Crimewave sees murder rate hit nine-year high in Oakland after city backtracked on defunding the police and hired more cops
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- Oakland, California recorded 131 murders on Monday surpassing the annual murder rates of the last nine years
- A 40-year-old man was found dead with major trauma early Monday morning marking the 131st murder; no other details have been released
- The Oakland City Council voted to hire 60 new police officers last week
- The city had previously defunded the police and begun diverting police from some 911 calls to reduce tensions between law enforcement and minority groups
- With several weeks left in the year, a dozen other major cities have also already broken their annual homicide records
The city of Oakland, California recorded its 131st murder of 2021 on Monday surpassing the annual homicide rates from the last nine years.
A 40-year-old man was found dead with major trauma early Monday morning marking the 131st murder.
Investigators discovered the man at the 500 block on 45th Street near Telegraph Avenue around 12:45 am. The Oakland resident was pronounced dead at the scene but has not been publicly identified.
No further information has been released as officers await the results of an autopsy.
The unidentified man's death brings the city to a grave milestone. With 18 days remaining in the year, Oakland recorded the highest number of murders in nearly a decade.
This comes a week after the Oakland City Council reversed its support of defunding the police and voted to hire more police officers.
Last year Oakland police investigated 109 homicides and nine years ago the city recorded 131 murders all year, which was the highest since 148 murders were investigated in 2006.
Oakland's Mayor Libby Schaaf has not responded to DailyMail.com for a comment.
Earlier this month, the Oakland City Council voted to hire more police officers in response to the spike in violent crime. Schaaf proposed a plan to add two new police academies and unfreeze positions within the department to add 60 new officers.
The mayor celebrated the vote in a statement, saying that Oakland residents 'spoke up for a comprehensive approach to public safety — one that includes prevention, intervention, and addressing crime's root causes, as well as an adequately staffed police department.'
The city's police force of sworn officers now stands at 676, dipping below a 2014 voter-approved measure that required the police department to have at least 678 sworn officers.
The city of more than 400,000 people started this year with 723 sworn officers.
Barry Donelan, president of the Oakland Police Officers' Association, said officers are 'leaving in droves' for other cities and urged council members to thank police rather than malign them.
Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O'Malley is tough on crime and has pushed prosecutors across the country to better address violence since she was appointed in 2009. However, she has opposed criminal justice reforms and was backed by police unions in 2018.
Oakland Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong said in a news conference last month: 'I'm asking council members to step up and start having a conversation about the loss of life in this city.'
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'Beyond the politics of whether you support the police, there is a clear problem in this city and that this city had to deal with overwhelming violence over the weekend and it's unacceptable.'
Oakland has joined other cities in diverting police from some 911 calls to reduce friction between law enforcement and minority groups. A pilot program to use trained civilians to address complaints such as public intoxication and panhandling is scheduled to be launched early next year.
The move to hire more officers comes as a reversal from the city's earlier move to cut police funding.
Oakland is among several politically liberal cities reversing commitments, made in the wake of George Floyd's murder in May 2020, to defund the police following a surge in violent crime.
It also isn't the only city to shatter their annual murder records this year. As of this beginning of December, 12 major US cities have hit all-time high murder records.
Philadelphia announced its 501st murder on November 26, the highest since 1990. The next day Indianapolis recorded 246 murders breaking the record from 2020. The city of Columbus hit 179 murders on November 26, the most since the year before. Behind that, Louisville reported its 175th murder on November 24, also surpassing the record it set in 2020.
Although they haven't broken records, many other cities across the country have recorded a disturbing number of murders this year as the US faces a wave of extreme violence.
The Big Apple has reported 443 murders as of December 5, Los Angeles recorded 352 murders as of November 27, and Chicago has been leading the country with 739 murders as of November 30.
The grim trend follows national calls to defund police departments, and in some cities, reforms to bail rules that critics claim let dangerous offenders loose pending trial.
Robert Boyce, a retired chief of detectives for the New York Police Department, blamed the nationwide murder surge on a sharp decline in arrests and pre-trial detention.
'Nobody's getting arrested anymore,' Boyce told ABC News. 'People are getting picked up for gun possession and they're just let out over and over again.'
Despite Philadelphia blowing past the prior record of 500 murders set in 1990, the city's progressive District Attorney Larry Krasner, a champion of bail and police reform, insists that there is no crime wave.
'We don't have a crisis of lawlessness, we don't have a crisis of crime, we don't have a crisis of violence,' Krasner said in a testy exchange with reporters on Monday, noting that violent crimes committed without guns are down.
'There is not a big spike in crime — that is not true. There is also not a big spike in violent crime, either,' Krasner insisted.
Krasner has said that the true crisis is 'gun violence' and argued that better education and healthcare services would reduce violent crime.
He also blamed the police for a low clearance rate, noting last month that just 27 percent of gun homicides and 15 percent of non-fatal shootings have resulted in arrests.
In Indianapolis, the capital city of Indiana, the murder tally shattered last year's record high in early November.
Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett, a Democrat, has blamed what he calls the 'public health crisis' of gun violence.
After the city passed its murder record, Hogsett in a statement to Indianapolis Star said that 'COVID-fueled disruptions to violence reduction have had lasting effects' in the city.
'We continue to encourage all residents to do their part to resolve disputes without guns, and to work with law enforcement to hold accountable those who choose violence,' Hogsett said.
In Ohio's capital city, Columbus Mayor Andrew J. Ginther proposed boosting funding to recruit new police officers after the city broke its homicide record for the second year running.
'We know, based on data and information, it's a very small number to folks that are committing the overwhelming majority of violent acts in our community,' Gitner, a Democrat, said last month, urging residents to share tips about crimes with police.
'We need to bring these folks to justice, get them off our streets to help make our neighborhoods safer,' he said.
In Louisville, Mayor Greg Fischer has said that the city's rising crime and shortage of police officers reflect nationwide issues and trends across the country.
'It's not an excuse. These are our problems here, but again we need to understand there is a bigger context to solving the problem,' Fisher, a Democrat, told the city council last month.
Austin's murder rate broke the longest-standing record of the dozen cities, recording more more homicides this year than the city has seen since 1984.
Austin Mayor Steve Adler, a Democrat, insisted last month that while homicides are increasing, the progressive Texas capital is still a safe city.
'Those numbers are going up and in cities across the country,' Adler told KTBC-TV last month. 'But even with those numbers going up, our [per capita] murder rate lost and is still one of the lowest among major cities.'
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