Comments on: East Oakland moms ask police for help

By: livegreen

livegreen — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 05:19:59 +0000

I think OCO has some good intentions & often does good work, it just doesn’t mean an African American Officer born & raised in Oakland is wrong or biased or uncaring when he says he’s too short on Officers.

BTW, when OCO participates in writing a new map for the OUSD Strategic Plan they should watch out for their own biases. Namely when they lobby the district to draw the map in a way that benefits their own members. With the Superintendent.
Behind closed doors…

By: Chauncey

Chauncey — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 01:17:09 +0000

OCO is perpuating problems as do most lberal leaners in the Bay Area ! Glorified racial and problem pimping.

This state is going to pay due to the Pelosi slants!
God help us., but things are falling apart on the West side!

By: Oaklander

Oaklander — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 19:56:33 +0000

Katy – I disagree with Susan. This is great reporting! You are a human and you are showing the need for humanity to prevail over violence in our communities.

Great work OCO. Let’s keep up the fight against violence and the desensitization that it causes.

By: livegreen

livegreen — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 22:37:38 +0000

BTW, re.OPD-OUSD, the OUSD Strategic Plan proposes a new map dividing Oakland schools into 3 new Regions. These are changed from the previous Zones/Regions. OUSD is saying it’s to align with existing Neighborhood & Police Regions/Beats.

Except that’s not true: the OLD zones/regions are aligned with OPD Regions/Beats. The newly proposed OUSD Regions & Map is NOT.

By: livegreen

livegreen — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 20:51:54 +0000

Cranky, On what experience of Community Policing do you base your statement that “OPD has focused primarily on the protection of property in the better neighborhoods”?

Re. “without systematic community policing”: well we DID have this until very recently. That was the whole point of both NCPC’s, NSC’s & PSO’s. So are you saying when we had those they weren’t community policing? Or are you saying now that the PSO’s have been removed we don’t have community policing?

If the former, why are those 3 community policing efforts not “systematic community policing”?

By: maestra

maestra — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 18:08:18 +0000

When I was teaching in East Oakland, we had an attempted kidnapping (mentally ill homeless person walked on campus and tried to take a 5th grader) A teacher called OPD emergency (not 911) and reported it. 50 minutes later, the cops showed up. Thankfully, the kid had wiggled out of his jacket that the guy had ahold of and was OK. But 50 minutes? The Eastmont mall police station was a few blocks away. One of the kids said to me “If we was white kids, they wouldn’t have waited so long.” I wanted to tell her that wasn’t true but I think it was.

By: cranky teacher

cranky teacher — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 17:04:33 +0000

You’re right Livegreen, it was a rather broad accusation and I did not mean to tarnish all cops. Let me clarify:

Community policing in Oakland has never been systematically implemented in Oakland despite it being on the drawing board for decades. Furthermore, what limited the resources the OPD has are focused primarily on the protection of property in the better neighborhoods. Without a systematic community policing program — and interacting with citizens in the manner requested here is a key to such a program — officers have no motivation other than personal goodwill to put themselves out into direct contact with neighborhoods in non-emergency situations.

The cop’s response in this situation was short-sighted at best, politically motivated at worst (since we are being pounded with the idea that we don’t have enough cops).

More officers and money would be a prerequisite to better policing but not a guarantee, at all. In fact, nationwide there is an interesting debate happening about policing in that statistics don’t bear out the default idea that more cops equal less crime. In fact, the connection seems not to exist.

Just saw an interesting documentary segment about the role of policing leading up to the Watts “Riots”/”Rebellion”. Think the full movie was called “Crips and Bloods: Made in America.”

By: Katy Murphy

Katy Murphy — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 05:27:28 +0000

Interesting observation. In general, I do my best to keep my `reporter’s perspective’ intact when I blog, though I suppose it’s a fine line. Thanks for keeping me honest!

By: susan

susan — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 05:00:16 +0000

Katy

You are begining to lose your reporters perspective and edge (one negative side to blogging).

UnBiased reproting is a dying art!

By: livegreen

livegreen — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 04:32:53 +0000

Nextset, Also, both for accuracy and to know what you’re quoting, I’d like you to finish the quote you started (“we do not respond to…”) with the rest of the actual quote and a source, rather than inserting your own words. They’re not necessarily the same…