Patterico's Pontifications

3/31/2009

Moral Disorder in Oakland

Filed under: Buffoons,Crime — Jack Dunphy @ 10:23 am



[Guest post by Jack Dunphy]

My column on the recent horrors in Oakland is up on NRO today. I was particularly appalled by Oakland mayor Ron Dellums’s inability to condemn the behavior of those in Oakland who expressed support for Lovelle Mixon, the man who killed four Oakland police officers on March 21. below is a selection from the column, but I invite you to read the whole thing and leave your comments here.

Last week, Oakland mayor Ron Dellums met with reporters and discussed the shootings. One reporter expressed his surprise at finding so many people who seemed indifferent or even jubilant at the death of four police officers. “People in the neighborhood,” said the reporter to Dellums, “said they were not sympathetic — they expressed no sympathy for the officers when we went down there. What does that tell you?”

Incredibly, Dellums couldn’t muster the courage to denounce such people. “I don’t want to comment about that,” said the mayor. “This is a moment of tremendous grief and tragedy. This is not a time to politicize death.” Only in Oakland and a handful of other cities would it be considered “political” to condemn such execrable behavior. With leadership like that, is it any wonder that Oakland finds itself in its present condition?

I suspect that if the racial equation in this incident were inverted, Mayor Dellums would have had quite a bit to say.

–Jack Dunphy

62 Responses to “Moral Disorder in Oakland”

  1. Why would anyone want to be a police officer in Oakland? Isn’t that one of the hardest places in the country to do that job? Lots of other cities and states are hiring.

    It’s really tempting to think about how these people who supported Mixon would like living in a city with no police force.

    JayC (ea6c07)

  2. I suspect that if the racial equation in this incident were inverted, Mayor Dellums would have had quite a bit to say.

    –Jack Dunphy

    It is. See the Oscar Grant situation.

    Chris (a24890)

  3. I found it interesting to see the video of the high-ranking authority figures included a high-ranking member of the police force, and that high-ranking member of the police force was obviously a race-traitor because he was a black man who stood on the side of the law against this rapist cop-killer parole-violator hero of the black community and the extreme left.

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  4. I grew up in a nearby small town and watched Oakland disintegrate into a hell unlike anything I’ve seen in my travels. Ron “Red” Dellums is but one of the scummy actors who can be blamed for what has happened to a once lovely city.

    Old Coot (a71844)

  5. (Sadly, but predictably, there wasn’t a father anywhere to be seen.)

    The elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about, especially not Mayor Dellums.

    I’m the mother of two young men and on one level, I can see where such a cemented denial and refusal to believe the truth of an offspring’s hideous behavior would be almost be necessary to survive but peel back the layer and it boils down to something else: Denial and refusal to believe the ugly truth is ultimately necessary to assauage one’s own parental guilt (lack of role modeling, and lax training up of their child.) Fathers are irreplaceable and in certain environments, even more so. When boys become adolescents kicking at the goads, it seems no other can influence them more positively than a father who is present and who loves them enough to rein them in, kick their ass, and continually reaffirm their endless love.

    Dana (137151)

  6. And now Don Perata, a lifelong liberal Sacramento politician (who equipped his taxpayer-paid vehicle with 22″ bling wheels) wants to run for mayor. Yeah, he’s just the man for the job.

    Old Coot (a71844)

  7. Artistic Dana, I like your response @11:01 am, but I would’ve preferred to see a man devoted to his wife as I was going thru adolescence than the man I saw every day. Even with the crud I went thru, if he was devoted to his wife and desirous of her best interests, I believe us four siblings would’ve been much better off than we are now.

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  8. Raaaaaaascists, the lot of ya!!!!NOT!!!! Mixon had every right to kill those four officers, they were the ones who pulled him over for a freakin traffic stop!!!!!!NOT!!!!!!! You are all a bunch of flaming Rascists!!!!!NOT!!!!!!!

