By Carolyn Jones
The San Francisco Chronicle
Oakland, Calif. — With Oakland citizens fearful and angry about crime, and some even fighting back against robbers and intruders, a top Oakland police official told city leaders Tuesday night that police alone can’t solve the violence.
“Right now, it’s pretty clear we are in a time of increased crime,” said Oakland police Deputy Chief Dave Kozicki, adding that crime nationwide is up due to the faltering economy. “But the bottom line is we believe we cannot arrest our way out of these problems.”
Oakland’s crime problems are deeply rooted in economics and family values, and Kozicki called on the city’s schools, families, faith-based groups and community groups to all work together to control crime.
“You said you can’t arrest our way out of this problem,” City Councilwoman Pat Kernighan told Kozicki and other police leaders, including Police Chief Wayne Tucker. “Well, you sure better try. We all have our jobs to do, and your job is to arrest people.”
Hours before the deputy chief addressed the council’s public safety committee, authorities charged a 16-year-old boy in connection with the brazen takeover robbery of a restaurant near Lake Merritt, and a resident shot and wounded an ex-con who police say was breaking into the resident’s home in North Oakland.
“There’s something in the air. People are fed up, upset, vocal,” Kernighan said before the meeting. “The police are really trying hard, but we still don’t have the results we want.”
In addition to Tuesday’s shooting by the resident, two Oakland shopkeepers in the past week have shot and injured men who police say were robbing them. Those citizens, police said, were exercising their rights to defend themselves.
“Are we worried that this is some kind of vigilante thing? No, we’re not,” said Oakland police spokesman Roland Holmgren. “These are people defending themselves, not an angry mob going out looking for criminals.”
There also has been a string of armed takeover robberies at restaurants in Oakland, Emeryville and Berkeley that have terrorized customers and the workers who were in them at the time.
“I have people yelling and screaming because they’re so fearful,” City Councilwoman Jean Quan, whose district includes several of the restaurants that have been robbed recently, said earlier in the day. “I tell them, you want me to promise that you’ll be safe forever? I can’t do that. People get robbed everywhere, even in San Ramon.”
But Oakland’s crime rate is higher than rates in most other U.S. cities of similar size, according to a crime report submitted to the safety committee Tuesday by Tucker. In 2006, there were 3,534 robberies in Oakland, 40 percent more than in Miami and 83 percent more than in Colorado Springs. Oakland saw 145 homicides in 2006, a 43 percent jump from 2004.
Last year, CQ Press, a division of Congressional Quarterly, named Oakland the fourth-most-dangerous city in the United States.
Tucker’s report said that police are doing what they can and that by year’s end there should be 70 new officers on the streets with money from an anti-crime tax that voters approved in 2004.
While homicides and domestic violence are on the rise, most crime in Oakland has decreased slightly from last year, the report said. Robberies, for example, have decreased about 3 percent - but the restaurant takeover heists have left residents jittery and outraged.
In January, the city’s Police Department reorganized to fight crime on a geographic level, assigning officers to work in one of three zones - north, central and east. The reorganization allows officers to get to know neighborhoods better, work more closely with residents and merchants, and respond to crime quicker, Tucker has said.
After a settlement with the police officers union, the department also can now assign officers to 12-hour shifts, which allows more flexibility in scheduling, according to the chief’s report.
In addition, the department is hiring more officers and implementing anti-violence measures under voter-approved Measure Y, most notably bringing the force to 803 sworn officers this year. Some of the department’s goals have not yet been funded, including plans to install surveillance cameras and buy more Shotspotters, electronic devices used to locate gunshots.
“There are definitely crime problems in Oakland, but these measures seem to be promising, so far,” said Reygan Harman, legislative analyst for the council’s public safety committee.
There are a few bright spots, she said. Sideshows, illegal car rallies with sometimes-dangerous stunts, have dropped dramatically, and added police foot patrols around Lake Merritt have made the area one of the safest parts of town, she said.
“Robberies in Oakland are really high, but this is not a new thing. They’ve been high for several years.”
Copyright 2008 The San Francisco Chronicle