Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao is back from a trade mission in Vietnam, but she returns to a city that is seeing a spike in crime. Here's how she's responding:
, there's been a 27% increase in robberies and a 19% increase in carjackings year-to-date from 2022 to 2023 in Oakland. Though Mayor Thao points out that homicides rates are down, many frustrated residents are demanding more from City Hall. In July, the local chapter of NAACP called for the city to declare a state of emergency.
"A state of emergency? I am the mayor of Oakland. This is why I was able to call the governor directly, and this now why we have the resources of CHP here in the city of Oakland," says Thao.She says the CHP has been successfully working in areas along the freeways and in some high crime areas. And she points out that Oakland currently has the highest number of police officers in uniform over the past three years.
"To actually catch the perpetrators, that means we have to have to the manpower for that," explains Mayor Thao. "We are talking about how do we free up our officers, whether it's civilianizing some positions, so we can get more officers doing investigative work."fired Chief LeRonne Armstrong in Feb. for allegedly failing to discipline officers for misconduct. She says the process to hire a new chief begins with the police commission.
"Their job is to actually go through the hiring process, and they are to refer three top candidates to my office. To this day, I have not yet received those referrals," says Thao.
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