Crime

OP-ED: The Last Riot

Published

11 years ago

December 3, 2014

“Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called children of God.” Matthew 5:9

Peace is hard to find during this so-called season of peace. A suicide bomber killed nine in Afghanistan this week. Suicide bombers killed 70 last week in Nigeria and rioting still continues all across this nation in response to the St. Louis Grand Gury’s decision to not indict Darren Wilson for killing Michael Brown.

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Thousands have been arrested. Looters and rioters continue to terrorize the streets. On Sunday November 30^th, Zemir Begic a Bosnian man who recently moved to St Louis was brutally attacked after he confronted some of the protesters.

Police said, “Begic was in his vehicle about 1:15 a.m. in the 4200 block of Itaska when several juveniles approached and began damaging his car. Begic got out to confront the juveniles, who began yelling at him and hitting him with hammers.” Begic, 32, suffered injuries to his head, abdomen, face and mouth, died at St Louis Hospital.

Natalie Dubose, an African-American small business owner of Natalie’s Cakes was in tears when she realized her store was one of the ones damaged during the riots.

Robert Chabot, president of the local school board and small business owner in downtown Ferguson said, “There are going to be a lot of businesses that don’t reopen, I’m sure of that.”

History has already validated the concerns of Mr. Chabot. Thomas Sowell stated in his recent National Review article “If the history of other communities ravaged by riots in years past is any indication, there are blacks yet unborn who will be paying the price of these riots for years to come.

Sometimes it is a particular neighborhood that never recovers, and sometimes it is a whole city. Detroit is a classic example. It had the worst riot of the 1960s, with 43 deaths — 33 of them black people. Businesses left Detroit, taking with them jobs and taxes that were very much needed to keep the city viable. Middle class people — both black and white — also fled.

Two economic historians, Robert Margo and William Collins, studied owner-occupied housing data to see how much of those cities’ economic declines could be attributed specifically to riots.

In places where severe rioting occurred, property values fell, Collins says, “by about 10 percent relative to where we think they would have been in absence of a riot, or in comparison to places with that had much less severe or no riots. Property owned by blacks saw values drop by as much as 15 percent. But what was most surprising was that these losses lasted through the 20 years they studied. Some cities still haven’t recovered.”

We must choose a different way. Nothing of value has ever been gained from these riots. The losses are more than just life and property lost in the fires of the riots. We also lose a part of our soul. Join me next week as we continue the discussion to ensure that the riots of Ferguson are the last American riots.

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Oakland Post: Week of December 24 – 30, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of – December 24 – 30, 2025

Published

7 days ago

December 25, 2025

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Alameda County

Oakland Council Expands Citywide Security Cameras Despite Major Opposition

In a 7-1 vote in favor of the contract, with only District 3 Councilmember Carroll Fife voting no, the Council agreed to maintain its existing network of 291 cameras and add 40 new “pan-tilt-zoom cameras.”

Published

2 weeks ago

December 21, 2025

Oakland Post

At the International Association of Chiefs of Police Conference, Flock Safety introduces new public safety technology – Amplified Intelligence, a suite of AI-powered tools designed to improve law enforcement investigations. Courtesy photo.

By Post Staff

The Oakland City Council this week approved a $2.25 million contract with Flock Safety for a mass surveillance network of hundreds of security cameras to track vehicles in the city.

In recent weeks hundreds of local residents have spoken against the camera system, raising concerns that data will be shared with immigration authorities and other federal agencies at a time when mass surveillance is growing across the country with little regard for individual rights.

The Flock network, supported by the Oakland Police Department, has the backing of residents and councilmembers who see it as an important tool to protect public safety.

“This system makes the Department more efficient as it allows for information related to disruptive/violent criminal activities to be captured … and allows for precise and focused enforcement,” OPD wrote in its proposal to City Council.

According to OPD, police made 232 arrests using data from Flock cameras between July 2024 and November of this year.

Based on the data, police say they recovered 68 guns, and utilizing the countywide system, they have found 1,100 stolen vehicles.

However, Flock’s cameras cast a wide net. The company’s cameras in Oakland last month captured license plate numbers and other information from about 1.4 million vehicles.

Speaking at Tuesday’s Council meeting, Fife was critical of her colleagues for signing a contract with a company that has been in the national spotlight for sharing data with federal agencies.

Flock’s cameras – which are automated license plate readers – have been used in tracking people who have had abortions, monitoring protesters, and aiding in deportation roundups.

“I don’t know how we get up and have several press conferences talking about how we are supportive of a sanctuary city status but then use a vendor that has been shown to have a direct relationship with (the U.S.) Border Control,” she said. “It doesn’t make sense to me.”

Several councilmembers who voted in favor of the contract said they supported the deal as long as some safeguards were written into the Council’s resolution.

“We’re not aiming for perfection,” said District 1 Councilmember Zac Unger. “This is not Orwellian facial recognition technology — that’s prohibited in Oakland. The road forward here is to add as many amendments as we can.”

Amendments passed by the Council prohibit OPD from sharing camera data with any other agencies for the purpose of “criminalizing reproductive or gender affirming healthcare” or for federal immigration enforcement. California state law also prohibits the sharing of license plate reader data with the federal government, and because Oakland’s sanctuary city status, OPD is not allowed to cooperate with immigration authorities.

A former member of Oakland’s Privacy Advisory Commission has sued OPD, alleging that it has violated its own rules around data sharing.

So far, OPD has shared Flock data with 50 other law enforcement agencies.