Oakland pledged to cut its police budget in half. Then homicides surged

Heeding the urgency of the Black Lives Matter movement, Oakland leaders committed over the summer to ultimately slash the Police Department’s budget in half, by about $150 million. The City Council created the 17-member Reimagining Public Safety Task Force to figure out how to meet this lofty goal to “defund the police.” They would write a draft proposal by December and present it to the council in March.

Then a wave of gun violence engulfed the flatlands in East Oakland, home to the city’s most impoverished neighborhoods. Homicides spiked. Policymakers — and even the most devoted reformers — had to confront a paradox: that the Black and Latino neighborhoods most threatened by police violence are also the ones demanding better and more consistent law enforcement.

Task force members agreed that police brutality against Black and brown people is too common, that gun violence needs to end and that the city needs more services to address the underlying causes of crime. But while advocates wanted swift, dramatic change, others felt conflicted. In neighborhoods with high crime and slow police response times, Black residents winced at what sometimes felt like preaching from outsiders.

A poll released last week by the Chamber of Commerce showed that, citywide, 58% of residents want to either maintain or increase the size of the police force. That figure climbs to 75% in District 7, an area of East Oakland where gunfire exploded this summer.

Notably, the poll showed that support for increasing the size of the police force is higher among Black voters, at 38%, than white voters, at 27%.

Brian Meador says he was 16 when police tackled him to the ground on his way home from football practice. When the officers realized they had the wrong guy, they let him go — along with a broken nose. Meador, now 29, says he was humiliated.

Even so, he raised an eyebrow when he heard about the efforts to cut the police budget in Oakland. On the day of the triple shooting, he came home from work to find his house blocked off by caution tape. This was normal for his block, Meador said. The week before, a police officer had chased someone through his backyard.

“So you cut the police budget in half,” he said. “Then what?”

When a string of police killings of Black people forced a national reckoning this spring, Oakland saw a chance to prove itself. But the city was an unlikely leader in police reform. Its Police Department has spent nearly two decades under federal oversight, stemming from a 2003 civil rights settlement over four West Oakland officers accused of kidnapping, beating and planting drugs on residents.

The city has spent more than $17 million on court monitors and consultants as part of that settlement, which laid out dozens of tasks for police officials to complete to improve the way they train, track and discipline officers. To this day, the department is struggling to comply with seven tasks, including creating a fair discipline policy.

The department was deeply scarred in the last recession and took a long time to recover, cycling through crises and police chiefs. In 2013, when the force dipped to its smallest size of 613 officers, residents of the hills became so frustrated with burglaries that they hired private armed guards to patrol their neighborhoods.

When Libby Schaaf first ran for mayor in 2014, she elevated law and order to the top of her agenda, pledging to boost the police force to 800. That same election, voters overwhelmingly passed Measure Z, a parcel tax to fund public safety and violence intervention programs. It mandates that Oakland retain at least 678 sworn law enforcement officers and bars the city from laying off cops unless the force exceeds 800, a number Oakland hasn’t hit in a decade.

more https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Oakland-pledged-to-cut-its-police-budget-in-half-15689857.php

I knew there had to be fuckery involved with this recent spike in cases…

Whistleblower says El Paso ambulances picking up COVID-19 patients from Juarez

El Paso is making international headlines for the COVID-19 outbreak.

As emergency responders are being recognized across the nation, El Paso's first responders may be facing more danger from COVID-19 than anyone else.

El Paso firefighters in the trenches of the COVID-19 pandemic, cannot talk on the record about the number of people they are picking up every day from El Paso's international bridges.

But a whistleblower inside the fire department spoke to KFOX14 exclusively on condition of anonymity.

“There's somedays where it's only three or four times and other days when it will be 13 or 14 responses. You'll be there for one patient and [CBP] customs will let you know, hey there's another one right behind them and another one sometime there are four or five waiting in line,” said the anonymous source.

