Residents Share How Rampant Crime Has Become in Oakland | Brenda Grisham | Ken Houston

Crime is really out of control in Oakland. How I grew up, we've always had crime in Oakland, but crime was just a little bit different where they had coach, you don't kill kids and you don't kill women. Now, they're killing everybody. It's become a crime tourist destination, so a lot of the criminals who are pulling crimes in Oakland and preying on Oaklanders are actually from out of town. This is my home, so whoever's doing this out here, they're interfering with my neighborhood. This is not their neighborhood. We gotta take back our streets. The criminals don't run our city. We run the city, we pay the taxes. This is our city. My guests today are Brenda Grisham, a public safety advocate and community member from Oakland, California, and Leighton Woodhouse, an independent journalist and documentary filmmaker who has been covering the situation in the city. We also spoke with Ken Houston, founder of Oakland's Beautification Council and a third-generation Oaklander who has been recently affected by the city's high crime and vandalism. Today, we look into the crime situation in Oakland and discuss possible solutions. Stay with us until the end to hear different perspectives. I'm Siamak Korami. Welcome to California Insider. Brenda, it's great to have you on. Welcome. Thank you. We are excited to have you on. You're an advocate for safety in Oakland. Can you tell us what's happening in Oakland now? Well, crime is really out of control in Oakland for a whole lot of different reasons, and my reason for stepping in where I stepped in is because I was born and raised there. Raised my children there, had my children there, my businesses are there, and there's a lot of good things about Oakland that I really love, and in order for us to go back to where we were, people have to step up, and somehow I was chosen to step up. I grew up in 67th Village, where when you say the village, it's like they're considered the projects. My mom was a single mother, and she had three children, so we didn't have the best life, but we was together. I would see fights. People would fight, and then after school, they were friends. Never had I seen anyone get killed in the village. There were gangs in the village. There still are gangs in the village, and so crime was a little different back then. We've always had crime in Oakland, but crime was just a little bit different where they had, coach, you don't kill kids, and you don't kill women. Now, they're killing everybody. It doesn't matter. Well, just last night, a young lady was murdered. I don't really have all the details. I got the information last night, but I was working with some other cases that I'm dealing with. I have a five-year-old that was shot in the heart on the freeway in Fremont while they were going to a birthday party. I have a grandmother that was run over by a car by a team who's walking around with the rest of us. He's not in custody. He's not on an ankle monitor. Just the value of life is just totally different than it was back in the day. And we're seeing some shootings. We've got some videos that was circling on social media. The shooting in West Oakland? Yeah, and is that happening on a regular basis now? That's happening on a very regular basis. I was looking at a case that happened a couple of weeks ago, and when I looked at the footage, the first thing that struck me was the first marker was number 35. That meant at least 35 shots had been given in that one case, and it was just one person, and that person did not survive. And is this among gang members, or is this random? Who's committing these kind of crimes? It's pretty much both. We have a very large amount of gangs in Oakland. I was a member of Ceasefire, where I would go in as a community member, and they had very few civilians that came in, and I did it for like five, six years. And I would go in, and I would talk to the felons. They were bringing the most violent people in Oakland. They were either most likely to get killed or most likely to kill somebody. And my message to them was, you don't have to kill anybody to eat. They would tell me all the time, Ms. Grisham, you call us gangs. We're not gangs. These are our family. And so they have a culture of they have each other's back, and whatever goes on, they are a close-knit family. But besides that, it's not all gang-related. It's retaliation. It's a whole lot of things. And what about the residents? How do you guys feel when you're in Oakland? Like, is it got to a point where you feel unsafe at home, or is it like you have to not go certain places? Me, I go to my office, to the freeway, to the house. Day before yesterday, a father was in his home, and he was shot through the head, and it came out through his eye. And so right now, he's in intensive care, fighting for his life, and he was just at home. Because, you know, it doesn't matter. They just open fire, have rolling gang battles in the middle of the street. My office is in the very busy part of Oakland. We have