OK Susan, i learned a new word last week. Snarky. But i'm still not sure how to use it.

Help me out here please.

Was your last sentence "snarky" ?

-len

Yes, Len, I did default to snarky in this daily brief. Snarky would be making fuh of Jessica Tagami, which I do do here a little. And poking at the officers for being suburban is also snarky. Generally, I think appreciating police for all they do is fine, but an email about cookies?  Laughing my &$#^ off.

Your posting piqued my interest so i went over to the Rotunda building. Only Jerry Brown knows how much that cost us taxpayers, but it is another stunning dto restoration.

there were no homemade cookies when i got there at 7pm. and if there were, the rotundo is so close to oaksterdam that i would have thought twice before trying since i'm a cheap date.

Lots of opd there so i thought i'd flag one down and ask the question about why do so few opd live here. 

His response was that several years ago he did live here for several years. very often when he shopped at local stores his path crossed with people he dad arrested while on duty. it would be very easy for a pissed off arrestee to follow you home. wouldn't do much good to call opd and hope they got there in time.

This is particularly true for the many female cops on opd.

btw, unlike NYC cops, opd cops are discouraged from carrying their service revolvers off duty.

As long as i was there, asked a different cop why there was any need to shoot the guy brandishing a knive at fruitvale bart last week. why couldn't two cops tasers disable the guy?

Answer is that tasers have  limited effectiveness. thickness of clothing, wet weather, too big or too small a distance, which muscle group is hit, what drug the person is on. 

Lastly, i found another cop who was in the front line facing council members Kapland and Quan at the demonstration/riot the other week.

There are videos and pix of the two councilmembers, arms locked with demonstrators, blocking the cops from advancing to disperse the crowd. There is also a pict of Kaplan putting her hand on a cop's arm or shouder.

None of the pix or videos that i watched had time stamps.

 The cop told me that Kaplan and Quan remained arms locked with demonstrators for substantion  time (i believe it was 10 to 20 minutes but didn’t take notes) after cops gave the unlawful assembly announcement.

The decision to disperse the crowd was made because a small number of demonstrators were raining a large number of bottles and pint size red paint metal cans at the cops. The throwers were interspersed in the crowd of peaceful demonstrators and on some of the upper floors of adjacent buildings making it impossible to arrest the throwers.

Most of the crowd was peaceful.

Most of the looters and throwers were  local.

-len raphael

Len, thanks for your comments, appreciate your views.

Len and others,

Your question to an OPD officer about living in the City they work for is an old canard that I've heard well practiced not by OPD but by OPOA. This a well-honed  message they stay on at OPOA, so much so that many officers believe it and move out of Oakland (if they started here) soon after employment.

Think about it- no one is more likely to be caught and punished (severely)than someone who picks on a law enforcement officer. Also, well paid officers rarely hang out in the neigbhorhoods where they have arrested lots of folks.

I have been a teacher of youth (quite of a few of whom have been to jail and prison) in an adult school in East Oakland in the same neighborhood where the 4 officers were killed. I have had to throw students out of class (attendance sometimes being a requirement to stay out of prison), break up fights both in and outside of class, and impose discipline, and I have done this unarmed as have all the other teachers I work with. I have subbed in other schools throughout Oakland including some near where I lived.

Many teachers, school security, and other personnel do this and live in Oakland. We don't have recourse to the OPD's inner circle either. At the same time, I spoke to an officer the other night who grew up in and still lives in Oakland and he didn't seem a foolish person to me.

As to female officers, once again teachers are generally less physically developed than law officers. I was one of the first women in 2 male professions so I'd be very disappointed to hear female officers use their gender as an excuse for anything.

While state law precludes us requiring an officer to live in our city, we can still encourage this practice. In fact, I would be willing to assist in organizing a reception for OPD officers who do live in Oakland. If we're willing to invest 75% of our limited resources in them (including fire fighters), they should be willing to reinvest some of that largesse in our hometown.

Pamela, last time i checked teachers don't send students away to prison for years (though some students might disagree), and don't taser or shoot them.

Equating  the possible animosity of students and ex students to those of parolees, arrestees, or alleged gang members under injunction is a wild stretch.

I don't know what kind of response time cops deliver in your part of town, but in North Oakland it  often takes at least half an hour for the police to come from the other parts of town. You could lose a lot of blood in half an hour.

If i were a cop, I wouldn't want to live any closer than San Leandro unless I could afford Montclair or Upper Rockridge, and private schools for my kids.
Oakland cops are overpaid but not enough to afford that.

