They Were Going To Set The Wire In Oakland, But It Was Too Dangerous
Watching The Wire, I don’t think think “wow, Baltimore is super awful” but instead, “wow, that’s a lot like Oakland.” We all remember in Season One when Clay Davis’ driver is caught driving away from the Towers with $30,000 in cash, and how Davis intervenes with Burrell to make Daniels’ investigation into Barksdale and Davis go away. Well, basically the exact same thing just went down in Oakland.
Recently, a wave of homicides and restaurant robberies have struck Oakland. In response, the police arrested 56 members of the infamous Acorn gang who were connected to the crime wave. One of the gangbangers caught up in the police sweep was 27 year old William Lovan, the “nephew” of City Administrator’s Deborah Edgerly. Edgerly intervened, ordering the cops on the scene to tell her why the car was being towed and then, according to San Francisco Chronicle reporter Chip Johnson, “she vowed to contact Oakland Assistant Police Chief Howard Jordan and Tucker when the officers refused to tell her, police say. She then promised an internal affairs investigation into the whole matter.” She wasn’t very effective at bailing out her nephew, Lovan has now been charged with murder and armed robbery, while Edgerly has been forced to resign.
But it gets worse, not only was Lovan a gangbanger receiving protecting from a high ranking city official, he was also a repairman for the parking division, and was one of “several people” in the Edgerly family who was employed by the city. And, shockingly, these relations got special treatment when applying for city jobs:
Edgerly has requested – and received – concessions in the past from the Police Department, most notably a change in the city’s physical training requirements to help her daughter’s efforts to become a police officer.
Erin Breckenridge, her daughter, who still works as a civilian employee in the department, was provided with an unprecedented four opportunities to pass the academy training’s physical skills test.
Of course, Edgerly is likely to replaced by another corrupt hack, or an ineffective boob in the mold of Dellums, but still, it’s nice to see someone in Oakland facing accountability. It would nice if this happened a bit more.
