Nov 16, 2025
Please contact us
with corrections
or breaking news
Please contact us
with corrections
or breaking news
Cheerleading for Oakland: Interview with Rajni Mandal
by Doniphan Blair
Dr. Rajni Mandal was focusing on raising her two daughters until 2024, when she started bringing facts and figures to the public meetings of the Oakland Police Commission. photo: D. Blair PLEASE support our GoFundMe campaign to cover research expenses for our articles and rebuilding the cineSOURCE site.
AFTER READING ONE OF RAJNI MANDAL'S
incredibly articulate articles about Oakland's current problems with its civilian Police Commission, we met on July 12th at her house on a side street in the wooded, hilly Oakland neighborhood of Montclair. A doctor of East Indian extraction, she was born in Peru, raised in upstate New York and graduated from Cornell, Duke and NYU, although she is well acquainted with Oakland, having worked as a wound care specialist in many of its nursing homes.
Dr. Mandal is of medium height and brownness but with an outsized, upbeat presence and personality. She started by offering me a cup of tea, which I took light, no sugar.
cineSOURCE: One of the things I am very interested in is multicultural evolution and the arts. Oakland has a lot of potential—
Rajni Mandal: Huge!
It is kind of a catastrophe, as I guess you know.
I came here in ’89, just in time for the earthquake. [Then] Jerry Brown moved here, and he became mayor, and he gave it his best shot.
How long have you been here?
About 15 years.
He did a damn good job. There was one scandal: Jacques Barzagi. Then Oakland did very well from 2010 'til Covid, when it collapsed.
And here we are, five years later.
Are you hopeful about [the new mayor of Oakland] Barbara Lee?
Based on the impassioned speech she gave on Thursday to the federal judge, yes.
The judge was really taken with her and really impressed with her. I think her political acumen is really good. She can definitely use that political capital to do things, and there is great potential for her ending the federal oversite [of the Oakland Police, instituted after the Riders Scandal of 2000].
She said it was one of her priorities, in her hiring, to have one person directly reporting to her whose main job was to get rid of federal oversight.
That one person?
Michelle Phillips. She was our inaugural Inspector General and she left about a year ago for Minneapolis to be their director of Civil Rights Division. The mayor called her personally to have her come back.
Wasn’t Chief Mitchell supposed to be the go-to guy for all that stuff?
Dr. Mandal with her minivan, in which she ferries around her kids or her neighbors who want to voice their opinions in municipal forums. photo: courtesy R. Mandal You have many facets to it. Chief Mitchell oversees OPD [Oakland Police Department] but OPD is under the City of Oakland, the mayor and the city administrator. The city administrator she is hiring is going to be the main liaison with OPD.
I got the impression that Mitchell wasn’t too happy to spend half a day reading reports.
Yes. It’s a lot of work, and a lot of work he could be using—
Does Mitchell seem like a talented guy?
Yes! I was really impressed and so were my neighbors. He speaks really well. He tells it like it is. He is also very diplomatic, but he stands his ground! And that has irked the anti-police people.
Like [the police chiefs] Armstrong and Kirkpatrick before him, they were ousted because they spoke up against federal oversight, among other things.
Kirkpatrick evidently misspoke about a police raid, and she was definitely out of her league.
Yes.
She was a woman solving the sex crisis—I can understand that [Mayor] Schaaf wanted to find some sort of solution to this endless sex crisis.
You’ve seen LeRonne Armstrong speak, and he’s pretty good?
Yeah. I think he’s pretty good.
Unfortunately, again, that was a very political time, with [Mayor Sheng] Thao and the Police Commission. He had a press conference where he spoke up against the federal monitor and said, basically, he was being ousted for quote unquote speaking the truth.
I mean, there was a myriad of other issues.
Well, Armstrong had that other scandal [about a rogue cop involved with a hit-and-run accident and a gun discharge in an elevator]. Where do you come down on that? It is hard for me to discern.
It’s hard. Yes, there were issues, but would it lead to the Chief being fired? I don’t think so. What I think led to the Chief being fired was political capital.
He didn’t have enough?
He didn’t have enough, especially with the Sheng Thao administration.
Especially because the woke were totally against him. He’s from my neighborhood in West Oakland and so, whenever I am hanging out with the homies, I say, ‘So, does anyone know LeRonne?’ But I haven’t been able to find him.
