City hopeful for 2004
By Harry Harris and Laura Counts, The Oakland Tribune
OAKLAND, Calif. -- After a bloody summer, it looked like the city’s murder rate would surge for the second straight year.
But a dramatic drop in homicides -- and especially gun deaths -- during the last three months of 2003 has led to cautious hope and optimism, even though by midnight Wednesday 114 people had been killed in the city, one more than in 2002.
In early September, bodies seemed to be falling every day. The year-end projection was at least 129 homicides, the most since 1995 when 153 people were slain.
Then the killings started tapering off. Between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31 there were 17 homicides, nine of which involved guns. In 2002, that same period saw 28 homicides, 25 involving guns.
In the three previous years, there were at least 20 homicides during the last quarter of the year, with guns being used in 67 to 86 percent of the crimes. Police figures show that the 2003 fourth quarter-murder rate was the lowest in years.
Gun-related assaults also dropped from 332 in the last quarter of 2002 to 306 during the same period in 2003.
City leaders, police and community members believe new police and community tactics targeting hot spots played a significant role in the drop. They hope to use the methods as the foundation for 2004 and future years.
“There is a lot to be optimistic about,” said Police Chief Richard Word. “The last quarter (of the year) was very good, especially the reduction in gun-related violence. That is very promising.”
If last quarter’s trend is sustained, Word said 80 to 85 homicides in 2004 “is a realistic goal.”
Mayor Jerry Brown, who has staked much of his political career in the city on controlling crime, also called the results “dramatically positive” -- although he conceded it’s too early to tell whether that will last.
“We’ll continue what we are doing,” he said. “It looks like it’s worth it, but there are no guarantees in this business.”
Brown said he soon will take up the issue with the City Council of continued funding for the stepped-up policing. He said there should be a way to fund it, at least temporarily, without other cuts.
“We are squeezing this out of the budget somehow,” he said.
Many similarities
As for details of the crimes, they were similar to the homicides in 2002. Most victims were African American, as were most known suspects. And although gun-related deaths dropped in the last quarter of the year, guns were still the most commonly used weapon.
Drugs and disputes were still the main reasons for killings. One-third of 2003’s killings had a known drug link, although homicide unit commander Lt. Jim Emery said the “reality is that it is more in the area of 70 percent to 80 percent.”
Last year, drugs were known to be involved in two thirds of the killings, police said.
As in years past, some murders were prompted by seemingly trivial incidents. Angry glares known as “mean mugging” and perceived disrespect played a part in some murders. A man was shot Tuesday when he exchanged words with another driver after he wouldn’t move his car in the Kaiser Center’s driveway. Other killings have resulted from missing car keys and a stolen gun.
Random killings were still a rarity. Most victims knew their killers.
Emery said arresting members of a group that called itself the “Nut Case” gang earlier in 2003 probably prevented even more deaths as many of the city’s random slayings were linked to them.
The year saw a disproportionate share of very young victims. Seven children under 18 were killed -- one less than 2002 -- but three victims were aged 3 or younger. In 2002, the city’s youngest victim was 14.
Emery said the three young-est victims were all killed by adult relatives, including one beaten to death because he had difficulties learning to count.
Summer was violent
Summer in the city was especially violent. Sixteen people were killed in August, and 13 more in September. Police brainstormed solutions and launched an initiative called Project SAFE, or Supplemental and Focused Enforcement.
In that plan, formulated for the most part by Word’s chief of staff, Sgt. Pete Sarna II, officers from the California Highway Patrol and Alameda County Sheriff’s Office began working jointly with Oakland police to focus enforcement in areas known for drugs and violence, particularly shootings.
Interim City Manager Deborah Edgerly said her office approved an additional $300,000 to the police overtime budget for the three-month period. The annual cost is projected at$850,000, Sarna said.
Sarna said SAFE has been successful because for the first time there is real “focus and sustainability.”
In the past, police would do periodic violence prevention projects in specified areas lasting just a few days.
Under SAFE, that targeted work happens every day, with a minimum of 14 officers and as many as 40 to 60. Those numbers include Oakland police “crime reduction teams,” supplemented by CHP officers and sheriff’s deputies.
They do nothing but “high visibility enforcement in areas that have been traditional locations for street level narcotics dealing and violent crime,” allowing regular beat officers to respond to other calls, Sarna said.
