As Legal Insurrection previously reported, the crime situation in Oakland, California has gotten so dire that even the city’s woke NAACP division wrote a blistering letter to city leaders urging action while blaming progressive policies, Soros-funded District Attorney Pamela Price, and the Defund the Police movement for making criminals feel like it is open season on residents:
“Failed leadership, including the movement to defund the police, our District Attorney’s unwillingness to charge and prosecute people who murder and commit life threatening serious crimes, and the proliferation of anti-police rhetoric have created a heyday for Oakland criminals. If there are no consequences for committing crime in Oakland, crime will continue to soar.”
The letter got the attention of CNN of all places, which sent a crew out to interview frustrated residents and community leaders, some of who are fed up to the point they’re packing up and leaving because they don’t even feel safe walking outside of their homes:
The upswing in crime has forced some Oakland residents, including Kristin Cook, to flee to other states. Cook watched with tears in her eyes as a moving pod packed with all her family’s belongings was loaded onto a flatbed truck.Although she’s lived in Oakland her whole life, Cook said she’s now moving to Texas for the sake of her son.“I love Oakland. … I can’t take it anymore,” she said. “I got to the point I was too scared to leave my house.”She said the rise in carjackings has made her scared to take drives at night, a pastime she once enjoyed.“My son is about to start driving. … I’m terrified my son is gonna be killed at a stop sign because he’s driving an Impala, and I just can’t, I can’t risk it.”
Another resident, who lives across the street from the home of a man who was recently murdered as he was trimming his hedges, says she’s staying and believes things will change, but that the police have advised the use of air horns to alert neighbors to suspicious and/or criminal activity in the meantime:
After 60-year-old retiree David Schneider was shot and killed here while trimming a tree in his yard, his neighbor, Toni Bird, said she retreated indoors.“People aren’t feeling safe out of their house,” she said. “It makes sense that you would want to protect your house then, right? You would barricade it.”Amid a surge in crime in Oakland, California, police have advised residents to use air horns to alert neighbors to intruders and add security bars to their doors and windows.Bird, who moved to Oakland 2 1/2 years ago, said she took their advice to heart. She now has three air horns and five security cameras around her home.
Watch:
A similar situation is also playing out in Washington, D.C., where violent crime has risen so sharply that some soft-on-crime Democrat DC Council members are now calling for help from the National Guard:
“The crime is out of control and getting worse by the day. We must declare an emergency regarding the crime and violence in our neighborhoods and act urgently. It may be time to call on the National Guard to protect the children and innocent people that are losing their lives to this senselessness,” [Councilmember Trayon] White said. “I am tired of burying our children. We are too comfortable with the state of our city. We must take action to gain control and protect our residents. Law enforcement is only one part of how we combat public safety issues. It will take all of us to heal our community.”
After noting that it would take a community-wide effort to take back the city, White declared that “We are in a war zone.”
“Bad things happen when good people do nothing,” he also stated.
Watch:
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who infamously caused meltdowns at the NY Times in 2020 after they published an op-ed from him arguing for that very thing during the Antifa/Black Lives Matter-led riots, posted a “told ya so” tweet of sorts in response:
My thought on this is that while it’s all well and good to see high-profile Democrats in “defund the police” cities raising the roof and demanding action on this issue, the problem is that they are part of the problem because they either a) are the problem (in White’s case) or b) keep voting for the same types of “leaders” who enable criminal behavior in the first place, all while expecting a different result every time.
As long as they keep putting their fellow Democrats in office, these problems will continue to get worse. Just sayin’.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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