Oakland in the news for ... you guessed it

Why is it that whenever Oakland makes the national (or even regional) news, it's because of violence? I heard the latest story to reinforce the stereotype that Oakland is a crime-plagued and dangerous city this morning on NPR while I was getting ready for work. When I heard the teaser, I was interested, if a bit wary because of the way the media usually treat Oakland. Unfortunately, what I heard was a perfunctory story about the rising murder rate (which is out of hand this year) and how we don't have enough cops. Although they took the trouble to interview a West Oakland resident who pointed out that more cops won't solve all of Oakland's problems, there wasn't much other content to the story. They did manage to get "tough on crime" quotes from our mayor (who's running for state attorney general) and our city council president (who's running for mayor), though.

I should know by now that any story about Oakland is going to be another "black people killing each other" story, but I still haven't lost my capacity to be let down. I don't know how much of what goes on here is news-worthy, I just wish that the homicide rate weren't the only thing that the major media seem to think is. It's just too bad that this kind of coverage doesn't scare off all the people who are pricing us out of our neighborhood.

Speaking of our mayor, check out this item from yesterday's Chronicle. It's a completely unsubstantiated but funny story about him assaulting a woman's cell phone outside of a club. Ah Jerry Brown, how we'll miss you.