This is unacceptable! President Trump needs to send the National Guard into Oakland, California immediately.
As President Donald Trump announced he’d be sending in the National Guard to clamp down on what he described as rampant crime in Washington, D.C., he also criticized other cities, including Oakland.
During a Monday news conference, Trump indicated he might send the National Guard in to Oakland to fight crime as well.
“We have other cities also that are bad. Very bad,” Trump said. “You look at Chicago, how bad it is. You look at Los Angeles, how bad it is. We have other cities that are very bad. New York has a problem. And then you have, of course, Baltimore and Oakland. We don’t even mention that anymore there. They’re so far gone. We’re not going to let it happen. We’re not going to lose our cities over this. And this will go further.”
However, legal experts said the president would face an uphill battle outside D.C., which is a federal district.
“It’s harder to see a legal path in these other places,” said David Levine, a professor at UC Law San Francisco. “If he wanted to declare an emergency in, let’s say, Illinois, he would need the governor to go along. I think he would get much pushback if he were to try this in Oakland.”
For some residents, just the idea of the National Guard patrolling Oakland is a bad idea.
“Oakland has had its issues, granted, but I think that it can be solved totally differently than any way that he’s thinking about doing,” a woman named Luise said. “Martializing, oh my God.”
Despite what the president said, Oakland police last week issued a report showing a big drop in crime, compared to the same time last year.
The number of homicides are down 21% and the number of robberies are down 41%.
“This is par for the course for Trump,” said Oakland civil rights attorney, Adante Pointer. “He continues to target and distort the facts as it relates to crime in American cities, particularly those in blue states run by Black mayors. His administration consistently tries to undermine these Black mayors and indulge followers’ belief that Black leadership is incompetent and unworthy, and that their accomplishments are not based on merit or are somehow by DEI initiative. The facts are these mayors were democratically elected and have led their cities to significant drops in crime.”
Oakland did have a violent weekend that included six shootings.
Oakland Mayor Babara Lee, who used to be a Congresswoman, slammed Trump’s depiction of The Town.
“President Trump’s characterization of Oakland is wrong and not grounded in facts, but in fear-mongering,” she said in a statement. “This is not leadership – it’s an attempt to score cheap political points by tearing down communities he doesn’t understand.We’re making real progress on public safety in Oakland, and while we acknowledge we have more work to do, we are doing this work each and every day. Our comprehensive public safety strategy is working – crime rates are coming down even though we still face many challenges. And let me repeat, President Trump is wrong.”
