Police: North Oakland Gang Injunction is Working
OAKLAND (KCBS) - The controversial topic of gang injunctions was expected to be up for debate again Tuesday before Oakland City Council's public safety committee.
Mayor Jean Quan and some members of the City Council have already gone on record questioning their cost and effectiveness.
The Police Department and City Attorney, meanwhile, maintain the injunctions are a valuable crime-fighting tool, and a report being presented to the committee would say just that.
Last week, a state appeals court upheld the injunction restricting the activities of 15 alleged members of the North Side Oakland gang within a section of the northern part of the city.
While the report acknowledges that crime numbers increased in the northern area of the city, people reported feeling safer in the neighborhood as a result of the injunction,
KCBS' Bob Melrose Reports:
Law enforcement also claimed that crime numbers would be lower but for the fact that the officers who would normally saturate the northern area had been reassigned to other duties and neighborhoods to compensate for police department layoffs.
"If you want to measure how it's going, one way to do it is look at are these individuals still committing crimes in this neighborhood and the answer in North Oakland is no," reasoned Oakland City Attorney spokesman Alex Katz.
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