Today, the FBI shot and killed a person in East Oakland. We know that Libby Schaaf has recently brought in the FBI, the ATF, and the CHP into Oakland. We have expressed concern about increased contact between our communities and these law enforcement agencies.

Last week, in a Pinteresque public safety plot twist, the case was made that the Oakland Police Department should be granted early exit from the federal oversight they have been under for about two decades.

Not “early” because they finished the 51 required tasks needed to exit oversight ahead of schedule. Nope, that would have meant completion before 2008. “Early” because they would be allowed to exit without having finished at all. OPD remains uncompliant with five tasks relating to use-of-force investigations, internal affairs complaint procedures and investigation timelines, tracking stop data, and discipline consistency.

Scandal-ridden OPD still involved in ongoing litigation for tear-gassing children during protests last year

I am a gun owner. As a Black woman in America, I think it is asinine not to be prepared to defend myself and my family in a country that places a target on my back.

But my belief in the right to arm myself for the purposes of self-defense is not absolute.

On Wednesday, when Mayor Libby Schaaf let Oaklanders know that she worked out a deal with California’s governor to deploy the California Highway Patrol to conduct traffic stops on city streets, many people scratched their heads while the rest of us banged them into walls.

We all want safe streets. I am raising a teenage daughter in this city. I want to not be terrified every time that she walks out the door. Which I am. Bullets fly with abandon on Oakland streets.

But if we are not safe with a police budget of $350 million a year, what is the magic number that will make a militarized police department and violent carceral state work to create safe communities?

The Alameda County Sheriff’s Office became a global punchline in the aftermath of a viral video, but the department’s consistently egregious behavior is no laughing matter. And efforts like Shelby’s to avoid public scrutiny are hardly the worst of it.

Have you heard? Oakland “defunded” the police. And starting July 1, all hell is going to break loose. The only problem? That isn’t true.