Oakland’s Chinatown was hit by a series of attacks and robberies that made the community nervous.
Video from a surveillance camera captures an January 31 attack on an elderly man. The footage, taken from a camera on the corner of Harrison and 8th Street and with a date and time just after noon, shows a man in a hooded sweatshirt forcibly pushing his target, who is walking on the sidewalk. The older man falls flat on his face on the sidewalk, narrowly missing a metal bicycle rack as his attacker passes by.
The police announced on Saturday night that they had identified a person of interest who has been in your custody since February 1 for other reasons.
Carl Chan, president of the Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce, said the video capture attack is part of a series of attacks and thefts aimed at the community.
Captain Bobby Hookfin of the Oakland Police Department said the police have seen an increase in thefts in the area since the beginning of the year. The department did not respond to a request from the Times asking how many similar reports it has received in the past few weeks, or how those figures compare to previous months or years or elsewhere.
At a news conference on Wednesday, Chan asked the city to bring back walking patrols, especially around Lunar New Year, and additional surveillance cameras. Chan also requested that parking regulations be adjusted so that visitors can park in parking meters closer to stores.
Mayor Libby Schaaf, answering questions, said she would not restore the walking patrols and “bring extra resources to this community, as appropriate”. It encouraged business owners to buy their own security cameras.
Schaaf also highlighted Oakland City Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas and Deputy Mayor Rebecca Kaplan about her summer proposal to cut the police budget by $ 25 million. If the proposal were approved, said Schaaf, “those traveling officers would have left long ago”.
That proposal has not progressed, but the Schaaf government in December outlined a $ 15 million budget cut that would affect programs including the ceasefire, in which community groups, clergy and social workers work with the police to reduce armed violence.
Bas, whose constituents include those in Chinatown, responded to Schaaf that night on Facebook that his proposal would have reallocated police overtime funds to community security programs. She said it was the December budget cuts that ended foot patrols across the city and that council members were not consulted before the cut.
In another statement on Saturday, Bas said he was partnering with the Oakland Chinatown Coalition and city police to “maintain a community-led presence on the streets of Chinatown” and focus police resources on dealing with violent crimes “while redirecting others resources for alternative responses to mental health, homelessness ”and other forms of violence prevention.