'You Failed Your City,' Oakland Business Owner's Sign Criticizes Lack Of Police Response To May Day Rioters
OAKLAND (KPIX 5) – An Oakland business owner is criticizing police for not doing enough after rioters broke windows and set a car on fire on the Broadway Auto Row when Friday's May Day protest turned violent.
The sign posted on Precision Motors speaks for itself. It reads, "OPD, You failed your city again."
"Enough is enough," owner Eric Horet told KPIX 5.
Horet put the sign up after vandals busted windows and set a fire on the Oakland auto row Friday night.
"I wasn't surprised. Everybody saw that coming. Apparently not everybody, apparently not the mayor, not the chief of police," Horet said. "But everybody else knew something was going to happen."
Horet says this kind of destruction during protests has become commonplace and so has the city's failure to control it.
"They don't do anything. All they do is have a press conference and feel sorry about it," Horet said.
Mayor Libby Schaaf told KPIX 5 she spent Monday doing something about it.
"I am having some difficult conversations with our chief about how we can do better in the future, how we could have prepared more," Schaaf said.
KPIX 5 caught up with Oakland Police Chief Sean Whent leaving City Hall. "Obviously we could've done better. That goes without saying," he said.
On Friday, the protesters made an unexpected turn down Broadway, where there were few officers on the ground.
KPIX 5's Christin Ayers asked Whent, "Are people to expect that when there is an anti-police protests, windows are going to be broken and businesses are going to be hit?"
Whent responded, "I don't think that's a realistic expectation. It can happen."
But that's what Horet has come to expect, and he's staging his own protest, refusing to replace his windows.
"I won't put any glass on anymore until I get answer from the politicians, from the chief of police, till I know it's gonna be safe to put glass out there," Horet said.