Oakland violence rises, police morale falls ON THE EAST BAY

In Oakland, crime is way up, and morale in the Police Department is dipping to new lows.

Gunbattles in East Oakland are increasing in frequency and volume, prompting even some veteran officers to shake their heads.

On Wednesday, an exchange of gunfire between at least four people on 47th Avenue at East 12th Street left one man dead and more than 170 casings on the ground, more than crime technicians could mark.

Last Friday, yet another gunfight left a man dead and more than 100 casings from four different weapons on the ground in the 9600 block of Birch Street.

Two groups shot at each other from a block away, and police believe the man who was killed, Rashad Meredith, 21, of Hayward may have been caught in the crossfire.

The shooting occurred in an area targeted for a wide array of law enforcement and social programs as part of Oakland Mayor Jean Quan's 100 Blocks Plan to reduce crime. But ask any officer on the street about 100 blocks and they'll scoff.

"From my perspective, there is no leadership here. There's no one at the helm. We just amble from crisis to crisis," said Sgt. Barry Donelan, president of the Oakland Police Officers Association, the union that represents the officers.

The city's current force of 631 police officers is at its lowest number in more than a decade, and the most serious felony crimes are up 21 percent from a year ago.

For police - and residents in beleaguered Oakland neighborhoods - there's not a lot of help on the way. The net gain from the city's first police academy since 2008 will be no more than a dozen officers, according to Donelan's calculations.

"You're looking at a department that's a skeleton of what it once was, and the numbers (of officers) we have are not what we need to police this city," Donelan said. "The stresses are incredible. Demand for service (3,000 a day) is at an all-time high, and there is tremendous uncertainty about where we are going and what we are doing."

There has been so much violence in the last two weeks, so many shootings and homicides that officers no longer refer to it as a crime wave. They're calling it a crime tsunami.

In the past 11 days - since Oct. 1 - 11 people have been slain, including five people in an 18-hour period.

"I'm terrified for the citizens of Oakland and the officers who are serving them," Donelan said. "There is a level of criminality that's acceptable here that's not acceptable anywhere else, and it's a terrible indictment on this city."

So, what are Oakland's leaders doing about it?

Not much.

It's as if murder is part of the city's geographical landscape, something that comes with the territory.

Oakland has a mayor and council who are soft on crime. It has politicians vying for re-election, others looking to climb up the ladder, and an at-large race between incumbents.

What it doesn't have, but desperately needs, is a single leader - elected or not - with the courage and conviction to say enough is enough. One who will not tolerate the fact that gunmen can fire off enough rounds to kill off an entire neighborhood twice in the space of six days - at two different locations - and simply walk away.