Ha ha. I talked to people who knew him personally and supported him for his City Council run. He ran for City Council at large—obviously, he didn’t win.
Dr. Mandal waiting to speak at OPD's July public meetings. photo: D. Blair The thing that I liked about him is he had a ‘moment of silence,’ a second of silence for everyone murdered. In the beginning of the year, it was very short but, at the end of the year, it was very long. A minute of silence is a long time and, in Oakland, it was two minutes.
He would say ‘Why are Oaklanders so interested in protesting police killings in Minneapolis when right here we have a 100 killings a year?’ By our own kids, mostly young Black men. That was really speaking truth to power.
Yes, absolutely. What we had most recently, the pursuit policy, it has been a really big flash point in the Police Commission—
Outlawing high speed pursuit?
Yes. Currently, Oakland has one of the most restrictive pursuit policies in the nation. It has to do with the fact that officers have to ask for additional approval if they are going to chase above 50 miles per hour. They also have an extra layer of supervision compared to other places, but it is really that 50 miles per hour limit [that bothers them].
That was set a couple of years ago because there was a fatality, and the Chief changed the rules to the 50 miles per hour speed limit. Since that happened, the number of pursuits went down significantly, and everyone said, ‘Yeah, that’s great, the less pursuits the better.’
But then what happens is—because our policy is such an outlier compared to the surrounding area—people come here from other places in order to rob convenience stores or anything else. And they know they can’t be chased.
Those are the two sides of the issue. Obviously high-speed pursuits have a risk to pedestrians and other residents, but there is also a balance. Pursuits are one tool that is used for fighting crime.
Chief Mitchell has proposed to take away that restriction and take away that one extra layer of supervisor approval associated with it. He has not really made anyone happy. The people who are talking about increased crime, especially convenience store crime, the cars ramming into stores, that sort of thing, really wanted officers to pursue for property crime. Whereas currently, it is just violent crime. He's not changed that, we’re still going to stick with violent crime, we are just getting rid of the speed limit.
And the other side is just as unhappy because they want zero pursuits. So, this going to increase the number [of pursuits] slightly, but it is not good enough for them. He is trying to come up with a compromise but compromises don’t make anyone happy.
Yeah. He is fortunate, the murder rate has gone down significantly.
Absolutely. And the CHP [California Highway Patrol] has a huge part to play in that.
That was from [Governor] Newsome and Sheng Thao—she made the request.
Yup.
So there is still a very heavy woke sort of mafia operating?
Dr. Mandal, working as a 'wound doctor' in West Oakland nursing homes. photo: R. Mandal Absolutely.
To touch on those two things, so we recently had a CHP chase that led—indirectly not directly—to a teacher from Castlemont [High School] being killed, Dr Marvin Boomer. Originally, the witness accounts said the police were right behind the speeding car, and that is why it lost control.
But when the actual video footage and the time line was released, it turned out the police had stopped pursuing him, and were just doing helicopter surveillance. The fleeing vehicle lost control, but there wasn’t an active pursuit at the time.
But all that was mired…Especially the Anti-Police Terror Project, the leader is Cat Brooks—
She ran for mayor?
Yes, she ran for mayor.
They came up in the wake of this tragedy to try to ignite the anti-pursuit stance. That was taken up by a lot of media outlets and everything else. I think The [SF] Chronicle published it first: Well, actually there was no pursuit happening at the time, [but] it was still not enough to counter them.
These woke, if you want to call them that, or anti-police advocates, are still very heavily entrenched in the city government. The [civilian oversight] Police Commission was echoing all their points during a meeting. They still have a big sway in public opinion as well as the government.
Are they still determined to have fewer police?
Yes, absolutely.
So back in 2020, there was this Reimagining Public Safety Task Force that happened after the whole George Floyd protest, and the goal of this task force was to defund the police 50%. Cut the number of officers—everything—in half.
They had all these recommendations, not all of them have gone through, but one of their points was to civilianize officers. If there are jobs that are not quote unquote law enforcement, administrative for example, civilians should do it. Transfer those jobs to a non-police person—for example IT—which totally makes sense, totally makes sense.
Unfortunately, with the budget cuts, they have frozen all the civilian positions. There are more cops doing those jobs, because the work still has to get done.
In addition to that, Internal Affairs is a big issue, because that’s the department that has been under federal supervision, because of all the officer misconduct and the scandals that we’ve had. So now the new target is: They want all the Internal Affairs Division—all those investigations—to be that transferred to the investigative branch of the Police Commission, the Community Police Review Agency (CPRA).
