Push went ‘too far’.....

Oakland mayor: Defund the police push went ‘too far’

But she noted that investments in housing, public health and behavioral health would drive down crime rates.

By MACKENZIE WILKES

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf on Thursday called for more investment in addressing what she said are the root causes of violent crime that has spiked in big cities across the nation.

But Schaaf stopped short of echoing calls from activists to defund the police, arguing that the push “went too far and got convoluted.”

“It’s been particularly heart wrenching in Oakland because we had just made national headlines for cutting gun violence in half and sustaining those lower rates for five years,” Schaaf said in an interview with POLITICO for The Fifty: America’s Mayors summit. Schaaf added that “when we saw this surge come up during the pandemic, and let’s also be honest, after George Floyd, after this country just saw its faith in government justice compromised, we were just heartbroken.”

2021 was one of the deadliest years in Oakland in the past decade. Nationwide, the murder rate rose by 30 percent in 2020 compared to 2019, the biggest increase in the last century. Schaaf said Thursday that investments in housing, public health and behavioral health would drive down crime rates. And while she distanced herself from calls to defund the police, a movement to divest police funding into other crime prevention services that gained national momentum after the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, she said conversations about reforming the criminal justice system are important.

“I think it was a correction to the defund conversation, which I personally think went too far and got convoluted,” Schaaf said. “I think everyone agrees we need to invest far more into prevention, into the root causes of crime and particularly into our mental health system which is completely failing us, both when you look at crime as well as homelessness.”

Schaaf said the shift in rhetoric and response around crime, such as the increase in the Los Angeles Police Department budget and San Francisco Mayor London Breed’s crackdown on the “reign of criminals,” is a response to the defund the police movement. But the Oakland mayor said her city has deep activist roots — the Black Panther Party was founded there — and that racial justice in Oakland goes beyond criminal justice but into other areas such as housing and income inequality.

“When we listen to the communities that have been most impacted and when you look at gun violence, the communities that are paying the highest price are the communities that are paying the highest price in all areas, whether it’s income inequality, food insecurity, housing insecurity, and so we are hearing loud and clear that justice is something that they want,” Schaaf said.