murder rate

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November 16, 2011 | 11:53 AM | By

Protests impacting Oakland Police work, may impact federal oversight

Ali Winston

A protester reminds Oakland Police of the department's federal oversight on November 14, 2011

Occupy Oakland made a a peaceful return to Frank Ogawa Plaza last night following a march by several hundred from the Public Library on 14th and Madison to City Hall. Despite holding a packed General Assembly in the amphitheater, dozens of Oakland Police positioned throughout the plaza and the surrounding streets deterred any attempts to set up tents or permanently retake the plaza.

Dealing with Occupy Oakland over the past month and a half has been a costly affair for OPD. Aside from the $2.4 million in police overtime and mutual aid payments, the hundreds of excessive force complaints following the use of tear gas and less-lethal projectiles against demonstrators on October 25th and a lawsuit alleging violations of crowd control policy, the protests are draining manpower from street patrols. And Oakland’s violent year shows no sign of letting up. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Courts, Judge Thelton Henderson, murder rate, Negotiated Settlement Agreement, Oakland, Oakland Police Department
August 2, 2011 | 6:22 PM | By

Bloody summer as gunfire increases in San Francisco and Oakland

Craftside

San Francisco and Oakland are experiencing a violent summer

The summer of 2011 has been anything but calm on both sides of the Bay. Gun violence is on the rise in both San Francisco and Oakland, with the East Bay’s largest city struggling to cope with a sharp jump in murders, shootings and armed robberies.

As of today, there have been 71 murders in Oakland this year, up from 52 at this point in 2010. There have been five murders alone since last Friday. The most recent set of Oakland Police Department statistics reveal a 39 percent increase in shootings from last year as of July 31st, with 303 incidents of gunfire reported to police compared to 218 at the same time in 2010.

While San Francisco’s 29 killings so far this year are only one more ahead of last year’s murder rate, gun violence is claiming more victims. 141 people have been struck by gunfire so far this year, up from 119 by the end of July 2010. Twenty-six shootings took place between June 5 and July 2nd, up from the fourteen in May.

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FILED UNDER: Police, gun violence, murder, murder rate, Oakland, Oakland Police Department, San Francisco, San Francisco Police Department
March 28, 2011 | 5:08 PM | By

Murders up in Oakland, San Francisco so far in 2011

lawreports.co.uk

March is almost at a close in 2011, and a quarter of the way through the year, both Oakland and San Francisco are experiencing a rise in murders. The San Francisco Police Department’s Compstat bulletin for March 26th shows a 42 percent rise in homicides, up to 17 from this point in 12.

Violence is also on the rise across the Bay in Oakland, where 21 people have been killed this year as of March 20. At this point in 2010, 14 murders had taken place in the East Bay’s largest city.

Unlike San Francisco, where shootings and aggravated assaults decreased by 21 and 10 percent, respectively, gunplay is more frequent this year in Oakland. There have been 102 reported instances of shots fired in 2011 so far, compared to 72 by this point in 2010. Oakland Police Chief Anthony Batts has consistently said his department of 662 sworn officers is overworked, and that OPD needs at least 1,200 officers to properly police Oakland. At the most recent hearing on OPD’s ongoing federal oversight, Chief Batts stated that violent crime was beginning to “spike” this year and may continue to do so if OPD’s staffing problems persist.

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Police, murder rate, Oakland, Oakland Police Department, San Francisco, San Francisco Police Department
October 5, 2010 | 9:24 AM | By

Factcheck time – SF Chronicle and Oakland’s murder rate

Wikimedia Commons

Matthai Kuruvila’s front page article on crime and the Oakland mayor’s race is a sweeping take on public safety’s political impact in the Bay’s second city. This is an issue we tackled back in July, and it’s good to see it surface again in the public discourse. However, the article’s second paragraph caught my eye:

“The homicide rate remains stubbornly high, even though overall violent crime has declined in recent years. The city just laid off 10 percent of the police force after a battle over officers’ pensions, an action their union said made the public less safe. If voters don’t approve a costly parcel tax and an amendment to another tax the same day they elect a new mayor, hundreds more officers could go.”

Sweeping generalities like “the homicide rate remains stubbornly high” are frustrating to everyday readers to begin with, but are even more agitating when they are not backed up by the facts.

According to the Oakland Police Department’s latest weekly crime statistics (from 9/20/10-9/26/10), there have been 62 murders in Oakland this year, down from 80 in 2009. That’s a 23 percent drop, and a 39 percent decrease from the 101 murders in 2008. Many police departments would give an arm and a leg for those kinds of numbers – and it’s worth keeping in mind that this reduction has occurred as the police department is losing officers.

So why is the Chronicle still pushing this image of Oakland as a hyper-violent city? We’d expect this sort of coverage from the resident Don Perata supporter and columnist Chip Johnson, but the editorial slant seems to have crept into the hard news items.

FILED UNDER: Police, Politics, Chip Johnson, Matthai Kuruvila, mayoral race, murder rate, Oakland, Oakland Police, San Francisco Chronicle