They spent $100,000 just recently to get an outside study to figure out if this possible, to see if this can happen, and that study was just released a month or so ago [June 2025].
It caused a big stir because, obviously, you can’t get rid of the entire Internal Affairs Department. They don’t just work with misconduct, they work with a lot of other things that have to do with rules and regulations, policy, reporting to the federal government. You can’t totally get rid of it, but that was the goal, they wanted to get rid of it completely.
But now it turns out—and this is one of the issues with civilian oversight—who’s overseeing the civilian oversight? There’s nobody.
There’s the CPRA, the Community Police Review Agency, that investigates the same 100 cases—they share 100 cases with Internal Affairs, both investigate at the same time. Yeah, there’s duplicate efforts. So yeah, you could move over cases over to that civilian agency and free up officers—that’d be great.
But this civilian agency has not had consistent leadership, has been using Excel spread sheets to track cases, does not have actual standardized training procedures, standardized operating procedures, standardized reporting procedures. And, they can’t meet their deadlines.
They say it’s because they are understaffed. But it’s an issue of not just of understaff but poor leadership, and poor oversight and poor organizational structure, to begin with.
These people say, ‘Oh, we have to get civilians to do these things.’ You have to make sure who you are transferring the work to people who are the same quality and, currently, we don’t have those things.
And the MACRO thing [Mobile Assistance Community Responders of Oakland] doesn’t seem to be taking off?
Ha ha. The MACRO was initially a pilot study. I think it focused on West Oakland, and then it moved to East Oakland. Then it expanded to the whole city but without anyone really telling them to do that.
It’s only 26 people.
It is very small. They have, I think, four buses out every shift.
But the whole goal of MACRO was part of this Reimagining Public Safety Task Force, in order to off load OPD, right? And have them deal with the mental stuff. Sounds great, but currently they only take three calls a day.
Dr. Mandal makes a salient point at the OPD's public meeting. photo: D. Blair And OPD probably gets over a 1000 calls a day.
Um huhn. So that is not working. And most of the work they do is sort of self-driven, [health] checks, giving out water bottles. They find people, and they do [their service]. So, it is actually not offloading OPD, which was the main reason.
So it hasn’t really helped—virtually nothing?
Exactly. That’s another mired issue. They kept their funding in this next budget round through the Fire Department. So, they are trying to get an oversight body or something to fix it up, so that it actually works. We’ll see.
So the federal oversight?
We have a judge, Robert Orrick, and the monitor is Robert Warshaw.
Both Roberts. Some people say they are corrupt.
Yeah, if you look at Warshaw and Associates, Robert Warshaw, he has done this little gig in multiple places. I think it was in upstate New York as well as Maricopa County, Arizona. They sort of kicked him out, because they noticed…
And he was getting a 100 Gs a year or something?
Yes, he’s getting a good amount of money. What he’s doing, and what he has done previously, his MO: he has withheld compliance, right? Saying ‘Sorry you’re not complying, not complying,’ but actually changing he reasons for it and not giving any indication of how you fix it.
The chief and the city brought [that] up at the last meeting, on Thursday, to the judge. The plaintiff’s attorney was saying, ‘This is just excuses. You shouldn’t have to be told how to be compliant. You should know what to do.’
But the issues, if you look at all the reports from the last several years from the monitor, he just shifts back and forth, back and forth, and doesn’t actually give any [reasoning] out.
So the judge told the city and the chief [of police] ‘The next time you talk to him on the phone, tell him exactly what you told me. And, if he doesn’t come back and give you what you need, talk to me. And I will make sure that it gets done.’
So now at least he is on notice, which is good.
And obviously Barbara [Lee] and Floyd [Mitchell] are pushing to end it?
The only people who are not are the Coalition for Police Accountability and the Police Commission. The anti-police activists submitted a letter to the judge. The Coalition for Police Accountability is a separate [group] founded by Rashidah Grinage, who is an activist. Currently the chair is Millie Cleveland.
So this group—a funded and organized group—is also very entrenched and considered ‘subject matter’ experts for the city on, basically, police oversight.
