Video shows a woman being handgun whipped and dragged by two attackers in Oakland last week — as the city continues to grapple with rising crime rates in all major categories.
The shocking incident of violence took place on International Boulevard at 6:15 p.m. last Wednesday and left the unidentified woman with serious injuries, the investigating police in the city of East Bay said.
Footage shows the woman being hit by men who got out of a car before taking several items from her. In the ensuing fight, the woman holds out bravely – before she is hit by one of the robbers’ weapons.
She is then seen falling to the sidewalk, presumably in agony, before being violently dragged across the ground by her purse while both men search their bags. Both men remain at large and the woman’s condition is unknown as of Tuesday.
This is just a small sample of what’s happening in the city that, like its sister across the river, has been plagued by high crime for a number of years. As a result, business owners are now comparing the area to a “battlefield,” and police in the congested city are ordering residents to secure their homes.
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Video shows a woman being handgun whipped and dragged by two attackers in Oakland last week before 15 separate robberies and two auto thefts were recorded over the weekend. As of Tuesday, most are still under investigation
Weekend robbery: A map shows the multiple reported robberies over the weekend – leading to business owners comparing the notoriously urban area to a ‘battlefield’ and police officers telling residents to secure their homes
Unlike San Francisco, however, Oakland is plagued by an increase in violence — muggings, auto thefts and robberies are reaching record highs since the 1990s.
As frightened business owners liken the notoriously urban area to something out of a war movie, Oakland NAACP branch chiefs have urged officers to declare a state of emergency – as the number of auto robberies and auto robberies has nearly doubled since 2021.
Speaking to several local news outlets over the weekend, Bruce Vong, a Vietnamese national who runs an auto repair shop a few blocks from where the woman was abused, compared the area to his country during the notorious war. Ironically, the neighborhood is already called Little Saigon.
“Oakland has become a war zone,” Vong, who has owned and operated Quality Tech Automotive Shop on International for 35 years, told ABC’s local affiliate on Tuesday.
“It feels like a battlefield when you go to work,” he said, noting that for all his years of experience — dating back to the city’s notorious days of gang violence in the 1990s — crime is the last About two years ago it turned out to be unprecedented.
The previous weekend saw 15 separate robberies and two car thefts in the city – most of which are still under investigation.
Days earlier, another incident happened in Vuong’s neighborhood that was remarkably similar to the one in the August 16 footage – prompting him and 30 other weary shopkeepers and local residents to call a closed meeting on Friday to discuss conditions.
No media were invited to the event, but those in attendance reportedly included local council member Nikki Fortunato-Bas and a Captain from the Oakland Police Department, who injured two of their deputies in two attacks by inmates on Saturday.
The topics discussed, Vuong told NBC Bay Area, revolved around the fact that almost everyone present, including the shopkeeper himself, had been a recent victim of thieves or violence.
“I saw crimes I thought I wouldn’t see anymore when I left Vietnam,” he told the channel on Friday, hours after Mayor Sheng Thao, who this year relieved the city’s crime problems from his predecessor Libby Schaaf had again vowed to make soliciting illegal is her top priority.
The shocking incident of violence took place on International Boulevard at 6:15 p.m. last Wednesday and left the unidentified woman with serious injuries, the investigating police in the city of East Bay said
Footage shows the woman being hit by men who got out of a car before taking several items from her. In the ensuing fight, the woman holds out bravely – before she is hit by one of the robbers’ weapons
She is then seen falling to the sidewalk, presumably in agony, before being violently dragged across the ground by her purse while both men search their pockets. Both men remain at large and the woman’s condition is unknown as of Tuesday
The data shows the current crime epidemic in the city, with rates in almost every major category rising dramatically long before the pandemic
As business owners like Bruce Vuong – who owns an auto repair shop in the neighborhood where the woman was targeted – compare Oakland to something out of a war movie, citizens and other frustrated shopkeepers have urged officials to declare a state of emergency
Days earlier, another incident occurred in Vuong’s neighborhood (seen here) that was remarkably similar to that in the August 16 footage – prompting him and 30 other weary shopkeepers and local residents to call a closed meeting on Friday to to discuss the terms
The topics discussed, Vuong told NBC Bay Area, revolved around the fact that almost everyone present, including the shopkeeper himself, had been a recent victim of thieves or violence
“I saw crimes I thought I wouldn’t see anymore when I left Vietnam,” the Vietnamese national said on Friday, hours after Mayor Sheng Thao (pictured in an interview on the crime wave last week) who inherited the city’s crime problems When she took office earlier this year, she vowed again to make fighting illegal activity her top priority
“But now we’re getting the same thing here,” Vuong said, without mentioning whether there had been any progress at the conference.