human trafficking, where the young ladies are out all the time, drugs, homelessness. And so one day, these two cars were just driving down the street, shooting at each other. Caught on film, just shooting. There was people outside. During the day, just driving down the street, just shooting at each other, just shooting. Anybody could have been hurt. So you guys have to be very aware of the situation, because you don't know what. Oh yeah, we got cameras everywhere. We see you down the street, around the corner. Yeah, you have to be very aware. And you have to really, really pay attention, you know, because we have a thing called bipping, where you could be at a stoplight, and somebody could pull up to the side of your car, and just, you know, hit the window, and reach, and get whatever your valuables are, and just going about their way. Even when you're in the car? Oh, then in the car! I mean, at the gas stations, they have a list of gas stations not to go to in Oakland, because you could be sitting in your car, and the criminals will pull up, open the back door, and take your stuff, or open your trunk, and take your stuff while you're sitting in the car. They don't care. And if you fight, they might, or they're very fast. They're very fast. You don't even have a chance to react. Wow. Very fast. And you mentioned you just go from freeway to home to office. That's not the truth. I mean, pretty much. But, you know, it's funny, because I watch cars, you know, and it's called a rolling stop. When you get to a stop sign, they ain't stopping at the stop sign. They're here to the stop sign. I mean, and I feel sorry for the older people, because they don't drive fast, and everybody else be speeding, just to not have to stop at a light, so they don't get bipped, or they don't get shot, or they, you know, get carjacked. Because carjacking is something else that goes on, and a lot of people have got hurt. They stop at a stop sign, and a car rolls up, and they hop out, and they, you know, shoot them, stab them, drag them out the car. You know, we've had where people have been carjacked, and their kids were still in the car. What do you think is driving this? Because you said that when you were growing up, it was different. Like, it wasn't like this. This is lawless kind of crime, where they don't feel that they're gonna be held accountable, so they just do it anyway. Doesn't matter, I might go to jail for two seconds, then I'll be back out. It's not, people are not being held accountable for the crimes that they commit, and that's a big problem. And what about businesses? You know, are businesses impacted? So, those gas stations that people said that you are not supposed to go there. Right. Are they getting affected by this, or still people go there? They're being affected by it, because they're in, like, high traffic areas, and people are getting killed at these gas stations. People are getting bit at these gas stations. People are getting robbed at these gas stations. So, you know, there's the language. These are the gas stations you don't go to on 98th, on 73rd, you know, so people know if you decide to go there, you have to be very, very cautious. We've heard from some people that people don't wanna go to the restaurants anymore. I mean, because, like I was saying, you know, people don't care where it is. If they're gonna shoot somebody, they're gonna shoot no matter what. People could be sitting in a restaurant. We have people that were sitting in restaurants, and somebody decided they wanna shoot at somebody, and innocent people have been got, you know, shot or injured, because a lot of the restaurants still have outside seating. So people are sitting outside when crimes, you know, robbery is horrible. I don't know if you've seen the robberies that are going on now, where they go into the jewelry stores with sledgehammers and break all the glass, and, you know, things of that nature. That's not good. In terms of the individuals that are committing these crimes, who are they? Is it younger people that are joining these gangs? Well, that's kind of one of the biggest misconceptions. So if you listen to people talk about crime, it's the young people this, the young people that. We have to have stuff for the young people. Most of the criminals are 25 and up. So they're not just young people. And when you come to the most violent of the crimes, the beepers might be young. You know, they get older people that tell them, you know, well, you do this, and we'll give you this money, or however they are pressured to do it. But the murders are older people, you know, in their 20s. You have some that are teenagers. And for teenagers now, they aren't held accountable for crimes. I have a family where, I have three families, who all their loss was by the same young man. Two brothers were killed in Berkeley at a party, and the young man was 17. He was just sentenced to seven years for killing two people. But I have another mother whose son was killed by the same person. So we're going to trial for him, and he won't get more than seven years