The mayor of Oakland, California, a crime-ridden city, dodged interview questions about how the city missed a grant application deadline to help deal with rising thefts in a context of skyrocketing crime.
Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao danced around the topic during an interview with NBC Bay Area about how the city managed to miss the opportunity to secure $267 million in funding, leaving city residents furious.
It comes as horrific new video shows the latest brazen attack on the city’s streets – where a screaming woman was violently attacked by two masked robbers who pulled her to the ground and dragged her by her handbag .
Throughout Thao’s interview about the car crash Thursday, the mayor avoided taking responsibility for missing the deadline for the money and referred all responses to the city administrator. city, Jestin Johnson – whom Thao herself appointed in May.
“The city administrator manages the whole city, all the departments and so he would be the key person to contact for information on this topic.”
In a recent interview, Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao criticized the city administrator for missing the deadline for a crime-fighting grant.
Disturbing surveillance video shows the moment a woman was attacked and dragged through the street in Oakland, California.
When asked if this was emblematic of how his city is run, Thao again dodged the question, saying, “That’s a question for the city administrator.”
Johnson’s office said in a statement that it was “reviewing everything that happened to ensure this does not happen again” and “clearly, this outcome is unacceptable.”
Thao was criticized on social media for her lack of accountability, with one user saying: “I keep watching this clip in disbelief.
“The cowardice of a leader who threw your direct report (whom you named) under the bus is astonishing. It’s like a CEO saying, “Sorry, the CEO ruined our product launch, ask him what happened…” How did they think that was the right response strategy? Oh yeah, incompetence at its finest.
Another said: “You can surely hold people accountable, but never throw your team members under the bus. This creates a toxic culture focused on simple survival. This is not what Oakland needs right now. The mayor is the mayor. The responsibility literally lies with her.
California has been plagued by increasing crime since the COVID pandemic. Armed robberies, armed robberies, and motor vehicle thefts have caused many local small businesses to close.
In the latest daylight attack captured on a resident’s security camera, the two thieves jumped from a car parked on the side of the street to attack his victim from behind.
The two men attempted to grab the bags she was holding in each hand after she left a nearby grocery store.
The woman began screaming as she struggled with the attackers before being knocked to the ground. Eventually, a man across the street ran to intervene, but the suspects left with the woman’s belongings.
“Apparently they had grabbed two bags from her and she was holding her purse, so they dragged her down the sidewalk about 10 to 12 feet and out into the street,” a witness said. NBC Bay Area.
“I couldn’t believe the violence of what they were doing to this woman, just for her purse, and the brutality of it just shocked me.”
Oakland police said in a statement that an investigation into the incident – reported by NBC on September 18 – was still ongoing.
This brutal attack is not the first of its kind. Just a month before a similar video was released from Oakland showing a woman pistol-whipped and dragged across gravel during a robbery.
In August, a woman was pistol-whipped and dragged by two attackers in Oakland during an armed robbery in an attack eerily similar to that
Crime reports from the Oakland Police Department show that aggravated assaults, robberies, burglaries and motor vehicle thefts are all up this year.
Oakland police have warned residents to take increased measures to protect themselves and their homes during this crime wave.
Aggravated assaults are up 12 percent this year to date, robberies up 31 percent, burglaries up 40 percent and motor vehicle thefts up 51 percent.
An Oakland restaurant owner blamed car burglaries and crime in the area as the reason he was forced to close his 38-year-old restaurant.
Gov. Gavin Newsom announced plans to distribute more than $267 million in grants across the state to help fight organized retail crime, the largest investment of its kind ever.
“Thanks to an unprecedented investment of $267 million, Californians will soon see more arrests, more police, more arrests and more criminal prosecutions,” Newsom said.
After the city missed the July application deadline, the California Board of State and Community Corrections’ legal review determined that “the City of Oakland did not meet the necessary requirements for a successful application submission and would therefore not be eligible for funding.”
NAACP members met with community leaders at Acts Full Gospel Church in Oakland to discuss why the city missed the grant deadline, reports ABC 7 News. Some suggest the city may have intentionally missed the deadline.