But he insisted incidents like the incident seen in the footage – as well as another on Thursday midday in which a man in his SUV was followed and then robbed – were commonplace and happen “every day”.
Of the encounter the day before, in which the woman was dragged, Vuon remarked: “She didn’t deserve this -” [to be dragged] I mean like a dog or something.’
Speaking to ABC7, he added, “That’s life in Oakland now.”
Vuong, owner of 11 businesses across the city, went on to describe his own first-hand experience of the city’s current crime epidemic, which, despite being more than a year away from Covid-related lockdowns, appears to have marked a turning point this year has reached.
With homicides also up about 37 percent compared to 2019, reported robberies are up about 30 percent — and Vuong says each of his stores is robbed almost once a week.
Last week – amid that particularly pronounced robbery streak that prompted Shen to grapple with the crisis again within months – after allegedly being targeted for the umpteenth time, he was fed up and fought back.
“I was helping my staff pick up stranded Triple-A drivers and within seconds my tow truck was gone,” he said, recalling how one of the robbers in that case got into his tow truck before destroying cameras inside and took off.
However, inside the car was Vuong’s phone – which, unbeknownst to the robber, had software on it that allowed the shopkeeper to locate it and then give chase.
“We tracked him from West Oakland to East Oakland to Berkeley for at least 45 minutes and finally stopped him at Telegraph and 30th,” he recalled getting his tow truck back, adding that repairs were worth $20,000. dollars are needed.
Perhaps the most disturbing part of Vuong’s account, however, was the local police’s response to the incident – which he said was non-existent. Instead, the call had to be handled by state highway patrol officers.
“We have asked for help but there is no authority to help,” he said. “We tried calling OPD – no answer – so CHP showed up.”
“It’s just ridiculous that Oakland isn’t Oakland anymore,” he said of the city’s plight.
Last month, Oakland police urged residents to secure their homes as brazen burglaries increased while residents were in their homes
The Oakland Police Department (OPD) said some of the hardest-hit areas were Laurel, North Hills, Joaquin Miller and the greater San Antonio area. Pictured: One of the attacks last year
This is just a small sample of what’s happening in the city that, like its sister across the river, has been plagued by high crime for a number of years
North Oakland saw a 22 percent increase in robberies this year and an 18 percent increase in violent crime.
The number of murders rose abruptly from 78 in 2019 to 109 in 2020 – the same year clamored calls for a cut in police funding, spurred by the Black Lives Matter movement.
Last month, Oakland police officers urged residents to secure their homes — including by trimming hedges and shrubs so thieves have nowhere to hide — while brazen burglaries spiked while residents were in their homes.
Police warned of a “surge in burglaries,” including instances of gun-armed robbers kicking down doors before threatening homeowners and stealing their belongings.
The Oakland Police Department (OPD) said some of the hardest-hit areas were Laurel, North Hills, Joaquin Miller and the greater San Antonio area.
Last year, then-Oakland Mayor Schaaf admitted that efforts to defund her city’s police force had “gone too far” after violent crime rose to levels after the movement’s inception in the summer of 2020. which has not been observed for 15 years.