They sent a letter to the judge that completely disparages the whole process. It said that the Chief is against reform, that all he does is complain about the NSA [Negotiated Settlement Agreement], and he doesn’t care about getting out of it, and he thinks it’s a sham. [The letter is] talking all about how the Police Commission is not funded, the Police Commission can’t do the things they [are supposed to] do because the city doesn’t care about oversight and is not funding them.
A lot of allegations without much substance. And they’re biased. They’re not part of the city, so they don’t have to be factual in what they say.
Is the police department that corrupt?
No!
People have their doubts because from the Rider thing [a gang of corrupt cops from the 1980s and ‘90s].
There wasn’t a lot of police killing. There was one during the Oakland Occupy, and a couple out in San Leandro. And, of course, Oscar Grant but that was in 2009, and that was a BART cop.
I am a bit favorably inclined to the Celeste Guap thing [the 2016 police scandal involving an underage sex worker] because, obviously, she was very much an active participant.
Yeah.
And her mother was part of the police [a dispatcher].
And this scandal was not just OPD centered. That scandal was spread out [to other cities].
I think [she] was kind of romanticized… I actually talked to a very interesting woman, who worked undercover as a prostitute for the police—she was a policewoman. She didn’t let me interview her face front but we talked on the phone. Pretty fascinating, the way she talked about it.
There are a whole lot of questions we can jump into: Can Oakland be made into a liberal California city, or do we have to acknowledge that in any wealthy region there is poor region that has—
The public meeting, when Oakland police officers presented the proposal for new equipment, including an armored 'BearCat' car, was surprisingly cordial and humor-filled, despite the political tensions. photo: D. Blair So, what is your definition of a liberal city?
When Sheng Thao fired Chief Armstrong, the people were saying ‘Well Armstrong may have made a mistake but he’s a pretty good guy.’ In a more traditional, semi-corrupt Oakland, we would say, ‘Well, he is from West Oakland, and he has been working here for 40 years, and let's just go with him.’
But other people said ‘Well, Sheng Thao has to uphold the law’—this was before she was busted [for corruption]—
Ha ha.
—which kind of spoiled her argument.
Other people said, ‘Well, no, Oakland has to move forward into a kind of liberal, abide-by-the-law [city]. She has to make an example and put her foot down and say, ‘We can’t tolerate any deviance.’
It is a very complicated sort of discussion. What do you feel about that?
My description of liberal is different.
I am a registered Democrat. Liberal values include treating everyone the same, trying to be equal, to decrease income disparity and try to offer supportive and preventive services in order to do that.
But I do think Oakland and the Bay Area is way more to the left than me. I consider myself a liberal and a democrat, but that is not good enough in Oakland.
When you say liberal city, I think we already have a very liberal city.
I meant full rule-of-law city.
Are you considering rule of law equals no corruption? Is that what you mean?
I mean zero tolerance of what Armstrong was accused of: [covering up] a rogue cop who fired a gun in an elevator. That’s a bad vibe.
Oh totally! There has to be rule of law; there has to consequences for actions. But I don’t believe in collective punishment, if that makes sense. So, I do agree that the people who were involved with [the discharge of a gun in an elevator] and the people who covered it up, they have to account for their actions. But I don’t think that the entire 1000 or so people who are in the department should be penalized, if that makes sense?
It is not just the police but you also have non-sworn staff, like the dispatchers. It’s 620 [officers] but you only have 520 active officers because of medical and administrative leave.
It’s been 620 for 30 years.
We had over 700 for a bit.
That was for just one year, when [Mayor] Libby Schaaf refunded the police on the down low, and she even got it up somehow. She did that amazing thing.
Yeah.
I remember when Jerry [Brown] put a proposal [on the ballot] saying—for some reason he split the proposal in half—he said should we get 80 more police officers and move from 620 to 710 or whatever it was. And Proposition B was: Should we finance the 80 officers.
So, Proposition A passed with 99%—
Of course!
—but Proposition B, nothing. That was kind of the beginning of this whole…
You asked, ‘Why did I go into this?’
So, like a lot of people since the pandemic, [I noticed] crime has increased everywhere in our city. And it has gotten closer and closer to your neighborhood, if it wasn’t there already. If you weren’t a victim of crime, you are by now, either property crime or other crime. Or you have seen crime happening right in front of you.
We had a shooting in our neighborhood and neighbors banded together—
Right here?
Right here. Over catalytic converter theft, they shot at the person who was—
A homeowner shot at the—.
No, the catalytic converter thief shot a homeowner.