    Un freakin believable. I heard a guy this morning on Chicago radio saying that those four honorable Officers “had it comin” WTF? What kind of insane world do we frickin live in???? Oakland is a Hell-Hole on earth. God bless those four brave officers and may God Bless their families through this horrible tragety.

    Why anyone would want to be a cop in Oakland is beyond my comprehension. Those people cheering for Mixon are disgustingly sick, depraved and moral-less pieces of garbage. WTF?

    J. Raymond Wright (d83ab3)

  9. Dana, that was a good comment.

    Personally, I think our society is just plain broken. I don’t really like that cops are steadily being converted into tax collectors by governments that spend more than they could get away with otherwise. People develop a hostile relationship to cops.

    And for decades, there’s been a movement that simply hates nice men serving their country. Bill Ayers killed cops, and criticizing him was a actually considered a gaffe in the recent election.

    I hope Oakland cops don’t abandon their town, but I sure as hell would understand if they all moved to Texas.

    Juan (4cdfb7)

  10. Some of the families of the assassinated officers told the mayor not to speak at the public service held at Oracle Center last week. Other public officials did such as Sen Boxer and Feinstien.
    Beyond disgust with the mayor, the local Oakland Tribune earns disgust too with an early puff piece devoted to explaining how Mixon was trying to turn his life around after parole but found it hard. He wanted to learn a trade, etc. Nowhere does the reporter ask why Mixon had gotten guns? A crime as well as a parole violation for a felon such as himself. Why was Mixon immediately committing crimes such as rape so soon after turning his life around?

    The city of Oakland is a mess because of the powers that be want it so.

    richardb (f7470d)

  11. Owww. I rolled my eyes so hard, I think I broke them, Darnell.

    Aron (bb7957)

  12. It’s “Officer Krupke” straight out of West Side Story!

    They’ve got a “social disease” that they caught from “society”; they’re “depraved because they’re deprived”.
    When Stephen Sondheim wrote these words, we thought they were mildly amusing
    (Hell, we thought they were funny as all out) –
    but never in our wildest dreams did we think that they would be prophetic.

    AD - RtR/OS (7f6512)

  13. Aron – Ditto.

    I guess Darnell thinks that supporting a murderer is a good use of ones time.

    JD (6f1fb5)

  14. AD & JD: the problem is you just don’t understand the nuance of Darnell’s enlightened post.

    redc1c4 (9c4f4a)

  15. my best memory of Ron Dellums was when he took over the House armed forces committee in 92 and demanded a peace dividend out of all the unnecessary spending in the DOD budget=, so BRAC gave him one:

    every single facility in that area was closed, putting many of his constituents out of w*rk. when he complained, they laughed at him and said you wanted bases closed, so we’re closing them.

    redc1c4 (9c4f4a)

  16. In the 1960’s when liberalism was proving itself unable to differentiate reality from illusion, someone said, “The death of a policeman is of no concern to a liberal.” That has not changed as the Dellum’s comment attests. Then it was white police who were the enemy. With the advent of broader hiring and the employment of what liberals call “people of color,” the attitude of radicals, many of them black, remains the same. As
    long as liberals continue to encourage blacks to consider themselves victims, nothing will change. The constant drumbeat that blames white America for all the ills of black America assures that many blacks won’t change their way of living or thinking.

    mhr (5adc60)

  17. Heh – a similar thing happened with the idiots on the city council of Bezerkely, who were shocked after the Army told them that they would close their facilities immediately upon their passage of a resolution condemning their actions in Iraq, and thereafter the government would deny them their annual largesse of Federal funds. Like the big – mouthed cowards they always are, they backtracked on the resolution as quickly as they finished their quiches that morning.

    Fathers are irreplaceable and in certain environments, even more so

    Dana, you may remember we spoke awhile ago (at Cathy’s World) about Daniel Moynihan’s ground – breaking study of the long – term effects of fatherless children in lower – class urban environments, done back in the early 60’s. It told the truth about the situation that was quickly developing into a catastrophe for the black community at large. It was widely ignored then, and the country as a whole suffered for that ignorance. How many more generations must we experience before this fundamental truth is finally acknowledged?

