Oakland Police Officers Sgt. Mark Dunakin, 40, and Sgts. Ervin Romans, 43, and Daniel Sakai, 35, members of the SWAT team and motorcycle officer, John Hege, 41, who is in grave condition, were all shot in the line of duty Saturday. Dunakin, Romans, and Sakai are dead.
This is what Oakland Police talk about.
This is why police take the precausions they do. It's the heart of what we all fear, both the officers and the people of Oakland. My heart and tears go out to the slain officers who were serving all of us. And it's a stark reminder of what I said just two days ago on Christina Marie's show "CrossTalk San Francisco": our society is more dangerous now than ever.
It's not just the police shooting. It's the muggings and threats that impact employees at the University of California Office of The President in downtown Oakland. These incidents are so frequent of late, that U.C. officials are strongly considering leaving their Oakland headquarters. For where? Berkeley perhaps, as their ranks are down to 600 people as of this writing, so with less people finding office space is easier and cheaper than in the past. As I understand it, for the first time when the matter of the possibility of leaving Oakland was raised, no one contacted within the Office of The President objected to the idea; in the past that was not the case.
Oakland is at a major crossroads in a terrible economy: new establishments sit in a city with the highest unemployment rate in the Bay Area. And while crime is reportedly "down" it's still high: there's a report of 30 incidents of theft alone in the downtown area over the past 30 days -- a theft a day -- according to the Oakland Police Crimewatch map.
And that's just thefts. It doesn't include other types of crimes.
Funding is down for all city services, so the ultimate protectors are ourselves. The best action we can take, and I've said it before, is to know each other. Know and talk to, and watch out for, your neighbor.
This is what Oakland Police talk about.
This is why police take the precausions they do. It's the heart of what we all fear, both the officers and the people of Oakland. My heart and tears go out to the slain officers who were serving all of us. And it's a stark reminder of what I said just two days ago on Christina Marie's show "CrossTalk San Francisco": our society is more dangerous now than ever.
It's not just the police shooting. It's the muggings and threats that impact employees at the University of California Office of The President in downtown Oakland. These incidents are so frequent of late, that U.C. officials are strongly considering leaving their Oakland headquarters. For where? Berkeley perhaps, as their ranks are down to 600 people as of this writing, so with less people finding office space is easier and cheaper than in the past. As I understand it, for the first time when the matter of the possibility of leaving Oakland was raised, no one contacted within the Office of The President objected to the idea; in the past that was not the case.
Oakland is at a major crossroads in a terrible economy: new establishments sit in a city with the highest unemployment rate in the Bay Area. And while crime is reportedly "down" it's still high: there's a report of 30 incidents of theft alone in the downtown area over the past 30 days -- a theft a day -- according to the Oakland Police Crimewatch map.
And that's just thefts. It doesn't include other types of crimes.
Funding is down for all city services, so the ultimate protectors are ourselves. The best action we can take, and I've said it before, is to know each other. Know and talk to, and watch out for, your neighbor.
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