In addition, we had a lot of break-ins. Again, the level of crime here is nothing compared to other parts of Oakland. But, I think, it is the fact that—and people have talked about this—the quote unquote spread [of crime]. Everyone is sort of more aware of it.
And whether that is fair or not fair, I can’t say, but all I can tell you is my experience. A lot more people were really scared. They were wondering: ‘Where are the police when you call them? Why do they take so long or only come at two o’clock in morning? Why have we never seen a police officer patrol our area?’ These questions came up.
You can barricade all you want, in your house, in your neighborhood, whatever, but that doesn’t change the fact that the entire city is hurting, right? And if you don’t fix the systemic issue, you’re not going to be able to to fix anything, if that makes sense.
Staffing and policy is what I am focusing on, basically.
Dr. Mandal arriving at Oakland's City Hall to try her luck with elected officials. photo: courtesy R. Mandal When did you start doing that?
About a year ago.
I find that one of the interesting things about Oakland, is these millionaire districts.
I know—crazy disparity!
I used to come right up here to rehearse with my band.
Where? Winters’ house?
No, I forget exactly. It was the same exit but up on the hill. It was an architect friend, he built a house but he couldn’t sell it so he moved in. It was so steep there—nowhere to walk—but a nice place to rehearse.
I am assuming that the vast majority of these [Montclair] people are bleeding heart liberals who moved to Oakland—because they could have easily moved to Sausalito.
Of course.
But they moved to Oakland, and they volunteer, and they donate. Some of them may even invest in things or run non-profits, or something like that.
I love that because I grew up [next to] the Harlem ghetto, but I went to a very elite private school—so I have always had a mix of people—
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Racism was over for me in 1960 but classicism is even harder. But that, to me, is also over. You know, Keith Richards says it very well, ‘Just because I am a billionaire, doesn’t mean you can treat me like shit.’ And Oakland has achieved a type of classist equality or unity.
I would counter that.
I am saying compared to other places.
Oh completely—California in general. The majority of the metropolitan areas of California are definitely like that, [very liberal] compared to other areas. But I think in Oakland there has been more of a divide in the ideologies of different areas of the city.
So, the San Francisco Chronicle, I think last fall [actually April 11. 2025, see article], published a great article about the different electoral groups in Oakland . And where they are geographically located, and what were their main thoughts about public safety, the police, about homelessness, about all these different issues: What was important to them?
You saw there was a big divide between quote unquote The Hills and West Oakland, but East Oakland [the poorest part of the city] and The Hills have very similar values.
That is interesting. I have to look that up.
I can send it to you. It was a fantastic article, especially when it came to public safety. That was just mind boggling. The issue is that, when it comes to voter turnout, The Hills obviously has a higher voter turnout then East Oakland. But when you combine West Oakland and the middle Jack London area, and another [the rest of the city], those outweigh the turnout on The Hills and the East.
And they were talking about what are the prevailing populations and who shows up to vote, and who’s basically making those decisions. It is very interesting, and I do recommend you see that. It does show there is a classist slash geographic divide.
There is always a certain amount of classist stuff but I think, just by virtue of being here, people are—
People are way more open [in Oakland], I agree. But in the government, there it is the different.
Well, the city government was completely captured by woke people.
Yes.
My fear is that so many people moving in—and I go on NextDoor, and I can hear that they’re grumbling—as more and more people move in—and, of course, the Black population has gone from 50% down to 21%—there will come a time when they are not going to stand for it anymore. They’re going to just start voting and going to City Council meetings and various things.
Un huh.
I’m predicting, down the road, ten or 15 years, there is still going to be an entrenched, you know, thug population, who are just rebels—
Yeah, yeah.
—and they’re mugging people and they’re making bank and stuff. The thing I was mentioning earlier—about Oakland being a little fuzzy on the law, and accepting some corruption—could sort of fudge things. [That would] allow the different energies to continue.
If you ever have a chance, there is a fantastic documentary called ‘Cocaine Cowboys 2’ [2006] []. The first one became famous and takes place in Miami. It follows Blanca, whatever her name is [Griselda Blanca], the famous woman narco trafficante.
Yeah, yeah.
She was an incredible murderer. Finally, her hit man said, ‘You can’t kill the kids,’ and she said, ‘Kill the kids.’ Finally, he said, ‘I can’t do this anymore’ [and he turned state’s evidence].
