Ready For Crisis Mode Yet?
[May 31, 2008]

            Looking at the latest Crime Analysis Section Daily Crime Report is like taking a cold shower on a cold day.  It should wake everyone up with a spine tingling chill.

            Oakland's Violent Crime this century was fairly level, or at least certainly within acceptable volatility, during the first five years, which were coincidentally during the OPD term of Chief Richard Word.  The number of Violent Crimes averaged 5,359 per year, and varied from 5,031 in 2000 to a high of 5,613 in 2002, and back down to 5,151 by the end of 2004.  This was Oakland's niche for Violent Crimes.  The coefficient in 2004 was 13.36 Violent Crimes per thousand population.  It was not where Oakland wanted to be.  The National average for cities over 250,000 was 9.88, and Oakland was 135% of that.  The California average was 7.60, and Oakland was 176% of that.  Unfortunately Oakland today is at 22.02 Violent Crimes per thousand.  What happened?  What is happening?

            Oakland was 27th in ranking as the Most Violent City in the United States (over 100,000) at the end of 2004.  That was not suitable for the policy makers and Chief Word was ushered out.  Then something dramatically, to say the least, happened.  In February of 2005, Mayor Brown selected a new OPD Chief for Oakland.  He had very little first hand experience with OPD or Oakland crime problems, but maybe this City needed a different thought pattern.  It certainly got the new thinking it asked for, if not the results hoped for.  The Jail was thrown out, as was Planning and Research, Beat Health, Vice Control, along with the Patrol Division Beat System and a whole new set of priorities was quickly set into place.  The Chief said early on that morale was not important, and that strict "accountability" zero-tolerance would be robotized throughout the Department.  He said that responding to citizen calls was "old news."  He referred to OPD's "old-fashioned practices" with disdain.  He was a Chief, with no prior Chief experience anywhere, with a whole new outlook on how OPD should be run, and without an inkling of how it was run before.  To use one Deputy Chief's metaphor, there was a new kid playing with the toys in the sand box.

            Fair enough, if it had worked.  Wayne Tucker has now been at the OPD helm for 40 months, certainly long enough for any "honeymoon period."  It is a fair comparison to see Tucker's years of crime fighting in Oakland with that of his predecessor.  See the attached chart and notice the "paradigm escalation" of Violent Crimes that has taken place in the past three years.  This is not simply an increase... it is an indictment of supreme failure.

            Chief Word finished his five years with a mere +2.24% increase over the base period, his first year.  During his five years, Violent Crimes numbered consecutively 5,038, 5,330, 5,661, 5,613, and 5,151.  Chief Tucker's current three years' experience is 7,599, 7,799, and now 8,306. [It wouldn't be fair to charge him with the increase in his first 11 months (5,692)].  These increases represent +50.83%, +54.41%, and +64.87% over the same base period.  This is what is meant by a Paradigm Escalation.  Note also that the paradigm is increasing steadily.

            What is spine chilling is that the incidence of Violent Crimes elsewhere was actually reducing.  Looking at 2006, compared with the first five years of this century, as we have done above, California Cities went down -14.3% and the U.S. Cities went down -13.2%.  That makes Tucker's leadership and management failures even more stark.  In other words, if Oakland had merely emulated the pattern elsewhere, and remained in its niche, elevated though it was, Oakland should have reduced its Violent Crimes to around 4,636 (-13.5%from the Word five year average of 5,359).  If anyone had thought to notice, that's what Tucker's benchmark should have been for the past two years.  Instead, 2007 saw a +68.2% increase and 2008 has seen enough Violent Crime to expect an increase of about +79.2% above where we should be.

            By 2006, Chief Tucker's methods had escalated Oakland to 4th place nationally in Violent Crimes.  We are likely to be at least Third by the end of  2008, and we even have a good chance at displacing St. Louis or Detroit for First Place.  Don't believe me?  St. Louis was Number One in 2006 when we jumped to Number Four.  St. Louis has 347,181 citizens today.  In 2006, St. Louis had 8,605 Violent Crimes, or 24.79 per thousand citizens.  They reduced that number to 7,654 in 2007, to 22.05 per thousand.  For those who feel Detroit is Number One, the first six months of 2007 saw a reduction to 21.06 Violent Crimes per thousand from 24.19 in 2006.  Remember, our current status is 22.02.

            While we stood at 13.36 Violent Crimes per thousand citizens as the first 5-year average of this century, and in 2006 we leap-frogged to 19.05, now in 2008 we stand at 22.02.  In other words, Tucker's current year offers citizens a 172.4% greater chance of being a victim of violent crime than at the end of Word's 2004... and it was too high then.  We could easily have the distinction of being the Most Violent City in the United States.  Is anyone looking?

            Yes, it is true that there are social conditions that no Chief can hope to account for.  However, Oakland's demographics, as social and economic factors (previously written about), have all turned in favor of lower crime rates.  Oakland lost 19% of of its population between 15 and 34 years of age, while it gained 17% in population for those over 55.  In other words, we should have expected a decrease from our expected benchmark of Violent Crimes (4,636) of at least 15%, or perhaps to experience around 3,941 Violent Crimes currently, or about 10.44 per thousand citizens.  This still not good, but today we are 111% above that.  If Oakland could have held to 10.66, that would have put us in 46th place nationally, and in league with Syracuse New York, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, and Richmond, Virginia.

            Then there is the mythology of Wayne Tucker "excuses."  The so-called side letters with the OPOA that have rendered him, in his words, a "chief in name only," have proven to be totally invalidated (see another essay).  The eternal claims of "under-staffing" are false when considering (a) that Tucker had more sworn personnel than anyone before, (b) that Tucker had the equivalent of 200 more officers worth of overtime, and (c) that Tucker had three dozen experienced OPD annuitants.  The last straw, the one that broke Oakland's back, was Tucker's capricious move to "Area Command" and his 12-hour "2-2-3-2-2-3" shifts.  He promised an unsubstantiated mythology that his moves would increase team integrity, cost less overtime, and reduce crime.

            It is one thing to point the finger where it should be, where the buck should stop... at the desk of the Chief of Police.  But where have the policy makers been to hold him "accountable?"  This is an enigma.  Several have extolled his virtues, and none have castigated him.  Yet, people are moving out of Oakland and those who remain are frightened.  Businesses are easy prey and begging for protection.  As Don Perata found out, it's not even safe to drive through Oakland any more.  There have been 134 car jackings this year so far, and we expect 375 by year end (using last year as a guide).  That's 375 occasions where an innocent motorist is yanked from a car, humiliated and wishing not to have driven that day in Oakland. 

ronoz

ps.  I have nothing against Wayne Tucker, the man, as I got to know him and like him.  It is his methodology, his leadership and management skill sets, and his abject failure in these attributes, that I am so hard pressed to bring to light.  I have no dog in this fight, except to see Oakland become a staging platform for many better things.  We have a beautiful city with more potential than any other because our bar is set so low.