Community members, religious leaders, and formally incarcerated individuals gathered on the steps of Oakland City Hall Friday, calling for more programs to address and prevent violence in the city.
The push comes after an audit this week found the dismantling of “operation ceasefire,” a key violence intervention program, resulted in a spike in crime in the city over the past few years.
A group called “Care 4 Community Action” is leading the charge and held a press conference Friday, explaining they support Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao and her administration in their efforts to fight crime. They are also demanding a meeting with Thao to discuss future ways to keep the community safe.
“The lives that people going to prison, people going to jail. It could’ve been prevented,” said Oakland resident Robert McDaniels.
“The most important fact is to bring the community, sit the community back in the driver’s seat, into this fight of prevention,” said safety activist Shedrick Henry.
Now, there’s also a timeline. Operation ceasefire will be fully staffed starting Saturday, according to the Oakland Mayor’s Office.
To do this, the Oakland Police Department is restructuring positions. The Violent Crime Operation Center will be disbanded, and its officers reassigned. The Department of Violence Prevention will be restructured next month.
Thao released the following statement on Friday:
“Oakland was once the national model for reducing gun violence, achieving substantial decreases between 2012 and 2019. I’m proud to announce that we are resurrecting the strategy that was proven successful in saving lives and reducing crime. Operation Ceasefire is a critical component of my comprehensive community safety strategy. Ceasefire is an evidence-based strategy that achieved success in reducing shootings, homicides, recidivism and victimization for those at highest risk.”
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Henry told NBC Bay Area that Thao has the best access to curing the problems of dealing with prevention.
The group also blames former Oakland mayor Libby Schaaf and former Oakland police chief LeRonne Armstrong for dismantling ceasefire as the city shifted resources to focus on pandemic relief. But violence prevention advocate Jim O’Brien feel the audit numbers don’t tell the whole story.
“I just don’t think it’s fair to be casting blame towards her for the fact that violence went up after the pandemic and that we really still recovering from that increase in violence,” he said.
A representative for Armstrong argues Thao is responsible for cutting ceasefire funding by voting to cut pod’s budget when she was a councilmember.
They released the following statement on Friday:
“Mayor Thao is personally responsible for cutting funding for Ceasefire. As a City Council member, she personally voted “yes” on “defund-the-police” type budget cuts to OPD that reduced resources devoted to Ceasefire in the proposal she supported. The idea that Mayor Thao supports Operation Ceasefire while Chief Armstrong reduced it is the height of revisionist history."
Meanwhile, those at Friday's rally said the bottom line is reducing violence will require better collaboration between the city and community to make a change.