for that life either. I was talking about earlier where the mother was hit by a car. The young man was racing on Foothill Boulevard, hit the mother. She was older. She was like 73, I think. And she was walking across the street with her daughter and her granddaughter. Hit her and kept going. They were racing. He's out with the rest of us. He's not on an ankle monitor. He's not in custody. How does that work out? But then he's charged with two other crimes, gun crimes, after that. So we were in court in one department for the murder, and then he had to go to another department for the gun charges. I mean, how is that fair? How is that being accountable for what you're doing? You killed somebody, and you're coming in a courtroom sitting right next to us. And then he's going and doing the other crimes with guns, right? Yeah, yeah. And he's free. He's free. He's always been free. He was arrested for the murder, got bail, and he's been out ever since. How do you think this impacts somebody like that? Do you think it emboldens them to do more crimes? Well, he committed two more crimes that I know of after that, and they both were with guns after killing the mother. I mean, if I'm not gonna stand, be held accountable for that, then I could do other things. What about the community? Does the community know about it, and what do they say about cases like this? So a lot of the community, they don't watch the news. They don't read the newspaper anymore because there's so many things going on. So when I say something about something, oh, I didn't know nothing about that. You know what I mean? Because you hear and you see only if you're looking. If you're not looking, a lot of people have no idea what's going on because they stay in their bubble. They feel if they go about their routine, they won't be a party to it. They won't get bit. They won't get killed. They won't get hit by a car, and that's just really bad. You know, I try to educate people, everything. Safety is very important in all of Alameda County right now. Do you think the community has become numb to it, or this has become part of, this is how Oakland is or Alameda is? Absolutely, until it happens to them, and that's the most unfortunate thing, to wait till it happens to you. I dealt with the community for years. I dealt with young people for years. Never in my life would I have thought somebody would have killed my son. He was a high school senior. He was a musician. He was a very, not just because he was my son, he was just a good kid. You know, he didn't bother anybody, and when his life was taken, it just, I never thought it would happen to me. Never, ever. Christopher was murdered December 31st, 2010. We were trying to navigate New Year's Eve because it was three of them. Chris wanted to go to play. He was a musician. He wanted to go help this young man. He was teaching him how to play the drum, so we had to go to church later on. He wanted to go and teach him some songs. My oldest daughter wanted to go out for New Year's Eve, so I was gonna take the baby to her dad, and then my youngest daughter, she was going to church with me and Christopher, so she was rolling however we was rolling. So I told everybody, I said, okay, we're gonna get ready. We're gonna drop the baby off. We're gonna go get something to eat, and then we're gonna come back and get ready for church, and my daughter was gonna get ready to go where she was going. When we went outside, I saw the young men standing across the street, but there were young men that lived in the house that were always outside, so I didn't really pay them any attention. I got in the front seat of the car. I never saw Christopher put the baby in the car. My oldest daughter had a five-month-old baby. Never saw him put the baby in the car, so me and Christopher were talking because he wanted to go to Burger King, so I handed him $5. My youngest daughter was closing the door, and my oldest daughter was getting in the passenger side of the car, and I just heard, it was like a matter of seconds, and you heard ding, ding, ding. You heard the bullets hitting my car because they all had assault rifles, and I just told everybody to run, and then my oldest daughter said, I'm hit, so my oldest daughter was shot first. How she got in the house, I have no, I just told everybody to run, so my youngest daughter was locking the door. She was able to get the door unlocked. My daughter was able to get in the house, but Christopher stopped in the middle of his tracks and said, Mom, and he turned around to go back to the car after I had told him to run. Never knew he was going back to get the baby because I never knew she was in the car, but he was going back to get the baby. I was able to push him. Chris was like six feet tall, and I'm five foot zero. Don't know where I got the strength from, but I caught myself pushing him out the way because, like I said, they had assault rifles, but he was already shot, and so he died instantly. He was shot in the head. He was shot in the temple, and he was shot in the face and his jaw, and so he