I May be a Crime Victim, but Will Not be a Victim of Dark Cop Money

I know crime. I know my community. And I know this recall attempt against D.A. Price will not make us safer.

In 2013, I was talking with a friend on the phone about how I was feeling in the last week of my pregnancy when my partner and I were jumped, just a block away from our Oakland home. Soon after the assault, I delivered our first child with a cast on my right leg. Our conversations about crime, public safety, and what would make communities safe intensified.

At the time, Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley was failing our county with an approach that was out of step with residents, but in step with law enforcement. She campaigned against popular statewide public safety reforms that County voters supported while collecting tens of thousands of dollars in contributions from police unions.

Residents did not feel safe under O’Malley’s “punishment over community safety” leadership style and made this known by voting for change. But before newly elected District Attorney Pamela Price even stepped into office, cop money had already begun pouring in to recall her and return to the status quo. Thanks to an extremely well-funded effort bankrolled to half a million dollars by a dark money PAC and corporate executives – despite the needs of the community, the recall has qualified the ballot.

As an advocate, I’ve seen the data and statistics and have witnessed firsthand how decades of over-policing, mass incarceration, and disinvestments in majority Black and brown neighborhoods have caused economic hardships and exacerbated crime. This needs to change, particularly in Alameda where 332 people per 100,000 are incarcerated and African Americans are 20 times more likely than white people to be imprisoned here. Mass incarceration plagues our county. If that wasn’t enough for residents to demand change, the county’s sheriff’s department is the second most violent in California when it comes to police shootings, excessive use of force, and civilian complaints.

These failures were made while O’Malley was district attorney, who failed to charge police officers responsible for fatal shootings. Residents may not have felt safe, but law enforcement sure did. In 2022, Alameda residents voted for Pamela Price for District Attorney – because we wanted a leader from the community who could advocate for ALL county residents and begin the hard work to reform a broken status quo.

The organization that has successfully put the D.A. recall on our November ballot does not want to see safe communities, they want to return the power and protections to special interests and have taken a page from the recall playbook that has been fine-tuned and abused by others thanks to the dozens of recalls that California has faced in the past few years. From paying signature collectors $6 for each person who signed the recall petition to bombarding voters with misleading ads, the group has been spending big to deflect blame from police and corporations leaving the city and push disinformation about Price, her policies, and what she has accomplished in her few months in office.

Even with the threat of recall, D.A. Price has held violent cops accountable, is reopening closed complaints against law enforcement, and is refusing to allow police to escape consequences for harm they’ve done against the public. It is no wonder why some of her most outspoken critics are the Oakland Police and police associations.

More and more, wealthy political groups have been abusing California’s recall system to push their political agenda and stop any real progress from being made in our communities – while police associations and the wealthy stakeholders are working to recall Price have brought back the dangerous “tough on crime” rhetoric. We’ve been there – and we’re not going back.

I call on my community members to reject these deceptive political ploys and this nonsense recall in November, protect our 2022 election win, and demand that leaders focus resources on the efforts and reforms that will make for safer communities – for all.