Oakland: Happy new year means less crime

There are only two resolutions I need to hear from Oakland city officials to make for a prosperous new year:

Focus every effort, every available dime and every available body on keeping Oakland residents safer in 2013 than they were in 2012.

And, let law enforcement professionals make the decisions about police tactics, strategies and focus. That means setting aside all political needs, dreams and pet projects.

Police certainly couldn't do any worse than the mayor's office did last year by basing crime-reduction strategies on a flawed plan, that's for sure.

Because there's no getting around the fact that 2012 was deadly in Oakland, especially for the residents of East Oakland, where people were gunned down, sometimes while walking to a store or standing in the wrong place at the wrong time. No one was safe, not night or day.

The violence continued unabated all year long, and on Sunday afternoon claimed the life of a 15-year-old girl described as an innocent. The girl was the only one of five people shot in Oakland over the weekend to die. She is one of 131 homicide victims in Oakland this past year. By way of comparison, that's nearly three times more than the 46 slayings in San Jose, a city nearly twice Oakland's population located about 50 miles away. I'm sick and tired of Oakland city officials arguing over insignificant issues, or personal grudges, when people are being shot daily, weekly and monthly.

Even the announcement of progress is marred and marked by the violence that has come to define Oakland.

The news last week that William J. Bratton, former chief of the Los Angeles Police Department and law enforcement innovator, had been hired to advise Police Chief Howard Jordan on developing data-driven and other crime strategies was followed a day later by news that four people died by violence. On Friday, three people were shot to death in Oakland while a woman died in a fatal traffic accident caused by a suspect fleeing from police.

There's no question that Bratton knows his stuff. His strategies have seen results in Los Angeles as well as in Boston and New York, where he served as police commissioner.

The question is whether Oakland politicians have the backbone to stand up for some of the proposals he might make. He is a proponent of aggressive stop-and-frisk policies as a deterrent to gun crimes, but such tactics in Oakland draw antipolice critics and make local politicians squeamish.

Former Oakland Police Chief Anthony Batts was a Bratton protege. When Batts was appointed Baltimore's police commissioner in November, Bratton offered the highest praise - while alluding to Batts' misfortune in Oakland under Mayor Jean Quan.

"Tony Batts is one of the best there is in American policing today," Bratton told the Baltimore Sun. "Tony is best left alone. Tell him what you want, what your goals are, and he'll get you there. I hope based on recent experiences in Baltimore that your mayor is smart enough to realize she's picked one of the best, who will share her vision, and leave him to it."

And just to show how fickle life can be, two months later Bratton will be working for Oakland. If that isn't a clearer example of the dire need for my No. 2 resolution, I can't think of one.

So let 2013 be a year when fresh faces on the council put an end to long-standing personal feuds that invade civic life and turn government meetings into carnival sideshows.

Let it be the year when our leaders grow up a little, show some maturity, and make it a point of pride and policy to put a dent in a crime spree that lasted for an entire year.

Oakland residents are pretty self-sufficient when it comes to doing for themselves, but it's time our elected officials show they have what it takes to lead a city.

And here's my resolution: If Quan and the City Council can accomplish even a modest crime reduction, I will heap upon them credit they deserve.

Happy new year, everyone.

Source: http://www.sfgate.com