died instantly, and it was just chaos from there. People running, people screaming, people jumping. My daughter, she came to the door, and she was like, Mom, somebody was hit, and I looked down, and you just saw the puddle of blood that was just expanded, but I knew it wasn't me. I didn't know where he was shot, but I knew he was shot, and she was hollering and screaming for the baby. I was like, the baby? And she was like, the baby's in the car, and I still have no idea how the baby got out of the car. I don't know who got the baby out of the car. Neighbors were jumping over the fence and trying to stop the blood. It was just, it was a mess. It was a complete mess. We're very sorry for your loss. Thank you. And what were they doing? Why were they shooting at you guys? They wasn't shooting at us. They was shooting at somebody else. We just happened to be in the way, so they had parked their cars in front of my house, and the young men had been standing there, so I guess they were waiting for them to come out. They parked their cars in front of my house and went in the house next door, because he lived next door. They had been standing there for a while, because I had looked out the window earlier, and they were standing there. Nothing ever happened on my block. I mean, I could sit on my porch and look at my neighbor's TV, because they would sit with their door open where everybody could watch their TV. So it was pretty much a safe neighborhood until that day. And now, is this happening more across Oakland? Because that was 2010, right? Yeah, 2010. Things have changed a lot more, right? Well, just recently, in the last two years, it's horrible. I mean, at any given time, gunfire could break out. They don't care. Day, night, five o'clock in the morning. Thursday before last, a young lady, a 19-year-old, was shot and killed two blocks away from my office at 2.30 in the morning. She was shot in the back twice and lost her life. It was 2.30 in the morning. She was out there working. It wasn't random. They walked up to her and shot her. How do you think you guys can get out of this? And you're doing the work. You're doing the work to actually raise awareness, and you're being very brave for doing this, because you're putting yourself on the line. What do you think the community can do? The community needs to educate themselves just a little more. I talk a lot about education. I talk a lot about people paying attention and kind of seeing what they can do to make a difference. A lot of our problems is legislative problems. We have something called the Racial Justice Act that is one of the biggest problems why we have what we're going on. It says that if you could prove without a shadow of doubt that your conviction was biased because of your race, you can be resentenced. Everybody is not being charged with murder because they're black. They're being charged with murder because they killed somebody, and that should be the only focus. Accountability is what is needed. If the law says 25 years for murder, that's where you should start. We're covering California issues, as you know. If you want us to cover the stories that are impacting your day-to-day life in California, reach out to me at siamakatcaliforniainsider.com. So you have seen these cases, right? You're working on these cases. You go to court. And what does the interactions look like? A week ago, I sat in on a sentencing case where a young lady was killed by her boyfriend. He shot her in the heart, and she was killed. And the family didn't know anything about the plea deal until the day we went to court. So they came to me because they had no understanding of what was going on in the case. The father walked up to me at an event. He said, Ms. Grisham, me and my wife need your help. We have no idea what's going on. We've been going to court, and we don't know what they're doing. So I told him I'd come to court with him, and I did. That day, they found that the young man had already taken a plea deal. And what was the punishment? 11 years. He will get credit for the time he has already been in jail, which has been, so in the instance, if you sit in Santa Rita for three years, when you get ready to get sentenced, you might get six years worth of credit. It's one day for every day that you sit in Santa Rita. So right now, I have a few families who, they're criminals. The murderers will not even come to court. They refuse to come. So for every day, they get two days? Yes. Two days, okay. Yes, mm-hmm. So by the time they get to court and get sentenced, their sentence is up. If they get sentenced to six years, you only have to do 85% of the time. So 85% of the time. You only have to do 85%. I have a father whose son, he lost two children to gun violence in Oakland. The murder, most recent murder of his son, the murderer only got six years. Well, he's been in jail since the murder, since the murder. So he most likely will be out by the end of the year. His six years, his 85% will be up. Do you think this is causing more violence in Oakland? Absolutely, there's a lot of