-len raphael

temescal

Len and other readers,

As an Oakland Unified School District teacher, I find it ironic that there are many teachers that want to teach and live in Oakland, but are freqently compelled to leave the district because they can't afford to stay, buy a home, and/or raise a family. The starting salary for teachers in Oakland is $39,900, and the average is about $56,000. On the other hand, we have Oakland police officers who make upwards of $80,000 and choose not to live in our city.

Secondly, while police might be providing "safety" in the short-term, it is really effective teachers who create safety in the long-term.

And finally, I sincerely hope that your implied judgement of Oakland public schools has been carefully researched. There are many excellent teachers and students in our public schools that don't deserve your arrogant jabs.

One more thing Len - I respect your up-front questions of OPD. I have wondered many of the same things myself. But I wouldn't take their word as necessarily the truth.

emacy,

i don't make jabs at oakland teachers for being teachers. I have reread my post and don't see how i implied anything other than what i explicitly stated: that the physical risks faced by off duty oakland cops in many parts of oakland  are inherently severa orders of magnitude greater than those of an off duty Oakland teacher, ceteris paribus.

The discussion of teacher compensation and how to raise it is too complicated for this forum. Katy Murphy's blog does a very good job of covering the issues and painful solutions.

Her blog does not  cover  the colllective failure of this city's leaders to understand that unfunded mandates like Measure Y to help kids, just made everything worse by stealing from peter to pay paul.

When the city council members want to stick a finger in the deficit dike with yet another parcel tax, utility tax, or sales tax they don't bother to coordinate with OUSD so that they don't compete on the same ballot. It's every elected official for themselves and the residents be damned.

In many ways, I think OUSD should be combined with the City government because as you say, many of the problems of Oakland are intertwined with problems of the education system.

Interesting you think i take a cop's report as the gospel. Everyone has biases and oftcen different interests, economic, emoitional, political.  Everyone tends to be self serving when reporting events that reflect on their performance.

Having said that, I havent' heard any one dispute that one cops statement to me that bottles and small cans of paint were getting lobbed at the cops both from behind the peaceful demonstrators and from some upper stories of nearby buildings.  Nor has anyone directly contradicted the cops statement that yes they were preparing or had prepared exit paths for the demonstrators.

-len raphael

temescal

As you would know if you read my postings, cop and fire total compensation has to be cut.  I also support increasing the number of cops so that they are not forced to work ridiculous OT which leads to fatal errors and poor performance.

Yes Oakland pays its teachers ridiculously low compensation compared not just to cops and firefighters, not just to other what other cities pay teachers, but to what Oakland pays janitors, clerks, mechanics, managers virtually across the entire 3,000 staff of the city.

Its convenient to point to those greedy cops, ignore those friendly firefighters, and smille at the nice street sweeper and inspector.

But the reality is that we have to substantially cut the compensation of all city employees EXCEPT teachers. If we're able to keep teacher salaries at the abysmal level they are now, and not lay off teachers, we'll be doing better than many other schoold districts for the kids.

emacy, if you want to feel really underpaid don't bother comparing your compensation to cops.

instead compare it to Ms. Hudson,  City of Oakland HR manager featured in today's Tribune article about the closing of Neldam. Ms. Hudson earns over 136,000/year.

Ask around what HR managers make in private industry or the Federal government.  Think 65 to 75k tops.

When she retires as early as age 55, Ms Hudson, like all the other non public safety employees of our city, will be getting between 50 and 100% of their last year's salary for the rest of their long lives. Lives that will be protected by lifetime medical coverage for them and their dependents.

If she works for 30 years, and doesn't get any of the typical 4% COLA raises that Oakland gives out regardless of the inflation rates, she would be guaranteed over 100,000/year plus her medical benefits.

If you're an SEIU member, that's supposed to make you feel warm and cozy, and motivate you to get out there, knock on doors, call from phone banks, to make sure voters approve thie 360 parcel tax, and all the other ones coming down the pike. But nothing about the OUSD parcel tax.

So much for union solidarity.

Btw, Oakland's high muni compensation, the highest in the country according Oakland's salary survey of two years (which the city removed from it's website after the SEIU complained), is not comparable to the Bell, Ca situation. Our mayor, city attorney, council members are well paid for the hours/effort worked, but not lavishly paid like Bell's.

But when you have close to 3,000 city employees all paid at or above both muni and private industry going rates,  and on top of that they are promised pensions based on those higher wages, you have created a fiscal monster.

So no Ms. Hudson should only be seen as a concrete example of how our officials have raise by raise, penson increase by increase, benefit upgrade step by step, 4% COLAS, dug a very very deep money pit for us to deal with.