OAKLAND: Mayor wrong on cause of crime

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 8/19/8 | Chip Johnson

[SmithL]

When bank robbery suspect Elmer Reyes crashed his getaway car on Interstate 880 in the East Bay, he told the officers who arrested him that the bad economy made him commit the crime.

And when Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums responded to a spree of takeover robberies at restaurants in the city this month, he also blamed poor economic times as a motive for the crimes.

"The desperation of these crimes speaks to the broader issue of where we are in terms of this economy," the Quiet Mayor said. "When people become this desperate, they take desperate acts and we have to do everything we can to get to the root causes of crime and violence."

I don't blame Dellums for attempting to deflect blame for Oakland's high crime rate on to a poor economy - that's what politicians do - but the idea that otherwise law-abiding citizens are turning to crime in an economic downturn is a myth.

Crooks are crooks, whether times are good or bad.

And it's far-fetched to think that laid-off software analysts from Rockridge or computer assembly-line workers from the Fruitvale are turning to burglaries or armed robberies.

In Oakland, where higher-than-average crime is normal in good and bad economic times, it's a weak argument.

[SmithL]

Yeah, yeah, I know, it's all Bush's fault.

[Puppage]

he told the officers who arrested him that the bad economy made him commit the crime.

So glad it wasn't HIS fault./sarc

[Puppage]

When people become this desperate, they take desperate acts....

Like getting a job? Oh, ok...not THAT desperate.

[A_Former_Democrat]

All you have to do is look at places where the Dellums of the world are in charge.

Absolute disasters. And that says it all.

[whitedog57]

I grew up in the Bay Area. Oakland has been a joke and a dangerous place since I was a child.

It is the place the Berkeley progressives point to as an example of why Marxism should prevail. It is filled with poor Africans (I no longer use the term African Americans since Hispanics don’t refer to themselves as Hispanic Americans - just trying to be “fair.”).

Oakland is a hotbed of “Blame da white man.” African Liberation politics, Black Muslims (or should it be African Muslims), horrid crimes blamed on everything but a sick and twisted culture of welfare and failure of personal responsibility.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Whitman Mayo and Mayor Dellums, separated at birth?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitman_Mayo

[Clemenza]

LOL. He does look like Grady!

[printhead]

My sister-in-law got her arm broken and purse snatched by a person of diversity with a baseball bat on her first and only visit to Oakland.

[oyez]

Self restraint isn't a valued commodity anymore.

[Puppage]

Self restraint isn't a valued commodity anymore

Nor, it seems, is personal accountability.