retaliation. If you don't feel that my family member's life was important, I do. And I'm gonna do what I need to do to make sure that the person is held accountable. And that's unfair to both parties. You're re-traumatizing the family and you're putting somebody else's life in jeopardy when they should be held accountable for the crime in the first place. We have heard from some people that people in Oakland are arming up because they kind of have to. Absolutely. Can you tell us more about this? They're going and buying guns to protect themselves. I have a friend that had 11 businesses. Every single one of their businesses have been hit. Every one of them. They lost thousands, if not, maybe half a million dollars because of the crime. They're not just coming to get one thing out your business. They're gonna pull a U-Haul up and take everything they can. Insurance is going high. People's insurance have been canceled. So they're gonna take care of the problem themselves. You come in there, you might not make it out. And that's the truth. What about the police? We have had interviews on the show where the police have, cannot do much from what it sounds like it. Well, our police force is very, very understaffed. They have been understaffed by the previous, you know, by COVID and illnesses and mental health in our budget is horrible in Oakland. And so we are down to about 600 officers or we are about to be close to 600 officers. We supposed to have 1500. On any given day, there's only 35 officers on the street. What are we gonna do with that? You are seeing what's going on in Oakland and you're kind of in the news. You're following everything and you see all these cases. Are you concerned about where Oakland is headed? I'm very concerned, very concerned. I have grandchildren there. I have children that are there. You know, I have friends, I have kids. I mean, it's just horrible. Have you thought about leaving? Oh yeah, absolutely not. Why not? If you love Oakland, you just love Oakland. I mean, there's a lot of good stuff in Oakland. A lot of good people. You know, we just have to come together and make a difference. But a lot of people don't wanna get involved. Why not? Why don't people get involved to help Oakland? Because they just wanna mind their own business. I hear it all the time. You know, people, I'm not coming to Oakland. If you have something else someplace there, I'm coming. Or, you know, somebody will call me and we'll be talking about things because I talk to people all the time. They wanna talk to me about stuff. Well, if it doesn't happen on my block, I really don't care. And that is how it is. You know, if it don't come to their door, they act like it doesn't exist. They complain on Facebook or Twitter. Oh, I wish this would stop. Or this, that, and the third. But there are very, very few people that really wanna do boots on the ground. And that's what I call it. Is it fair to say that there is a level of apathy from the community in Oakland? And that's what is somewhat causing what we are seeing? Yeah, you know, I talk a lot about the family unit. When I was growing up, I mean, my grandmother did not play. We was at grandma house on the weekends. We was at great-grandmama house. We went to the A's game together. So it was a big family unit, very close-knit family. And a lot of it can be solved with families coming together. If your son is in a gang and you know it, get your uncle, get your cousin. Y'all sit together and try to, you know, talk to them because in the end, you could be saving their life. They might go out to, you know, rob somebody and end up getting killed. Families are the most important. Everything starts at home. We didn't, I raised my three children, only my three. So, you know, we have to go outside. And I tell people all the time, I can't care about my kids without caring about yours. So I do whatever I can to make sure that everybody around is safe. You know, you mentioned you are not leaving Oakland. And you haven't, from what it seems like, you haven't even thought about leaving Oakland. It's not an option. Like you care about it. For those of us that may not know a lot about Oakland, but we just hear about crime and negative things. Can you tell us what's there that keeps this community, what's in the core of this community? Well, the people are wonderful. I mean, you gotta know the people. I know everybody. It doesn't matter what race they are, where my businesses are. I'm the only African-American there. Everybody's Asian or different, you know, nationality. And we are just like family. You know, I worry about them, they worry about me. I make sure they're okay, they make sure I'm okay. You know, just the level of that, I mean, wants to keep you there. I very rarely have bad interactions with anybody in Oakland. Wherever I go, I speak, they speak. And it's wonderful, because some places you can go and people just look at you, don't say nothing. You know, just walk by you. It's a great place. It's a really great place. You know, you grew up in Oakland. You are a mother and