    Dmac (49b16c)

  18. Mixon was trying to turn his life around after parole but found it hard.

    He found it hard enough to rape a 12 year old. That’ll turn your life around, all right.

    It’s hard to believe that the Oakland Tribune was once owned by William Knowland, Senator from California and the model for WEB Griffin’s Senator in his Marine Corps novels. Oakland has a city government that rivals Detroit’s in pathology.

    Mike K (8df289)

  19. Racists !!!!!!!!!!!!!

    JD (6f1fb5)

  20. So if politicians and neighborhoods don’t react exactly as Jack Dunphy does, it is appalling?

    Consider that Dunphy calls the neighborhood “morally diseased” for not “molesting” marchers in support of the killer.

    Dunphy: “That they (the marchers) were able to do so unmolested by their fellow citizens is a measure of how morally diseased the neighborhood is.”

    Dunphy doesn’t just criticize the marchers, he condemns everyone in the neighborhood for not resorting to vigilante justice against marchers. Who among us would want a police officer working in our neighborhood that thought the citizens were “morally diseased”? If Dunphy testified against, arrested, or shot anyone in that neighborhood, is it hard to believe people in the area would come to believe he was just getting back at those “morally diseased” citizens he loathes so much?

    DC (9aba44)

  21. You’re twisting his meaning and taking his words way out of context, he didn’t advocate “vigilante justice,” for Christ’s sake. He’s clearly talking about the complete lack of any revulsion by the local population to the murders, and the reality that in some quarters there are actual celebrations of the act, replete without nary a peep of dissent.

    Dmac (49b16c)

  22. See the story linked on Drudge today on the officer and police dog besieged in Modesto by a similar neighborhood.

    Aron (bb7957)

  23. Not surprising. Would Obama condemn these people if he was given the same question by a reporter? How about governator?

    I doubt that many Democrat politicians condemned OJ Simpson back during that whole thing. They would have refused to comment if asked about it.

    j curtis (15da4d)

  24. Un freakin believable. I heard a guy this morning on Chicago radio saying that those four honorable Officers “had it comin” WTF?
    […]
    Comment by J. Raymond Wright — 3/31/2009 @ 11:32 am

    I only hope that whoever said that, thinks of his comment if he EVER finds himself on his knees with some thug with a cocked .45 behind him about to blow his brains out over a drug deal gone bad.

    Come to think of it, the creepoid that made that comment is very likely to experience just what I typed.

    GM Roper (85dcd7)

  25. “Dunphy doesn’t just criticize the marchers, he condemns everyone in the neighborhood for not resorting to “vigilante justice against (the)marchers.”

    I don’t think that is what Dunphy said. I think that he “condemned” the ‘hood for allowing the marchers to proceed without either responsible comment or verbal confrontation. That kind of “molestation.”

    This is most unlike the type of molestation that you disingenuously assert or the kind that Mixon alledgedly perpetrated against a 12 yo girl.

    Now I understand that in certain Oakland (neighbor)hoods, not being down with being down on “the man” can make one vulnerable to some real vigilante “justice.” Differences of opinion are not really appreciated there.

    belloscm (cf0c5e)

  26. I think that DC is outright rejecting the proposition that a neighborhood can be morally diseased. Is that what you meant, DC, that it is impossible for a neighborhood, any neighborhood, to be morally diseased?

    gp (484de8)

  27. Evidently putting words in others’ mouths is easier for DC than writing his own argument.

    SPQR (72771e)

  28. We can add DC to the list of people unable to read for comprehension.

    JD (6f1fb5)

  29. Comment by Dmac — 3/31/2009 @ 2:08 pm

    I do remember our conversation, Dmac, your bringing to our attention Moynihan’s study of the long – term effects of fatherless children in lower-class urban environments (and predictable chaos). When you state and ask,

    It was widely ignored then, and the country as a whole suffered for that ignorance. How many more generations must we experience before this fundamental truth is finally acknowledged?

