danger confronts them. Worse, criminals know that too,” it reads.

Not surprisingly given the NAACP’s leftist roots, the letter also calls for more left-wing solutions to the crime epidemic, such as “quality education, mentorship, and, most importantly, real economic opportunities.”

“Oakland should focus on creating skilled industrial and logistics jobs that pay family sustaining wages, and vocational training so Oakland residents can perform those jobs. With this focus we can produce hundreds, if not thousands, of the types of jobs desperately needed to stem economic despair,” the letter reads.

However, the letter then admits that “progressive policies and failed leadership have chased away or delayed significant blue collar job development in the city, the Port of Oakland, and the former Army Base.”

That’s not the only criticism of “progressive” politics that the letter has to offer.

“There is nothing compassionate or progressive about allowing criminal behavior to fester and rob Oakland residents of their basic rights to public safety. It is not racist or unkind to want to be safe from crime. No one should live in fear in our city,” it further reads.

Unfortunately, the letter isn’t working thus far. Responding to it on Friday, Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price’s office issued a statement slamming its writers — Oakland Branch President Cynthia Adams and Bishop Bob Jackson of Acts Full Gospel Church — for speaking the truth.

“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. We would expect more from Bishop Bob Jackson and the Oakland Chapter of the NAACP,” Price’s office reportedly said.

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Vivek Saxena
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