grandmother, right? Yes. And these kids or these people, maybe they're older, that are getting involved in shootings, gangs. Is there a way to get them out? With my work with ceasefire, I have dealt with so many people. And the problems that are going on is not what people think. It's not because they need a job. Some of them have jobs. Some have aspirations to be people. But like I said earlier, that's their family. And so they don't care about getting in trouble, because those are their brothers or their sisters. It has to go back to the family. That's the only way it's gonna work. The family has to step in and start there. It's not gonna work any other way. We're outside people, trying to help people that have a support base. They have a mother and a father. They might not have them both in the same vicinity, in the same household. They still have the person that birthed them, their mom or their father. And that's who needs to step up. What you're saying is these gangs have kind of replaced their families, right? Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. And I've heard it from them. You know, Ms. Grisham, we're not, you call us gangs, but these are our family members. So we're willing to kill people because somebody has our family members. Absolutely. So we have to get them back. Get them back. Back to their family, the people that they're missing, the people that they're looking for. I feel that we are not at the part of no hope. And this is just not for Oakland. It's for Alameda County. It's for California. We have a lot of things that are going on. We have the homeless people. We have people without jobs, but nothing is at a point where we can't turn it around, where we can't make a difference, but it's going to take everybody. We cannot continue to think it's somebody else's job. It's our job, just like everybody else's. Brenda Grisham, public safety advocate in Oakland. It was great to have you on California Insider. Thank you. Leighton, you're a reporter in Oakland and you've been covering Oakland, the Bay Area, San Francisco. We want to hear from you the situation on the ground. We are hearing from residents that the crime is getting worse, but what is your perspective? It's been really bad lately. There was just a guy who was just a father, Chinese immigrant, who was sleeping in his bed and was shot in the head through the wall of his home while he was sleeping. And he's now, I think, fighting for his life. Not that long ago, there was a mass shooting where 14 people were shot. I mean, it remains very violent and the property crime is still happening. The politics of it have become more urgent in light of the fact that the mayor is facing a recall election in November. And the governor seems to be finally, well, he started a little while ago, but he seems to be increasing his kind of clamping down on Oakland. And I think that the kind of change that's needed in Oakland is the kind of change that will take time, not something that you could do overnight, but it would be nice to see some steps in the right direction. And what is the situation with the police? So the police are grossly understaffed at present, and it might be even worse than this now, but there are about 35 officers on patrol at any given moment in Oakland. So a city of close to half a million people with a very high crime rate, and you've got a few dozen officers at any given time. That's gonna get worse because of further budget constraints. And so they're gonna cut the department back even more. On top of being understaffed, the Oakland Police Department, we discussed this last time since it's been under federal oversight for so long, a lot of officers aren't really trained to do the job. They don't know how to do traffic stops. They're very passive because if you do any actual police work, you get scrutinized by your superiors. And if you don't do anything, you just sit in your patrol car, you can coast by. So there's a sort of ingrained passivity to the Oakland Police Force, once again, because of the federal oversight. And now it's gotten so bad that the governor has been sending in CHP to back up the Oakland Police. I believe last time we talked, you'd asked me about that and it seemed as if it was kind of fake, like it sent in cops for a few days and then pulled them out. Well, now those California Highway Patrol officers are actually working on the regular and making a lot of arrests. The picture this paints is of a city that is unable to govern itself, unable to police itself. So the governor has to send in California Highway Patrol to do the Oakland Police's job for it. And the governor is also now diverting cases from the district attorney, Pamela Price, who's facing a recall. This district attorney just refuses to make prosecutions. So the governor is now bringing in Cal Guard, California National Guard prosecutors and diverting cases away from her to them. So this feels like kind of like almost like a state takeover of law enforcement in Oakland. What about the shootings that we are hearing about? Is that becoming a thing