Doubts on Oakland’s solved homicide rate
Councilwoman, families wary of figures showing dramatic improvements
Fewer people are getting away with murder in Oakland.
That’s according to data published by federal law enforcement, which show that the city’s Police Department in one year went from one of the country’s worst agencies at clearing homicide cases to above the national average.
In 2008, Oakland detectives solved 24 percent of homicides, according to the U.S. Justice Department. From 2011 to 2015, the city averaged a 40 percent clearance rate — still well below the U.S. big city average of 60 percent. But in an unprecedented improvement, Oakland’s clearance
rate surged to 71 percent in 2016, well above the national average.
“It’s the highest that I’ve seen,” Oakland police Capt. Roland Holmgren said. “It’s a great thing. It’s more than just numbers. It lets our communities know that we care. That we take these things extremely serious.”
As the city’s homicide total drops and the department’s clearance rate rises, police have credited the numbers to better detective work, input from the community, job programs and assistance from the the FBI’s Violent Gang Safe Streets Task Force, which started in 2014.
But not everyone is certain that the Police Department, which has been under federal oversight since 2003 and dealt with consistent turnover at the top, has gotten its act together in solving the city’s most violent crimes.
“I don’t know enough to trust those numbers,” City Councilwoman Lynette Gibson McElhaney said of the recent homicide clearance rate. “The numbers are suspicious to me. I do not have families bearing witness to this.”
McElhaney, who represents a West Oakland district, said at least six families have complained to her office about a lack of police attention to unsolved killings. The councilwoman has met with recently installed Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick twice about the complaints.
Off the top of her head, McElhaney can list the names of young men who were victims in unsolved homicides: Craig Cooks. Terrence McCrary. Sultan Bey. Deante Antonio Miller. Roderick Travon Godfrey.
“The deaths of these young men continue to really haunt us,” she said. “The families are struggling without closure.”
For Annette Miller and Teresa Jackson, the mothers of Miller and Godfrey, respectively, the lack of answers and arrests has only added to their grief.
The 19-year-old men were slain on Nov. 28, 2016, on the 700 block of 39th Street, as they sat in a car outside their home.
On the first anniversary of the deaths, Annette Miller had a mix of emotions, but one of the most prominent was anger. She said she hadn’t heard from detectives in months.
“Still ain’t nothing happened and we haven’t got any answers,” she said.
Community members have openly talked about a known suspect in the double homicide, McElhaney said, but without corroborating information from witnesses, police have been unable to make an arrest.
Of the 51 homicide cases the Police Department closed last year, 33 occurred in 2017. The other 18 dated from as far back as 2011, Capt. Holmgren said.
Oakland counts homicides as cleared when someone is arrested and charged in connection with the crime, regardless of the year the crime was committed. Generally, police might have a good idea of potential culprits in cold cases, but they need stronger evidence to hold up in court, Holmgren said.
“You don’t want to miss an opportunity by prematurely putting a case to court,” he said. “That’s the hard part. That’s the part that is challenging for investigators and extremely challenging for family members who suffer from these acts of violence.”
Although the number of homicides in Oakland continues to shrink — the city recorded 72 in 2017, its second-lowest number since the national record-keeping system began in 1985 — it still has one of the state’s highest homicide rates per capita.
Civil rights attorney Jim Chanin, a longtime Oakland resident, said the falling number of homicides and rising clearance rates show “OPD is going in the right direction.”
Still, he said, the families on the other side of the 71 percent clearance rate find little consolation.
“If you have a loved one murdered, then you’re one of the 29 percent. These figures mean nothing to you,” Chanin said. “The pain that someone feels is not going to be improved if they’re not one of the 71 percent.” But it’s not simply unsolved cases, McElhaney said. Family members of those slain told her they’ve received little communication or updates on their cases’ status. She pointed to the recently created Department of Violence Prevention as a way to refocus homicide response and prevention.
“We can love our community so much we can take away hate,” McElhaney said. “We can have advocates that will not allow cases to go cold.”
Anyone with more information on unsolved cases is asked to call the police homicide division at (510) 238-3821.