Other units of the department are also involved. For example, the Traffic Division occasionally helps out with such operations as driving-under-the-influence and seat-belt checkpoints. Police and Correction Teams of police, parole and probation officers concentrate on parolees and probationers, and the Alcohol Beverage Action Team targets liquor stores and bars in violence-prone areas.
Councilmember Jane Brun-ner (North Oakland) said the improved policing has made the difference.
“The research shows that random patrolling doesn’t work, and having a lot of cops without a good strategy doesn’t work,” Brunner said. “It has to be targeted.”
North Oakland violence
In North Oakland, a rash of violence along the Berkeley border led to a 200 percent increase in the homicide rate for the area by September, Brunner said. But after 12 murders, the rate is holding steady. There have been no killings in the area since September.
“They finally put together a strategy and they implemented it,” Brunner said. “They are concentrating on the people involved in violent crime. Before they were looking at the hot spots, they were just sort of driving by, and if they didn’t catch someone in the act of drug dealing, they’d let it go.”
Sarna said several factors figure into which area will be targeted. They include data from the department’s Crime Analysis Section, community concerns and officers’ own obser-vations.
The Shattuck corridor, especially around 58th and 59th streets, was targeted for increased patrols after an Oakland-Berkeley border war unleashed a spate of violence.
“Given the way we were going, that’s quite an accomplishment,” said Don Link, who chairs the community policing advisory board. “I think that the chief has hit on a method that works and he’ll continue with it.
“It’s kind of a gamble,” Link said. “If he had put a lot of money in one place and it didn’t work he’d be criticized.”
Link said he hopes the success of SAFE will help persuade voters to approve a violence prevention parcel tax, sponsored by Vice Mayor Nancy Nadel (Downtown-West Oakland), on the March ballot.
Nadel’s measure calls for a $90 parcel tax to raise about $11 million annually for more police and violence prevention programs. Forty percent of the money would allow the city initially to hire about 30 more officers, with possibly more added in the future.
The rest would go to violence prevention and job programs aimed at former felons. A plan for which programs will be funded is pending, she said.
The success of SAFE shows the police can have an impact, Nadel said, but money will be needed to keep it going.
“It shows we have an element that is working and needs to be sustained,” she said. “If people think something has stopped in the short term it’s not going to continue when people get out of prison. Their heads are in the sand.”
Too early to tell
But Nadel also said it’s too early to tell whether SAFE’s effectiveness can be sustained.
“It’s hard for me to know yet if it’s working,” Nadel said. “The work they are doing is valuable, and the homicides have gone down. But I have seen and heard about a lot of robberies. I think the economy and drugs are still having a strong effect.”
Reviews on street
Reviews on the street, in some of the “hot spots” that have seen increased police pressure, are mixed.
At 73rd and Bancroft avenues, a group of young people hanging out in the parking lot of a fast food restaurant had differing opinions.
“It’s stupid,” said one 20-year-old who refused to give his name. “All they are doing is making more overtime money. It won’t stop crime.”
Keisha Jefferson, 28, said she welcomes the patrols.
“It’s just like having a curfew because you have fewer bad people on the streets,” she said. “And that’s what we need out here. It’s too much crazy stuff happening.”
Standing at Ritchie Street and Bancroft Avenue across the street from a sidewalk shrine to a murder victim, Jason Barnett testified to the program’s effectiveness.
“You really can’t go out at night if you have a ticket or something worse (a warrant) because there’s so many (police officers),” Barnett said. “My friend can’t afford to get his tail light fixed so he doesn’t drive at night.”
But even as the year ended with some reason for hope, the hard fact is that there were still 114 victims -- although only 108 will be listed in the FBI’s annual national crime index. The other six were deemed “justifiable” deaths -- people killing people in self-defense, including police shootings -- so the FBI does not include them its homicide statistics.
In 2002, 108 of the 113 homicides were reported to the FBI under the same criteria.
Brunner and Nadel said the next step will be adding more programs for violence-prone young people and adults.
But Brunner worried the new strategy is already pushing the police department over its budget. She said the City Council will have to take a close look at the overtime budget in the new year.
“The money is going to be a problem,” she said. “The police department doesn’t believe it needs to stay within its budget. They’ll need to come to us and tell us exactly what they need. If it’s working, we may decide to give them additional money. But we may have to cut other services.”