But anyway, the second—I made documentary films and, technically speaking, they both are terrible because they have loud music going constantly—but the second one, ‘Cocaine Cowboys 2’ [2008], is about Oakland.
Really?!?
And it’s just absolutely unbelievable, man. A guy from Oakland [Charles Cosby], he was reading the paper, and he saw a tiny notice that Blanca had fled to California, was arrested, and was in Santa Rita Prison [Dublin, 25 miles from Oakland].
What?
And this was the beginning of the Crack ‘80s. So being an entrepreneur, he could see business—
An opening!
Dr. Mandal makes another well-worded point in an Oakland Police Commission meeting. photo: courtesy R. Mandal and markets coming. So, he went out to Santa Rita and he applied to be a visitor—she was already running the jail—and he became her lover. He would have conjugal meetings with her once a week. And something like ten days later, a skinny little Colombian girl came to his door and threw a package on the floor—ten pounds of coke! He became the biggest dealer in Oakland.
He’s very reasonable guy. He’s just an entrepreneur.
Yeah.
In any another business, he could have done very well. It doesn’t delve that much into whether he killed people or not, but it seemed like he ran a straight business and then got out. He bought a few houses or a street in East Oakland—obviously for his mother. Anyway, it is a look into this other side.
The complexity of our multiculturalism—
Agreed.
—is off the charts.
Yes.
Some people think that if you just get Black and White people together—but how ‘bout the Hmong?
Yes. That’s one of the things.
Or the Yeminis?
Yes, the Yeminis, too.
The Yeminis have been here for three generations. Now I see them all burka-ed up, much more than five years ago.
I assume that’s from the antisemitism and the woke thing and they think, ‘Oh, great, we’re moving toward that.’ I’ve tried to interview them, too. It’s hard to get them to commit.
Yeah.
I got [a Yemini store] on my corner. I knew the guy there for 20 years, but he moved back to Yemen—
Argh!
with his fifth wife. We were friends. I felt safe, going there. I knew he would jump out from behind the counter with his shot gun.
Right.
We called him Muhammad for some reason, but his name was actually Ahmed, we learned later. One time I said to him, ‘Muhammad, how many people have you seen killed on this corner?’ ‘Oooh, many, many,’ he said, smiling. ‘How many?’ ‘Oh many, many.’ ‘How many? Give me a number, ten? ‘Ten!?!? Acchhh!’
Way more!
It’s insane. This is like a block from my house.
And I also knew his nephew, who shot himself. I guess he was pulling a gun on a [robber]. He got kicked out of the family for becoming a druggie.
Muhammad gave me insight into the community. His father was born here—so they’re born here—but, I guess, because they live in the ghetto and deal with mostly alcoholics, there is no connection to the community. There is no interest.
At the Oakland Street Fair, I did see what looked like a Yemini girl, who was scantily dressed. So, it looked like she had transitioned over.
Yeah.
It’s a very weird part of our multicultural mix: They’re over here, on the side, selling alcohol to the heathens—
Yes, ha, ha, ha.
and retiring back to Yemen—even though they are born here! But I did find a couple of enlightened ones—I mean, not enlightened—
More westernized?
I mean hipsters, whatever. I met one ten years ago and was going to do a graphics job for him, but it never came to fruition.
I have reached out to bunch of people to do an interview? I couldn’t find anyone. I am just picking up information. I just go over to my corner store.
Yes, I was going say that.
I just chat with the guys working there. They let go of a bit of information. Whatever, as you know it’s an enigma, it’s a complexity.
It is so multicultural, which is fantastic, but then it is also hard, as you said, to get cohesion.
Yeah. No, it’s impossible.
It’s impossible to get a coalition of people together, because they’re so disparate, right? And different lifestyles, different ideas. It is very hard to get a consensus.
So, the people who come into government, right, are some of the people who can get a consensus. They’re a group who are very organized and have a cohesive message, which may not be the message of the majority. But, because they have that organization, cohesion and financial support, they’re able get into government and do the policies that match their values, if that makes sense.
Yeah, yeah. Of course, you’re familiar, we’re in a kind of multicultural crisis worldwide.
Oh yeah.
England is just freaking out.
Un huh.
New York is about is about to go socialist—and, umm, that’s why I really love Oakland.
Yeah.
Well, first of all: California!
Of course.