    I would suggest that it will remain unacknowledged and ignored for as long as the only real solution requires every individual assuming responsibility: As long as women indiscriminately and willingly open their legs to men who are irresponsible, weak, and self-serving, this problem will prevail. It will also remain a serious problem as long as communities provide shelter and sympathy for said behavior. A moral problem will never be fixed by the government – no matter how much money is provided, no matter how many programs are established.

    I would add that it is not only in the urban enviros where this occurs. Hollywood’s young and wealthy are producing children regularly outside of marriage and/or where the sperm donor is just that. The same disasters await albeit they take on a different form because money and status provide a different sort of escape from anger and hurt.

    Every kid from every economic rung of the ladder needs a consistent male presence in their lives – ideally, their dad. When did men decide they were not up to the challenge of raising their offspring? And why did the nobility of that labor become so irrelevant to so many?

    Dana (137151)

  30. Isn’t it obvious to everyone that electing free spenders or officials of one’s own race has absolutely no bearing on the vibrancy of a city?!

    Yes, our society is broken. Self-reliance and masculinity and parenting itself have been defined down to a point fatal to families and their well being.

    Patricia (2183bb)

  31. http://www.mercurynews.com/topstories/ci_11972437

    One woman, hosing down her driveway two doors down from the apartment where Mixon was killed, said some of those lives could have been saved.

    She said neighbors knew immediately where Mixon had run, but they didn’t tell police — who combed the neighborhood — until nearly an hour later. But in East Oakland, lamented the woman, Elaine, who didn’t give her last name, that cooperation doesn’t easily happen.

    “It makes you feel bad,” she said, wiping her eyes steps from blood spatters that clung stubbornly to a broken sidewalk on 74th Avenue. “But you just don’t want to be a snitch. The word, ’snitch,’ it’s almost worse than murderer.”

    (Via CommonsensePoliticalThought)

    Dana (137151)

  32. I thought O’Bama was supposed to heal all the racial strife…

    thebronze (4dc18f)

  33. Sorry for the delay, I have a real job. Dunphy called the neighborhood morally diseased, I didn’t. Individuals have diseases, not neighborhoods. He is lumping together all citizens of the neighborhood and judging them defective. How does he know what the reaction of each citizen was based on a reporter’s question? Now he believes reporters without question?! How convenient! Call the LA Times.
    If objection to the protest being “unmolested” doesn’t mean he thought they should have been molested, attacked or abused, then Dunphy should explain. Also, how does he know no one objected? Dunphy certainly didn’t attend the march. Dunphy’s clear comment was not out of context, but represents a contempt for that neighborhood. We should judge individuals, not neighborhoods. I would hate to be policed by officers who viewed my neighborhood with such contempt.

    DC (24d5e6)

  34. #21 is an idiot.

    Jimminy'cricket (637168)

  35. DC,

    I grew up in the ‘hood and, yes, calling it “morally diseased” is A-OK in my book!

    I now live in the ‘Burbs and have no problem calling it hedonistic and narcissistic.

    Jimminy'cricket (637168)

  36. I have contempt for DC, Oakland, Detroit, Newark, Baltimore ……

    All it takes is a walk in the afternoon to snap a Liberal out of his delusional state.

    Jimminy'cricket (637168)

  37. And for JD who says my quote from him is out of context, here is the entire paragraph…

    “Last week, Uhuru members organized a march through the East Oakland neighborhood where the shootings occurred, and the 50 or so participants gathered in front of the apartment where the bloodshed ended to extol the bravery and manifold other virtues of their “brother Lovelle.” That they were able to do so unmolested by their fellow citizens is a measure of how morally diseased the neighborhood is.”

    I also note it took JD exactly 1 post to bypass a defense of his statement, and resort to an insult.

    Oh, and Jiminy cricket adds “#21 is an idiot.” JD and Jiminy have marvelous debating skills. Wow, I am overwhelmed by brilliant minds.

