Oakland is experiencing a rash of burglaries
Especially car burglaries.
I actually heard a car window get shattered outside my house last week. I was up at 3am fighting my insomnia when I heard a car pull up and a loud smash. I looked out the window and saw a super fat white dude in his 50s or so climbing into the passenger side of an escalade.
The best part about the linked article is how our mayor is off in China for some fucking reason.
Fewer police, more burglaries in Oakland - SFGate
Although killings are tragic and make the news - and Oakland has already exceeded its total for all of last year - many more residents are falling victim to auto and home burglaries. Those are up a stunning 43 percent from last year.
Police Department figures show that as of Sunday, 11,081 homes, cars or businesses had been reported broken into so far this year. That translates to about 33 burglaries a day, or about one every 43 minutes.
The most popular targets are cars. A total of 5,743 have been broken into so far this year - 2,511 more than during the same period last year.
"It's horrendous," said City Councilwoman Pat Kernighan, who chairs the council's Public Safety Committee.
She suspects there's a direct correlation between the crime spike and the city's steady loss of police officers in recent years. "That's the issue we all should be focusing on," Kernighan said.
If the problem is a shortage of patrol cops, things are going to get worse.