I did interview a guy in my neighborhood who ran a little league [baseball team] and he would take the kids to the Bay—they had never seen it before. But, of course, you know, someone has a car, and they could drive in two minutes—
Yeah.
to the Bay. But they’re not interested.
[His neighborhood is] called Ghost Town and is right next to my neighborhood, and now there is brewery called Ghost Town. I was offended by that. It’s like having a bar in Auschwitz called The Gas Chamber.
Yeah, that’s not, that’s not…
But, whatever. It is beneficial, you know, it brings business, people. There is taco truck there.
Yeah.
West Oakland is booming, I don’t know if you’ve been to Raimundi Park?
Yes, it’s amazing, Prescott Market, all of it, yeah!
But, it seems to me that—I love Prescott Market, it’s all very multicultural—but they’re all techies knocking down 150 Gs a year. At some point, they’re going to have nothing of [common] interest with Celeste Guap and her family.
And, ah, I don’t see how we’re going to grow together.
Exactly. We are growing more apart. I think that is what it is, and the resources are also being spread more apart. So, I do agree. The people who need it the most are not always the beneficiaries.
And also, there was this: maybe I sent it to you? The Bay Area Council Economic Institute just put out a report about Oakland and how the public safety is affecting the economy.
Of course.
We already know, like duh!
They put facts and figures and everything else in it. [They showed] just how, yes, there may be areas that are booming, comparatively, but in the majority of Oakland, business is down. Businesses are leaving, real estate values are going down, rents are… everything is dropping. Business tax revenue is going down because there are less businesses.
The main reason why is people are not comfortable going into those areas because they don’t feel safe. And the businesses themselves are being broken into. It is too expensive to run a business in Oakland because of all that overhead [from the theft] and they’re leaving. [The report] quantified and they did surveys and everything else to show that.
Even though you have nice pockets [of the city]—what looks to be really awesome things—not enough people are coming down into Oakland, even from the East Bay.
When they should! We’re like the number one foodie city in the country!
It was voted number one by Conde Nast! I don’t know how that happened.
But hey—even with that—people are still not coming!
What I assume happened is that: In the Covid bust, rents became very available, and there are foodies all over the Bay Area, and they looked over—and there were a bunch of new building—
Yeah, there were.
And they said, ‘It is pretty cheap,’ and they moved in and started doing new stuff.
I actually put that out on my building chat, and one of the people in the building runs a Korean restaurant. I said, ‘Did anyone else notice this happening, becoming number one restaurant [city in US].’ He said, ‘Yes, and I am one of them. I started,’ such and such a place.
It’s a huge industry and experimental, and there is so much of it.
But, you know, the majority of Oakland—they were surprised. ‘What do you mean number one?’ ‘What are you talking about?’ Again, it is because, I think, not many people are going to those places from Oakland. From the East Bay, no one is coming to shop in Oakland.
Well, June’s Pizzeria in West Oakland—
June’s is different.
You’re going to have these amazing spots. But, as a whole, the economy is down, because people aren’t coming. Places like June, places like Raimundi, places like Prescott show the amazing potential of the city. The amazing potential—and the fact that we are not reaching that [potential] across the city. I mean, right?
To deal with the crime… Well, Armstrong, he started a few things—I don’t think he started this one thing—but they were paying parolees to go to parole meetings, a little amount. Twenty bucks if you do this, 50 bucks if you do that, and it was working.
That is the thing that is so amazing, four miles from [Oakland] down Telegraph is UC Berkeley, you could walk it. It would take you about one hour.
Yeah, yeah.
One time, I was at party, and I mention I had been at Castlemont High School doing a photo shoot. I said, ‘Boy, that place is rough,’ and she said, ‘It’s not that bad. We got 30 people into Ivy League colleges last year.’ I said, ‘Really?’ ‘Yeah, I’m the head of advanced placement.’
And so, the combination of money, and intellect and talent, and poverty and tragedy, and where it can bleed across. The opportunity, you know. Huey Newton’s brother Melvin became a professor at Laney [College], I think.
For those who want to get out of it, it is possible. But some don’t. They’re rebels and, of course, rebels get the girls. And they get respect in the hood.
Un huh.
Now this guy Charles Cosby is the type you need to bring out and talk about… whatever. I’m just spit-balling here.
That is why, I think, in the city, there are plenty non-profits that provide the mentoring, that provide the coaching, that try to do these preventive practices, right? Try to change that culture.
