Brown Is Under Fire for Surge in Oakland Killings

Enjoying a big lead in the race for attorney general, Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown is coming under increasing attack from opponents in both parties over his city’s dizzying jump in homicides this year.

Brown’s foe in the Democratic primary, Los Angeles City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo, took the wraps off a TV commercial Thursday suggesting that deep cuts in Oakland’s public safety budget in 2003 helped lay the groundwork for the recent rash of homicides.

“There’s a clear contrast between my record, my actions and his,” Delgadillo said after a news conference to announce his latest commercial, already airing in the Bay Area and hitting TV in Los Angeles during the next few days.

Meanwhile, the campaign team for state Sen. Chuck Poochigian (R-Fresno), who is running unopposed in the GOP primary, has unleashed a flurry of critical attacks on the former California governor for his performance against crime in Oakland, questioning his suitability to become attorney general, the state’s top cop.

Poochigian’s campaign railed that Oakland’s 49 homicides so far in 2006 are “rapidly approaching” the 60 murders in Brown’s first full year in office. Poochigian’s team also accused the mayor of mismanaging the police force and its DNA database, citing a recent press report that the department failed for three years to follow up on a rape suspect identified through genetic evidence.

“All this is a reflection on a mayor who is not engaged, not managing the police force, not tackling the problem,” said Kevin Spillane, a Poochigian spokesman. “Jerry Brown is banking on a level of cynicism among the electorate. He’s banking they’ll have low expectations about the possibility of lowering crime in a city like Oakland.”

A spokesman for Brown, who had double-digit leads over both rivals in recent polls, said the attacks are simply the desperate acts of politicians who face a drubbing on election day.

“The bottom line with Delgadillo is the man is 41 points down in the polls, he’s desperate and he’s throwing mud,” said Ace Smith, Brown’s campaign strategist.

Smith said both Delgadillo and Poochigian have distorted Brown’s record on crime during his two terms.

Although homicides in Oakland this year are nearly double the figure for the first four months of 2004, serious crime in the city has dropped about 30% during Brown’s tenure. Until he took over in 1998, Oakland was experiencing about 40,000 felonies a year. Under him, the city has averaged about 28,000.

Delgadillo, however, said this year’s rise in homicides, particularly involving gang members, stands in stark contrast to Brown’s inauguration-day vow to reduce Oakland’s crime to less than in nearby Walnut Creek.

From 1999 to 2004, Walnut Creek had two murders, while Oakland experienced 524. With 93 killings in 2005, Oakland had the worst per capita homicide rate in the state, nearly double that of second-place Los Angeles.

In his 30-second TV ad, Delgadillo draws a sharp contrast with his own performance against gangs in Los Angeles, saying he grew up in a tough neighborhood, has prosecuted gang members and has used civil injunctions in an effort to bring them under control.

Delgadillo took credit for helping reduce the number of self-identified gang members in Los Angeles from 57,000 when he took office six years ago to 38,000.

In an interview later, Delgadillo expressed confidence that his campaign can slash Brown’s big lead before the June 6 primary. Polls in the last two weeks have put Brown’s lead at 30 to more than 40 percentage points.

“The race has really just begun,” Delgadillo said.