Thread by @hyphy_republic

The special council meeting introducing the Reimagining Public Safety Taskforce to CPAB, SSOC and Police Commission has begun. oakland.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.…

The Special Meeting is having video glitches and failures, Kaplan and Clerk Landingham observe that this has happened before during Zoom meetings with a large number of participants [vs attendees] #oakmtg

Second call about OPD failures to enforce "basic laws" around Lake Merritt to this meeting. This caller is concerned about Reimagining will lead to "more problems", and wants to "building up new capabilities", suggesting police need to back those as well #oakmtg

Asata Olugbala says the main problem that the City keeps saying "violence prevention is working", but its not. She wants the city to be more sober in assessing Measure Z, Ceasefire, etc. #oakmtg

Kaplan introduces a policy suggestion for OPD to make “guns the top law enforcement priority,” and "requesting follow up information on gun tracing, and timely deployment to notifications of shootings and armed robberies", links that to de-prioritizing policing protests #oakmtg

Kaplan's report suggests that OPD has had a diminishing success in tracing guns since 2017, almost half as many handguns traced in 2019 vs 2017, 2019 decrease over 2018 #oakmtg

Gallo says that the difference between a politician and a drug dealer is that the drug dealer gives you something. Recounts eyewitnessing a gun robbery, recently, suggests gun crimes are happening due to social failures #oakmtg

Reid says that the highest number of homicides is in D7, and the second highest is in D5. Wants a strategy on "reducing level of insanity", like Gallo, he's describing social issues, repair as core issues, needs. #oakmtg

Reid says that D7 is returning to its nickname "killing fields of Oakland". He describes, Guatemalan gangs and African American gangs taking each other's lives, but he begins to get back into law and order territory by saying he doesn't even know if there is a solution #oakmtg

Reid pulls out his oft-used claim that he walks his dogs in San Leandro, says that if shooters shot straighter, there'd be a higher murder number. He is now saying that young Latino and AA don't believe in Covid proscriptions, drinking 40oz, buying drugs, selling drugs #oakmtg

Reid spoke for nearly ten minutes, incredible that no one cut him off, given the number of speakers and organizations present today. #oakmtg

Harris says she doesn't support defunding police, but rather making it more efficient. She largely agrees with Reid's assessment of the issues in D7, and says that East Oakland has become a dumping ground for everything that Oakland doesn't want. #oakmtg

Harris complains about a lack of transparency and accountability within Ceasefire #oakmtg

Bas says that Covid has exacerbated social inequities, lack of jobs and lack of constructive things to do. She says the Reimagining Taskforce has potential to "break the cycle" of doing the same things, investing in alternatives to policing #oakmtg

Thao says that she agrees with Gallo about going after root causes, after school and library programs, internships. Community policing, and having community leadership. She says that Ceasefire needs to do a better job of being visible in community #oakmtg

Remarkably, the Ceasefire evaluation included in today's agenda packet was co-authored by one of the original designers of the Ceasefire model, Anthony Braga. Its weird that the OPD commissioned a study from someone one assumes is invested in having the program appear to work.

Cespedes is giving a background on Department of Violence Prevention. He's been the Chief of the program--so named to appear to be an analogue to the Police Chief. DVP appears to have a handful of staff members, and wields its programs thru 21 third party orgs #oakmtg