![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/OaklandPoliceCar_qed.jpg\")
An Oakland Police officer walks by patrol cars at the Oakland Police headquarters on Dec. 6, 2012, in Oakland, California. (Justin Sullivan\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n\u201cOur mission is to tell the broad story of California in all of its diversity, especially highlighting the story of everyday people, everyday life,\u201d she told KQED. \u201cWe think of ourselves as stewards, not as owners, of that kind of cultural heritage.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels like an attack on our community and on our cultural heritage, and for our staff who devote their full careers to caring for and preserving our collections, it\u2019s truly heartbreaking,\u201d she continued.<\/p>\n
The theft occurred overnight on Oct. 15 at the museum\u2019s off-site storage facility in Oakland, according to Oakland Police. Fogarty said that when museum staff arrived the following morning, it was evident there had been a break-in at the warehouse, where hundreds of thousands of its collection items are held when not on display.<\/p>\n
An Oakland Police officer walks by patrol cars at the Oakland Police headquarters on Dec. 6, 2012, in Oakland, California. (Justin Sullivan\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
\u201cThey saw right away that there had been an intrusion \u2026 and that a significant number of items were stolen,\u201d Fogarty said.<\/p>\n
In the weeks since, museum staff have been taking inventory to identify what\u2019s missing and working with insurance brokers and the city of Oakland, which owns the collection, to determine the monetary value of the pieces.<\/p>\n
The most valuable, and most likely to turn up at a pawn shop or flea market, are several baskets made by a Northern California Native tribe, a collection of metal and stone jewelry pieces from a California artist and a number of scrimshaw artifacts, according to Fogarty.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe share a sense of responsibility for the public, but also for the Indigenous people of California for stewarding those collections,\u201d Fogarty told KQED.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cOur mission is to tell the broad story of California in all of its diversity, especially highlighting the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251827,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[76,354,355,49,48,356,75],"class_list":{"0":"post-251826","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-canada","13":"tag-design","14":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}