{"id":183737,"date":"2026-02-19T00:45:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T00:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/183737\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T00:45:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T00:45:09","slug":"who-stole-barbara-lees-car","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/183737\/","title":{"rendered":"Who stole Barbara Lee\u2019s car?\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

An unidentified thief stole an SUV used by Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee after breaking into her office at City Hall, according to a story first reported by the California Post<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

OPD told The Oaklandside that the department is investigating the theft of a city-owned vehicle from City Hall on Monday, Feb. 17. The vehicle was recovered within hours in Vallejo.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one in Oakland should have to worry about their car being stolen, whether they\u2019re a resident, a city worker, or the mayor. Public safety is a priority across our entire city,\u201d Lee said in a statement to The Oaklandside.<\/p>\n

\u201cOPD is following up on potential leads,\u201d a police spokesperson said. \u201cAs this is an ongoing investigation, no further information is available at this time.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear how someone gained access to Lee\u2019s office. Oakland pays for private security personnel to guard City Hall. <\/p>\n

Last fall, a 45-year-old El Cerrito man was charged<\/a> with making threats and racist comments against Lee over email.<\/p>\n

Vehicles used by past Oakland mayors have been a source of controversy. In 2024, city officials acknowledged failing to pay<\/a> a local auto dealership for a Ford Expedition that was used by former Mayor Sheng Thao.\u00a0In 2010, Oakland police booted then-Mayor-elect Jean Quan\u2019s car outside of City Hall because of unpaid parking tickets.<\/p>\n

Oakland employs a network of automated license plate readers that can track stolen vehicles. An audit of the system shows several recent searches by OPD for vehicle-related criminal offenses. There have been 842 reported motor vehicle thefts so far in 2026, according to the most recent data published<\/a> by OPD. This is slightly higher than the same time last year, but 28% down compared to the average of the past three years.<\/p>\n

“*” indicates required fields<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An unidentified thief stole an SUV used by Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee after breaking into her office at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183738,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[2351,723,143,145,144],"class_list":{"0":"post-183737","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oakland","8":"tag-barbara-lee","9":"tag-crime","10":"tag-oakland","11":"tag-oakland-headlines","12":"tag-oakland-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}