Oakland police make major arrest, remove dangerous weapons off street

OAKLAND, Calif. (KRON) - A major arrest involving seven people -- Law enforcement calling it significant in the fight against escalating crime in Oakland.  

Officials say the arrests also involved removing dangerous weapons off the street. 

“It's pretty significant, you know, when you have a violence that increases like we've seen a violence increases and you make seven arrests of people that are very targeted as far as their activity and the next day, you've seen a very large reduction in shootings and shots fired activity, you know that you're focused on the right people," Oakland Captain Randall Wingate said. 

Besides arresting seven people over the weekend, they confiscated seven weapons during the arrests, including high-powered rifles.    

“Seven guns means a lot, of course, there's probably thousands of guns but those seven guns in those wrong hands, to take those off the streets makes a huge impact," Wingate said. 

Oakland's crime rate is escalating of late. City statistics show surging numbers of attacks on Asians in Chinatown, shootings, carjackings, and homicides.  

“On the 23rd of January, we actually came up with a strategy to try to take the resources that we do have and try to best apply them and make a difference and make an impact on the violence. Right now, year to date, we have 25 homicides, last year at this time we had five, so that's very significant. Since the 23rd of January, we have been able to bring that curve down, and have the decrease in shots fired activity, shootings, and you know, some of those crimes that just really plagued the community and make it a difficult place to live at times," Wingate said.  

Wingate credits the recent arrests to community support saying skyrocketing crime rate is traumatizing neighborhoods, 

“We feel it and we see it and when we get an uptick in people calling us and giving us information, and helping us out, that is a result of the frustration that the community has, so policing is truly, the community is basically helping the police right, so the community gets that police that it's demanding. Right now it's demanding a police force that is addressing, that's going to address that violence at a much-increased pace," Wingate said.

from KRON4 https://ift.tt/382RpX9