Proposed law would legalize drugs like psilocybin, MDMA and LSD; reaction on The Five
Homicides in Oakland, California have surged 400% citywide in 2021, according to the latest crime analysis data shared by the city s police department.
The Oakland Police Department s Weekly Gunfire Summary for the week of Feb. 22-28 reported a total of 25 homicides citywide in 2021, compared to just five in 2020 and 13 in 2019.
Area 1, covering West and Downtown Oakland, has seen a 200% surge in homicides. Meanwhile Area 3, covering Fruitvale and Central Oakland, and Area 4, covering East Oakland, Mills and Leona, both have seen homicide surges of 100%, respectively.
Area 5, covering East Oakland and Knowland Park, have seen homicides surge 1300%.
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Anti-Asian hate crimes have spiked across the U.S. over the past year, fueled in part by Donald Trump’s racist rhetoric about the coronavirus. One recent study found a 150% increase in hate crimes targeting Asian Americans in 2020, even though overall hate crimes fell last year. Ron Kim, member of the New York State Assembly representing the 40th District in Queens, New York, says anti-Asian sentiment tends to flare up during times of crisis. “There’s a long history of Asian Americans in this country feeling targeted and scapegoated whenever we experience economic downturns,” says Kim. We also speak with Kim Tran, an antiracist writer and organizer based in the Bay Area, who says anti-Asian violence is “diffuse,” affecting people in different ethnic and cultural communities in various ways, “but there is a common sense of racial scapegoating.”
The Defund the Police coalition held a virtual press conference Wednesday to outline its recommendations to improve public safety in Oakland and at the heart of the matter was the Oakland Police Department’s budget.
The group argues the department gets too much money and that much of that funding should be redirected to community programs who they say would be more effective in dealing with some of the city s biggest issues.
They also say pulling police from responding to traffic violations and non-violent mental health calls would free up more officers to deal with violent crimes and it would cut down on what they call unnecessary confrontations and escalations.
Community support in Oakland for non-police responses to mental health calls
By Keith Burbank article
OAKLAND, Calif. - A task force created by the city of Oakland following the death of George Floyd and calls to defund Oakland police issued a series of draft recommendations, including one to make immediate investments in a non-police response to mental health calls, that drew support Wednesday from a coalition of groups critical of the Police Department.
On a Zoom call, the Defund Oakland Police Coalition said it disagrees with only six of the 114 recommendations put forward by the Reimagining Public Safety Task Force.