As a result of what appear to be escalating ambulance responses at the international bridges by the El Paso Fire Department, KFOX14’s source insists the city of El Paso is being left in a dangerously vulnerable position.

KFOX14 anchor Erika Castillo was at the Stanton Bridge in downtown El Paso when a firetruck picked up a person from Ciudad Juarez and crossed back to El Paso to send the person to the nearest hospital.

But doing so now at this point of overload on our rescue and hospital resources, may be leaving the city of El Paso in a dangerously vulnerable position.

“I don't want this to sound the wrong way because our job is to help people. That's why we do our job. That's why you leave your families to protect people. At the same time, we took an oath to protect the citizens and the city of El Paso. And multiple times in this pandemic we will be in a complete system overload where there are no rescues available. There are no ambulances available,” said the anonymous source.

No private companies are allowed to pick up the patients coming from Cd. Juarez at the international bridges.

Only the city's EMT’s are legally allowed to transport them. Who pays for that? And what happens when El Pasoans need those ambulances are questions KFOX14 is asking officials.

And why are those coming from Cd. Juarez not going to hospitals in Cd. Juarez?

“They'll give you different reasons, some of them will say they are scared because everyone dies at those hospitals. Some of them have told us the hospitals there won't let them in unless they can pay everything in advance,” said the anonymous source.

This seasoned El Paso firefighter chose to speak due to circumstances he feels now exposes the fire department and El Paso's precious rescue resources as well as the city of El Paso itself to what he believes is a critical COVID-19 reality.

“When our resources are going to the bridge it doesn’t seem like we are taking care of our city. It’s sad to say but right now with this stuff going on with our hospitals being overloaded. They've said you have to make tough decisions at this time. Hospitals are having to do it all the time. And that tough decision must be made as to what we are going to use our finite number of resources on,” said the anonymous source.

Officials with the El Paso Fire Department told KFOX14 the response times to the bridges are not out of the ordinary as compared to the summer months.

However, a deputy fire chief acknowledged that the 35 city ambulances are taking longer between COVID-19 calls due to EMT’s waiting for patients to be admitted at hospitals, and then the units having to be disinfected.

Fire department officials said when resources are low, deputy chiefs can reassign ambulances from other parts of town to areas where they are needed.

KFOX14 requested information to get more concrete answers, including how often the fire department is going to the international bridges, how long it's taking to handle those calls, and disinfect ambulances before they can be used again, and how our response times are being affected.

https://kfoxtv.com/news/local/whistleblower-says-el-paso-ambulances-picking-up-covid-19-patients-from-juarez

>>11410078 or drug smuggling

Mother uses 13-year-old son to smuggle drugs across El Paso border

U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officers working at the Ysleta Port of Entry seized several bundles of methamphetamine and fentanyl strapped to the body of a 13-year-old boy. The boy and his two siblings were traveling with their mother.

The seizure was made just before 7 a.m. on October 21 when a 31-year-old United States citizen woman was traveling into El Paso with her three minor children ages 13, 12 and 5.

CBP officers selected the vehicle for secondary inspection. During that inspection, a drug sniffing dog alerted to the presence of narcotics on the front passenger seat of the vehicle. CBP officers noticed the boy that was seated there, a 13-year-old boy, had a square shaped item protruding from his back. CBP officers said they discovered several bundles taped to the minor’s body.

“Smugglers will use any method they can to attempt to smuggle drugs,” said CBP Ysleta Port Director Arnoldo Gomez, “Unfortunately, in this case, a mother used her 13-year-old son in her attempt to deceive CBP Officers.”

The bundles contained 2.25 pounds of methamphetamine and 1.10 pounds of fentanyl, according to CBP.

CBP officers arrested the woman and she was turned over to authorities to face charges for the failed smuggling attempt. The three children were released to a family member.

https://kfoxtv.com/news/local/mother-uses-13-year-old-son-to-smuggle-drugs-across-el-paso-border