    DC (24d5e6)

  38. DC – Please show me where I wrote that. Since I did not, nor did I post it, nor did I think that, I have to assume you are either being dishonest, or brain-jarringly stupid.

    All I did is not that reading for comprehension is not your strong suit. Everything you have typed since that point in time has proven the original assessment to be quite accurate.

    JD (6f1fb5)

  39. DC,

    It does not take a brilliant mind to know you are an idiot.

    Your post in #21 is a complete mis-representation of what the writer was communicating.

    To me, that is either being an idiot or a propagandist.

    I assumed idiot which may make me one for assuming …….

    Jimminy'cricket (637168)

  40. Sorry for the delay, I have a real job.

    As do we all, numbnuts.

    Let’s put this one on Mixon himself, shall we. He’s a monster of a human being: a total contrast with his peaceful, law-abiding neighbors

    And how does Dmac know there is “a complete lack of revulsion by the local population”?

    She said neighbors knew immediately where Mixon had run, but they didn’t tell police — who combed the neighborhood — until nearly an hour later. But in East Oakland, lamented the woman, Elaine, who didn’t give her last name, that cooperation doesn’t easily happen

    Yes, no doubt your argument about how “peaceful” and awesomely wonderful his neighbors are really makes quite an impact.

    Dmac (49b16c)

  41. “Wow, I am overwhelmed by brilliant minds.”

    DC – Please correct the above statement. You are clearly overwhelmed by ANY mind.

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  42. Allright, two questions:

    1) What kind of police force generates such animosity from the community it’s supposed to serve and protect; and
    2) What kind of police force gets four of its officers killed over a traffic stop?

    Maybe that morally diseased community might not be so diseased if it had a competent doctor.

    nk (fab561)

  43. Oakland is like California’s version of Chicago.

    Michael Ejercito (7c44bf)

  44. Oakland is not Chicago. Oakland is Detroit. LA is Chicago.

    Buy hey now….

    Jimminy'cricket (637168)

  45. I don’t know about Detroit, but Chicago is nothing like LA or Oakland.

    nk (fab561)

  46. OuA – Don’t go dissin’ on Chicago.

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  47. And, BTW, an SKS is not a military style assault rifle. It’s a semi-automatic rifle, 1950’s military surplus from the Soviet bloc, firing an “intermediate” (you could say “weak”) cartridge, with a fixed magazine with a capacity of ten rounds.

    nk (fab561)

  48. Biggest difference between any CA urban area and Chicago is out here we call them community disorganizers.

    allan (c29ad8)

  49. “I suspect that if the racial equation in this incident were inverted, Mayor Dellums would have had quite a bit to say.”

    –Jack Dunphy

    I admire the courage you have to say that in this day and age. We can hope for change in the future when police officers are judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin.

    tyree (8b5458)

  50. I don’t know about Detroit, but Chicago is nothing like LA or Oakland.

    They are similar in that a high percentage of the people in such urban areas are of leftist, supposedly pro-compassionate, supposedly pro-humanity, pro-humane orientation.

    Compassionate and humane my ass.

    The idiotic moral equivalency of all the people who either sympathize with the killer more than the police, or struggle not to transpose the worth and value of the two, or, worse of all, flat-out favor the dead killer to the dead cops is even more sickening in this modern era, well past the age of Jim Crow, of blatant discrimination and bigotry, of a non-white being elected president of the United States still seen as an implausible, future-world reality.

    They say that a conservative is a liberal who’s been mugged. But when it comes to ultra-liberals, meaning a good number of the fools of Oakland, the pro-enabler syndrome is the type of behavior on full display. So if there’s any community out there where the phrase “you reap what you sow” is quite applicable, it’s the crime-ridden city of Oakland.

    Mark (411533)

  51. Comment by nk — 3/31/2009 @ 7:47 pm

    Have not seen any ID info on the weapons used in this incident; do you have a link on that SKS ID?