Her comments came after the City Council passed a resolution in 2021 to cut its police department’s funding by $17 million despite a 90 percent spike in homicides — a move criticized by Oakland Police Sheriff LeRonne Armstrong, who back then said, “Crime is over.” “Control” in the city.
“When we saw this increase during the pandemic – and, let’s be honest, also after George Floyd, just as this country saw its trust in the state’s judiciary being threatened – we were just heartbroken,” added Schaaf.
Still, a 2022 investigation by ABC 7 found that the Oakland Police Department’s budget increased nearly 18 percent from 2019 to 2022.
But the city’s crime crisis has only worsened.
Last week, a 49-year-old British sea warden was shot dead near a park in Oakland while returning to his ship after a night’s sleep.
Satyan Dave, from London, had arrived in the city hours earlier aboard a container ship that had sailed near Somalia.
Police in the violence-stricken city said he was shot at 5:15 a.m. near International Boulevard, one of East Oakland’s main thoroughfares.
Oakland police have been hit hard by the crime tide – after being sued over allegations they had used an abusive squatter (pictured here when arrested in April) to launch a campaign of terror against his neighbor that culminated in the victim being shot dead . Suspect Jamal Thomas pictured
Armstead had recently moved into the home at 76th Street and Ney with his pregnant second wife Melina and their three children when the harassment began. He was just about to get them out when he was shot by Thomas who was crouching in the house next door (seen here)
The wrongful death lawsuit alleges that Oakland police abandoned Oakland father Miles Armstead, who is survived by four children and his wife, and made dozens of phone calls to police over the course of six months
Meanwhile, the agency has been sued over allegations that it had an abusive squatter unleash a campaign of terror against his neighbor that culminated in the victim being shot while fleeing his home with his pregnant wife and three children.
The wrongful death lawsuit was filed in federal court on behalf of the family of murdered Miles Armstead, who was moving his family out of their Ney Avenue home in May 2020 when he was shot in the back of the head by now-incarcerated Jamal Thomas.
On the day of his murder, Amstead and his wife Melina had decided to cut their losses on the home they had bought hard, but Thomas ambushed and killed Amstead as they attempted to flee.
They had previously called the Oakland Police Department 23 times begging for help, but the officers there simply turned a blind eye. Officials also allegedly mocked Amstead’s plight, dismissing him and Thomas as “like two 12-year-old girls.”
The deadly aggression was the culmination of a months-long altercation between the two men, which allegedly began after Thomas, 46, illegally occupied the house next door after being evicted months earlier.
Oakland has also seen an increase in auto thefts in typical areas in recent months.
According to official figures, there have been 369 car thefts in the city so far this year. That’s 24 percent more than the same period two years ago, when there were 298.
This data set shows the number of chronic homeless people in the US. This includes people with a disability who have been without housing for a year or more. Oakland and San Francisco are among the worst homeless sinners
The US housing market is also experiencing an unprecedented drop in home prices – homes in the Bay Area are selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars less than they were a year ago.
Two cities in the affluent region — Oakland and its affluent counterpart across the river in San Francisco — are among the worst offenders when it comes to dollar amounts.
Researchers attribute the phenomenon to falling demand due to rising crime and homelessness rates, and the looming possibility of a recession.
Other notable declines have come in other major metropolitan areas such as Austin, Boise, Salt Lake City, Seattle and Los Angeles, where the average home price has fallen by at least $60,000 since April of last year.
Data shows that many of these declines have been fueled by a mass exodus of workers from major hubs as remote work emerges – while many others have been forced to seek safety due to the two-sided crises
Compounding the city’s other contemporaneous disasters, the homeless crisis is also plaguing downtown LA — where tent cities are teeming with people smoking drugs while others peddle stolen goods on street corners.
Places like Oakland and San Francisco in California have become hotbeds of homelessness as people living on the streets are like “drug tourists” who come here for easy access to narcotics.