Why Did Dellums Leave Congress?

Oakland mayor Ron Dellums told a breakfast meeting that violence on the streets of America is "a national health crisis," yet ignored by the federal government. (Oakland Tribune, Feb. 7, 2008)

The mayor insisted that public safety is "not singularly a police issue."

Probably most Oakland residents agree that our country has deep social and economic problems, with detrimental consequences for the public in many aspects of daily life.

Still, Dellums' remarks raise two questions. First, what about Oakland, ranked as the fourth most dangerous city in the country? Oakland residents would be happy to enjoy the relative safety of an average U.S. city – but we do not. One basic reason is that Oakland is de-policed. We have half a police department. Most major cities have 35 to 45 officers for every 10,000 residents. Oakland has only 18 officers per 10,000 residents.

Fried rhetoric at breakfast event

Instead of addressing the number one problem in Oakland, Dellums promoted a Green Jobs Corps at his breakfast event. The program is funded with a $250,000 grant to recruit and train inner city youth, low-income people and the formerly incarcerated for jobs in green businesses, such as solar installation and recycling.

How much of a dent will $250,000 make? Even ten times that? The first job of a city is to staff its police force. Municipal tinkering with social engineering, agreed by all to be a national job, is at best incremental, at worst a political excuse for refusing to do job one.

Dellums' statements raise a second question: if the issue is national, why did he leave Congress and accept the post of mayor of Oakland? Dellums was in Congress for 28 years, accumulating enormous seniority. If violence on the streets is a national epidemic, perhaps he could remind us what he accomplished to address the problem.

Now Dellums is mayor of a de-policed city. The police department is part of municipal government. Suddenly, though, he turns around to face Washington, alternately begging and demanding help.

Whatever happens at the federal level, Oakland needs at least 1,100 officers for this city of 400,000 residents. We need to get the upper hand over the culture of disrespect that dominates the streets. If Dellums wants to regard it as a stopgap measure while working for national transformation, fine.