press conference Wednesday<\/a>,\u00a0Interim Chief James Beere shared new numbers showing that overall crime is down 29% compared to the same time last year, with violent crime down 22% and homicides falling 39%, hitting the lowest level in decades.<\/p>\nBut while officials cheer that progress, they also acknowledge the numbers don\u2019t always match how people feel.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven with one act of violence, that is one act too many,\u201d Lee said. \u201cThese numbers, however, mean that fewer lives are lost, fewer families grieving and safer neighborhoods, but every number represents a person.\u201d<\/p>\n
Police said crime is dropping largely because of a coordinated strategy combining enforcement, prevention, technology, and community partnerships. They also said more guns are being taken off the streets, with 310 firearms recovered so far this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cEach firearm recovered means a possible act of violence prevent and our community is safer,\u201d Beere said.<\/p>\n
Still, not everything is coming down.<\/p>\n
Although overall crime has decreased, OPD is still seeing slight increases in residential robberies and incidents involving weapons other than firearms or knives.<\/p>\n
This includes a series of robberies on Wednesday morning, stretching from west to east Oakland. Police said a crew linked to dozens of prior crimes ran from officers, leading to a pursuit that ended after a suspect fired at police near 18th and Market.<\/p>\n
Officers did not return fire, no one was hurt, and the search for those suspects continues.<\/p>\n
OPD also said it’s now launching a 90-day crime reduction plan, increasing sideshow enforcement, adding patrols during holidays, and targeting violent offenders and illegal guns through a federal partnership with the FBI, ATF, and DEA in a 60-day operation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are really going to be targeting people that are engaging in violence that we know are buying and selling guns so it is not just the people out on the street carrying guns. We are also looking at the people bringing guns into our community,\u201d Beere said.<\/p>\n
And as police work to reduce crime, they\u2019re also investigating an increasingly high-profile missing person case.<\/p>\n
One week after Oakland business owner Amy Hillyard was reported missing, there are still few answers.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur Special Victims Unit and our Missing Persons unit is coordinating with the family and is trying to do as much follow-up as we can,\u201d \u00a0OPD Deputy Chief Omar Daza-Quiroz said.<\/p>\n
The city said it’s also focusing on prevention, expanding youth job programs and reviving a cadet program to create pathways into public safety careers, in hopes of continuing to see a sustained drop in crime.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe back the strategy with real investments, even in a tough budget year, because public safety is our priority. Just as importantly, we are investing in prevention,\u201d Lee said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oakland city leaders said crime has continued to trend down in the first three months of the year.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":247703,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144],"class_list":["post-247780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247780","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=247780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}