    AD - RtR/OS (7f6512)

  52. and Dellums was asked to not speak at the memorial for the OPD officers. For the entire 3 hour ceremony he sat on stage pouting like a schoolboy who didn’t get a part in the school play. Dellums is pathetic but the voters of Oakland got exactly the leader they voted for.

    jeff (e45581)

  53. For all you non-CA folks, for what it’s worth, here’s a qwiki wiki Clif’s notes on Dellums:

    Ronald Vernie “Ron” Dellums (born Oakland, CA November 24, 1935) is the mayor of Oakland, California. From 1971-1998, he was elected to thirteen terms as a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Northern California’s Progressive 9th Congressional District.
    Dellums was born into a family of labor organizers, and enlisted in the United States Marine Corps before serving on the Berkeley, California City Council. Dellums was the first African American elected to Congress from Northern California and the first openly Socialist Congressman since World War II.[2] His politics earned him a place on President Nixon’s enemies list. During his career in Congress, he fought the failed MX Missile project and opposed expansion of the US$2.1 billion per plane B-2 Spirit Stealth bomber program. When President Ronald Reagan vetoed Dellums’ Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986, a Democratic-controlled House and a Republican-controlled Senate overrode Reagan’s veto, the first override of a presidential foreign policy veto in the 20th century.[3] He is currently serving as Oakland’s third African-American mayor.

    allan (c29ad8)

  54. Have not seen any ID info on the weapons used in this incident; do you have a link on that SKS ID?

    Comment by AD – RtR/OS — 3/31/2009 @ 9:58 pm

    That’s how Jack Dunphy identifies it at his NRO post that he links here.

    nk (b0c40d)

  55. an SKS is not a “military style assault rifle.”

    Hey, law enforcement officers are not responsible if they don’t know the difference between an assault rifle, an assault weapon, and a semi-auto rifle, even though you’ll get arrested if you don’t.

    Socratease (c22e68)

  56. Comment by nk — 4/1/2009 @ 4:09 am

    Au Contraire, Mon Aimee!
    Jack simply says that “…Mixon…armed himself with a military-style assault rifle…” but nowhere in the NRO post is the term “SKS” used (I printed it out and it is in front of me as I type this).

    So, please, who has ID’ed the long-arm as an SKS (which I agree is not either an assault-rifle, or an assault-weapon, under current law, unless it has been modified with a detachable magazine, or a magazine that exceeds 10-round capacity, or is of the “Yugo” configuration, which is illegal in CA)?

    AD - RtR/OS (5021d1)

  57. I couldn’t find confirmation on the type of rifle, though several articles described it as alternatively an SKS or an AK-47. One article from the Mercury on 3/25 says the police have not released details on the weapon, or how Mixon acquired it in California’s strict gun sales environment — presumably he didn’t go through the required waiting period and background check. But unless Mixon had a machine gun, which none of the articles alleged, it was not an “assault rifle”.

    I also found several editorials calling for the re-enactment of the federal “assault weapon” ban based on this incident, though not a single editorial questioning how the California parole board found a killer like Mixon qualified for release from prison.

    Socratease (c22e68)

  58. …and, since he is a convicted felon, he is ineligible under both State and Federal law to purchase any firearm, or ammunition for same, or to possess (or even hold) same – and he could be in violation of his parole just to be in the same room as someone possessing firearms.

    AD - RtR/OS (5021d1)

  59. Oops, sorry. Closest I have seen is this San Jose Mercury editorial.

    nk (b0c40d)

  60. Two words: Jerry Brown

    mojo (8096f2)

  61. I have removed all comments by Darnell, aka Hax Vobiscum, aka Bernie, aka some other names.

    Patterico (cc3b34)

  62. Thanks for the info, nk.
    I found this very interesting in that Ed:
    “…(the SKS) is not classified as an assault weapon. No, the ban would not have prevented this massacre and will not absolutely prevent others like it in the future…”

    So, even though the AW ban did not apply to this weapon, and the gunman could not legally purchase any weapon, AW’s should be banned because…well, we just think they’re icky.

    I love Progressive Intellectual Thought; or, I might if any presented itself for examination.

    AD - RtR/OS (5021d1)


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