on a regular basis where you have to be worried bullets might come at you or is that one or two incidents here and there? I mean, they're definitely isolated incidents. I don't wanna exaggerate or be melodramatic. It's obviously worse in the higher crime neighborhood. So I believe that the dad who was shot while sleeping was in Deep East Oakland, which is the most violent part of the city. Where that kind of thing happens more often than other parts of the city and people there, I can't speak for them because I haven't done the reporting to be to feel comfortable doing so. But so I don't know to what extent they're like locking themselves in their houses out of fear or if this just feels like the new normal. But these shootings have also happened in like downtown Oakland. I think a year between a year and two years ago, there was a gunfight in downtown Oakland where a guy saw his car getting broken into and he shot at the thief and the thief shot back. And that was like lunchtime right in the middle of downtown on a weekday. That mass shooting on Juneteenth was in Lake Merritt, which is sort of like the central park of Oakland. So these are areas that are very central to civic life in Oakland. So it's not just the most dangerous neighborhoods where these shootings are happening. Lake Merritt, for example, I mean, I grew up in Berkeley and I remember in the 1990s, Lake Merritt was considered a dangerous place. When I moved here back to the Bay Area, maybe six years ago or so, it was not considered a dangerous place. It was considered a very lively, fun place with lots of nice restaurants and bars and things. It feels like it's gone back to being now like a place that you would think twice about going and just hanging out on Lake Merritt. There's also, there's plenty of people running around the lake, kids playing on play structures. I don't want to exaggerate it, but there are also things like sideshows and the occasional shootings on Lake Merritt. So it's a mixed picture. The people that are committing these crimes, is it gangs? Is it just random criminals? Have you guys, have you done any work on that? Yeah, I don't believe it's really gang oriented. I think it's much more like crews, you could say, crews of criminals. It's just opportunistic crime. I mean, in Oakland, there's basically a 0% chance that you're going to get caught for crimes. One study showed the OPD has a clearance rate of 1.5% for major crimes, and then like 6.5% for violent crimes. So basically you've got between a 90 and a 99% chance of getting away with serious crimes. So opportunistic crime, and also it's become a crime tourist destination. So a lot of the criminals who are pulling crimes in Oakland and preying on Oaklanders are actually from out of town. They're coming from Stockton and Central Valley, and people come to Oakland to commit crimes because it's like, you know, it's like the Big Rock Candy Mountain. They just know they can get away with it. There's effectively no law enforcement. Leighton, you mentioned that it will take time to fix this. Do you have any thoughts about how to fix the situation in Oakland? I think the real problem was with the police department. And the federal consent decree, or I should say the negotiated settlement agreement, which has been in place for now over two decades. So lifting that federal oversight has been a huge lift. They haven't been able to do it for years and years. So that's the very first step is that federal oversight needs to be lifted so that they can start to build a different culture within the police department. But building a new culture within a big bureaucratic organization takes time. And recruiting officers, especially in the United States today when fewer and fewer people are going into law enforcement, that's gonna take quite a bit of time. So there's a whole hiring process, hiring hundreds of officers, and then doing a real culture change. So that feels to me like a decade-long project, not a year-long project. I mean, I think the interesting thing to look at is Newsom has been taking action, probably because on the one hand, he cares about these cities, but on the other hand, so I don't wanna be too cynical, but also because it's impeding his presidential aspirations. So that's been a real good fortune for Oakland. That's how we got the CHP in here. That's how we got the DOJ in here. The Cal Guard prosecutor's taken over these prosecutions. There's a lot of, well, there's him in particular and other people who have political stake in the future of these cities. So there's at least some material reason not to just abandon us, but we haven't felt the change. Ken, we're covering the situation with crime in Oakland. Yes, sir. And you're doing something amazing for your city. You're actually cleaning up the streets through your nonprofit. But unfortunately, your nonprofit was hit by crime. Can you tell us what happened? As I mentioned when I was in the studio, and I apologize for being out here on the ground, but this situation that happened to us, it was severe. I had a phone call