Oakland’s police chief said a surge in violent crime in his city has stretched his department thin on resources and sent the number of homicides, shootings, carjackings, and other offenses skyrocketing.
Chief LeRonne Armstrong said in a press conference three people were killed in Oakland within a 21 hour period on Saturday, April 10. The city saw seven homicides in a seven-day period between April 5-11.
“In the city of Oakland, it's been an extremely violent past seven days,” Armstrong said. “We’ve had 41 homicides so far this year. At this time last year, we had 13 homicides. That’s an increase of 215 percent. That is completely unacceptable, and it’s tragic for a community to have to deal with this level of trauma and pain. My heart goes out to all of the families that have lost loved ones as a result of this violence in the city of Oakland.”
It is not just homicides that are increasing in Oakland, he said.
The city has recorded 159 shootings in 2021, compared to 79 at the same time last year.
Oakland has also experienced an alarming increase in the number of carjackings.
“Our carjackings have risen to an unprecedented level,” Armstrong said. “You have 149
carjackings compared to 57 at the same time last year. It’s a 161 percent increase.”
Robberies are up 50 percent from 226 in 2020 to 340 this year. Armstrong said "every district" in his city has seen an increase in robberies.
On Sunday night, police scrambled to respond to several sideshows in different parts of the city, including at 51st and Telegraph in Oakland’s Temescal neighborhood and at 42nd Ave. and International Blvd. in East Oakland.
“Tragically, we had a mother that went into labor while caught in the middle of a sideshow,” the chief said. “She was unable to get out of the sideshow when we had to go in and send units to rescue her these sideshows have become violent they become places where people who are armed with firearms consistently fire guns in our community, and no community in Oakland has not been impacted by sideshow activity.”
Armstrong said the department was stretched thin on resources, in part, due to multimillion-dollar budget cuts that affected its traffic enforcement, crime reduction, and Cease Fire programs.
The department asked residents to step up too with their own crime prevention strategies.
“OPD encourages residents and business owners to consider installing security cameras as well as alarms,” an email from police read. “These technologies can both deter crime and help solve crimes after they occur.”
Armstrong is hoping the Oakland City Council votes to allocate some federal cares act funding to restore some of those anti-crime initiatives.
“I hope today the city council decides to allocate the funds needed to reallocate resources to the police department so again we can begin to address violent crime, address sideshows and be able to make Oakland a safe city,” Armstrong said.
“It's unacceptable for this level of violence and for there not to be a response from the city of reallocating resources to address violent crime,” he added. “We all are accountable, I am for sure as chief of police, but I need the resources to be able to go out and address these crimes and currently we don't have them.”
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