Crime top of mind in hotly contested Alameda County District Attorney's race
OAKLAND -- For many Bay Area residents, when thinking about the upcoming election, crime is top of mind. In the East Bay, two candidates are trying to earn people's votes to become the next Alameda County district attorney.
It's a historic election because regardless of who wins, they will be the first Black person to be elected district attorney in the county.
This race comes at a time when crime is surging in the city of Oakland. Terry Wiley has decades of experience inside the DA's office. Pamela Price is a civil rights attorney and says she brings a different lens that is needed.
Regardless, people want change.
Lesasha Long is a school-based intervention specialist at Castlemont High School in Oakland. She also works with Youth ALIVE!, an organization trying to break the cycle of violence.
Long helps kids who are on probation out of juvenile detention.
"Help them stay on track, create life goals and obtain those life goals," she said of her work.
Born and raised in Oakland, she knows firsthand what kids are going through.
"It's really sad to me. I also lost my mother to gun violence at the age of 2," Long said. "I know a lot of these kids because they experience death and loss at such an early age, they don't even realize the pain and hurt they're going through at that time."
She can relate to them, and she wants others to understand them too.
"Our youth needs healing, our youth need funding to be able to stop the violence around us, our youth need boundaries, and our youth need love," Long said.
For Wiley and Price, crime is top of mind.
Wiley is the Alameda County chief assistant district attorney. He has the experience. He says he's been working in the DA's office for more than 30 years.
He talks about getting to the root problems, and he says it starts with education in schools, referencing racial disparities in reading levels within Oakland Unified.
EdSource outlines the California Smarter Balanced results – tests taken by students in the spring of 2022. It shows that within Oakland Unified, only about 20% of African-American students met or exceeded the standard for English, while about 74% of white students met or exceeded the standard.
"We know that when you are not at reading level in the 3rd grade, there is a high percentage of those individuals that do not graduate from high school, and those that do not graduate from high school many times find themselves in the criminal justice system," Wiley said.
He added that as DA, he'll work with Oakland Unified to identify issues to then try to close those disparities.
But when it comes to serious and violent crime that is happening now, Wiley's focus is on repeat offenders.
"We really have to deal with those individuals that are driving the majority of violent crime that is occurring in Alameda County," he said.
Wiley prides himself in having empathy.
"I'm the youngest of 12 kids, whose father passed when he was 7," he said. "I'm really a product of the American dream. I came from where there probably weren't great expectations coming from a single-parent household with the passing of my father. But with determination and a great education, you can make something of yourself, and that's who I am."
Price prides herself in bringing a new perspective – a fresh voice who has been part of the community.
"I'm a former foster kid. I came through the juvenile justice and the foster care system, and I've never forgotten where I came," she said as she talked with an Alameda resident at her door.
She says she's also a survivor of domestic violence and sexual assault.
"When you survive, you learn and you have compassion for other people." she said.
Price is a civil rights attorney casting herself as a changemaker. When it comes to violent crime, she wants to get guns off the streets.
"We have to be aggressive about getting rid of guns in Oakland as well as Alameda County, so part of my conversation with Chief (LeRonne) Armstrong is where is the source of illegal guns in this community and what are you doing about that," she said.
And reaching young people is also a priority.
"I think it's both education both for our young people and engaging them at every level through every opportunity that we can and doing the kind of outreach that is important and creating mechanisms for them to resolve conflict where they don't need guns," Price said.
Ahead of the election, people want someone who will listen to them as they go about their daily lives and who will listen to their youth.
"They deserve to live a stress-free life. They deserve to live a happy life, and they deserve good things to happen to them," Long said referring to young people.
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Wiley and Price talked on a number of other issues with KPIX 5.
Among them – mental health.
"What I represent is a new approach to the way we deal with crime. We are going to be more strategic. We are going to focus on root causes of crime, particularly mental health issues, substance abuse and some people who are dealing with homelessness and coming from poverty," Wiley said.
Price said if she becomes DA, to the extent that she has programs and funds made available to her office, they will use them to create community-based alternatives to provide mental health services.
"Mental illness is not a crime. We have criminalized people with mental illness," she said. "A person with a mental health crisis is not going to get better in a jail cell."