last night that some of our items in our automobile was in this location. That's why I'm out here now. After the interview with you, somebody broke into our building and vandalized and stole. That's why I'm not in the studio right now. I don't have a computer. I don't have my iPad. I just have my cell phone, and this is a new cell phone from when my truck was broken into. So someone told us that some of our items were down here. So I wanted to show you this automobile graveyard that I came across. I didn't know this existed, and I just wanted to share that with you. But it has exploded. It exploded so huge, it has affected me personally. I mean, I'm the son of Oakland, born and raised third generation, and this happens to me, it's devastating. And not only to me, it happened to individuals that rent out of this building, small businesses, small business, small local businesses that are trying to survive. Now, their items are gone, their computers, their cell phones, their cameras, where they thought it was safe to expand as a business. So this is devastating, it's exploded. It's exploded and something has to happen. Can you show us this graveyard where you're in? Can you show us around? Let me show you this. This is, I came out here and it was, it blew my mind when I saw these cars. I saw cars that have been here for quite a while. I've saw new cars that are out here that are about to be stripped. So we'll walk down here and I'll show you. It's a automobile graveyard. It doesn't even, I can't even comprehend it. It looks like a movie set. Looked like somebody set this up. Is this a normal residential area in Oakland? This is, it's residential on both sides of this. This is the railroad. Oakland is not responsible for this. So let me share with you, it's jurisdictions, right? And you have to understand the jurisdiction. Now look at this car right here. This car yesterday when I came out had its tires on it. It had tires on it. It was not stripped like this yesterday. Here, search, search, search. When you go places like this, do you feel afraid now? Nope, I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid, I can handle myself. I'm not afraid. No, I'm not, this is my city. This is my town. Nobody's gonna make me afraid to be where I live and where I'm the son of Oakland. Nobody. Because there's too many prisoners in their homes in our city. Our seniors, our prisoners. I refuse to be a prisoner in my own home. This is my home. So whoever's doing this out here, they're interfering with my neighborhood. This is not their neighborhood. So no, I'm not. Because if you let them scare you and fear you from coming in your neighborhood, you just lost the battle. It's not happening. Not on my watch. Look at this, look at this. So let me share with you. Look at this. I'm standing between one, two, three, four, five, six dismantled trucks, automobiles. This is not real. So Ken, you're in this area where they're bringing cars out and they're stripping them down and burning them. And they're doing that during the day and at night. How normal has this become in Oakland? I'm gonna share this with you. I have never, I've been here, third generation, never seen it in this condition. I don't even understand how the insurance companies can insure cars. I don't understand how they can stay in business. And I guess that's why they're dropping individuals, right? Much is not normal. I have never, ever, I played on these railroad tracks. I've ran in these creeks. I have never seen it like this in my life. This is lawlessness at the highest level. Look at that, you saw it with your own eyes. This is not fiction, this is real life out here that we have to deal with. Now think about the neighbors that these abandoned vehicles are behind. Think about that. Think about the seniors. Just really think about the seniors that have to look through their back window and see this. How scared, how traumatic that is. And that's what the great leader, Nate Miley, he embraces our seniors to a whole nother level. And that's why I'm out here also because I have an 82-year-old mother that's scared to walk out on the streets because she's scared to be robbed, right? We gotta take back our streets. The criminals don't run our city. We run the city, we pay the taxes. This is our city, we are destroying our city. Things have to change. Thank you, Ken, and we hope you find your stolen items and hopefully that area in Oakland will clean up soon. All right, thank you, I'll keep you up. Let's go, thank you. Let us know what you think of the situation in Oakland. And if you're a government leader in Oakland or a leader in Oakland that would like to come on the show to tell us what your thoughts are and if you have any solutions for the situation, let us know. You can always reach out to us at siamakacaliforniansider.com. We will read all of your emails and we try to respond to all of them. We also have a poll for you. There's gonna be a link in the description below. You can take this poll and tell us your thoughts about Oakland. I'm Siamak Goremi, and thank you.