Council candidate Dan Kalb robbed outside his North Oakland home
on October 18, 2012
District 1 City Council candidate Dan Kalb was mugged by an armed robber outside of his Temescal home on Wednesday evening as he returned from an anti-crime meeting, Kalb said Thursday afternoon.
Kalb, who has made increasing officer staffing in the Oakland Police Department and anti-recidivism programs centerpieces of his campaign, was at a meeting of the Golden Gate Neighborhood Crime Prevention Council on Wednesday evening. He had driven home, and was talking to a voter on the phone around 8:35 pm as he got out of his car near his home on Manila Avenue, he said. Kalb said that as he was retrieving campaign flyers from his back seat, he felt “a firm poke in the back of my ribs.”
He initially thought it was a neighbor saying hello, but Kalb said he turned around and saw a man holding a hand gun. Kalb said he turned over his wallet to the mugger. The man then asked for Kalb’s iPhone, which the candidate had dropped. Kalb couldn’t find it and began looking through his back seat as the man kept his gun pointed at Kalb. Kalb says he thought, “He’s frustrated, he may shoot me.”
The gunman joined the search, looking for the phone on the ground. After about 20 seconds of searching, Kalb says, the gunman told him to run. Kalb ran to his home down the block, where he called 911. Police arrived about 10 minutes later. Kalb says he assumes the gunman found and took his iPhone because it was missing later.
The OPD have not yet made an arrest in the case.
Kalb said the incident has helped him understand how residents feel as victims of crime. Kalb called himself a “strong supporter of gun control and gun buybacks,” programs through which police departments pay people to turn in firearms.
Public safety was already a focus of Kalb’s campaign, but he says he doesn’t plan to make an issue of the robbery. “I don’t want to take advantage of this,” he said. “It is what it is.”
7 Comments
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Dan- if you don’t want to make an issue of the robbery, quit talking to the press. You have already talked to SFGate, the Trib and now Oakland Localnm
Good to hear Dan was unharmed. That could have happened to any of us.
Wonder if this will shake his conviction that anti-recidivism programs for people returning from prison is the key to reducing crime here.
If you look at his original campaign statement or attended the forums, you’ll see that Dan is a Johnny-come-lately to adding more cops.
For sure, recidivism is a serious problem, but the county should be pushed to do that work.
We have to provide basic street safety with more and better managed affordable cops that aren’t burnt out with excessive overtime. We have to replace patronage-driven anti-violence programs with cost effective ones, of which there are many to choose from.
We need to make sure we have money left to pay for better schools instead of spending it all on $200k/year compensation for police and fire.
We have to make this town attractive to businesses that will hire local residents with decent wages and benefits.
Green tech, red tech, low tech. We need jobs.
Len Raphael, CPA
Candidate for City Council
LensForChange.com
The new normal in Oakland: Take the same precautions as if you were in Mexico City or Sao Paulo. We’re the haves and have nots. Sad but true.
i never blame the victim of a crime.
But, in 35 years of living in North Oakland, biking and walking around day and night, I have never been the victim of a crime.
A big part of staying safe is developing and using street smarts. I honed mine growing up in Brooklyn back in the day when it had much worse crime than Oakland has now.
You’re a soft target if you’re oblivious to your surroundings.
eg You don’t wear dual earbuds like Dan, because you won’t hear people sneaking up on you.
People shouldn’t have to be aware of their surroundings, though we might have higher expectations of our council members.
Len Raphael, CPA
Candidate for City Council District 1
LensForChange.com
Are you saying that you don’t use a car?
35 years of good luck. That’s what you got.
It’s terrible this happened to Dan, but all too common. And it usually does not make the press. Glad he’s unhurt.
But as far as the incident has “helped him understand how residents feel as victims of crime” in Oakland, the experience may not have been as edifying as he thinks.
As a recent victim of crime in Oakland — a purse-snatching in my driveway last year and home invasion this fall — one of the last things on my mind was “‘gun control and gun buybacks'”. And I didn’t immediately think of recidivism prevention.
As I filed my online reports I wondered why Oakland doesn’t have a working police force, and why City Hall hasn’t a clue how to go about paying for anything.
Oh, and it’s nice that OPD showed up in 10 minutes to Dan Kalb’s house. Like I said, they wouldn’t even take a report from me. My experience, unfortunately, is more the norm.
Three youths tried to take my phone directly outside of my apartment in Old Oakland. Lucky for me, the would-be muggers were young and inexperienced. They were arrested within minutes, and had reportedly mugged 4 other victims before they encountered me. I only found out they had a real actual gun after they were arrested—and I was only scared after I found that fact out from a police officer. In the moment, I was more worried about a knife…