Yeah. It seems there are actually more non-profits than anywhere else.
Yes, that is correct. It seems that way.
And I think a lot of it comes from right around here [the Oakland Hills].
Yes. I think it is a great thing because the need is there. The need is certainly there.
The flip side of it is: Who is watching where is the money coming from? Is it being used appropriately? Especially if it is city money—but that’s a whole other story. But yes, the need is definitely there.
Oakland has got such diversity but also such disparity that you need to do something in order to bridge that gap.
Yeah.
The study I was telling you about: If you want to fix the economy, you got to fix public safety. And to fix public safety, number one—and I agree with all their recommendations—you have get the police out of federal oversight. If you do that, you free up the police of a lot of administrative work, which the police currently does, which they don’t really need to do.
The second one they said was, we need to fix the civilian police oversight agencies that we have. We have too many! We have the Police Commission, then the investigative branch of the Police Commission, and then the audit branch of the Police Commission. There are three separate ones.
And the only one that has law enforcement experience is the audit branch. So the people doing the investigations and the people doing the policy work have no law enforcement policy or practice experience.
So this is just the Woke Mafia?
Exactly. They are saying you need to revise that. You can still have community members, [but] make it one organization. Still have community members, but also have law enforcement to be part of that process, too. And they said, if you have civilians out there, and they have this much power, it is very easy for them to become manipulated.
Which is what is happening now.
Yup. And the $20 million for dealing with the [federal] oversight, that is the salaries for 80 police officers we’ve been waiting for 25 years!
Exactly! We could save a ton more money, and make our officers more efficient, if we get [relief from federal oversight].
I thought it was very interesting. A lot people say, ‘Oh yes, if we have more police everything would be fine,’ and I agree with them, but you also have to think about the policy aspect and the oversight aspect.
And you need more MACRO—I mean, 26 people, man! Three calls a day?
But you have to make sure that MACRO can really respond to those calls. Because, currently, there are so many regulations about what calls they can take. That’s why they only take three [calls] from OPD. If you are going to do something like that, make sure they are trained, and that you have the policy, whatever, the requirements, so they can actually offload case.
Because, currently, they can’t.
A friend told me, when they put the call out for MACRO, 1500 people went down—I think that’s what he told me.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
People are interested.
Well, Curtis Silva, he’s kind of a right-wing guy, and he is still running for mayor of New York.
Ha, ha, ha.
But, you know, he actually had people out on the streets and patrolling neighborhoods, you know.
Oakland actually did that in 2006, very briefly. So, in 2006 the murder rate jumped back up. And people were so freaked out, because of the Crack ‘80s—there were the Crack ‘90s, too.
Yes, yes.
They were only ten years out, and they were so freaked out. Pastors and council members started walking the streets of East Oakland. And [the murder rate] went down, it really had an effect.
I would have thought the Woke Mafia would have done something like that, instead of just complaining. It seems like a pretty good way to make your presence known and to be useful, that sort of thing.
I agree. There are a lot of word: you have to do more ‘community policing’ and you have to do more ‘violence prevention.’ And that’s great, but you also have to have enforcement. There is a lot of talk and lot of money going into things, but there’s not boots on the ground.
It’s not transferring over.
They do actually have an immense amount of programs. I haven’t done a comparative study, but paying the parolees, all the different things. They had midnight basketball, before Covid.
Covid obviously hit a lot. And it is still on its way out, and we are still trying to rebuild.
Covid was bizarre. There was no traffic law in West Oakland. People just running right through red lights—well, they would look both ways.
Ha, ha. Well, it is still like that!
Currently right now, in the past three years, [many] pedestrian deaths. There’s been over 30 people who die on the streets of Oakland every year, from pedestrian and bicyclist due to automobiles, due to speeding and running red lights.
And that is just appalling—it is the highest in the area!
Yup.
Um, so, you know, when these activists talk about they want less [police] pursuits? What is happening currently? The number of people fleeing police has gone up by 300%. We have more people fleeing, the police just can’t pursue them.
There is a sense of lawlessness out there. You can get away with running red lights, you can get away with speeding, because no one is going to really catch you, right? I think there is a relationship between that. There is a relationship between quote unquote this sense of lawlessness, people just not following the rules anymore, and now, unfortunately, more people being killed.
Yup, yeah, that is true.
But you are still committed to Oakland? Or?
Yes, of course! Ha.
I think my number one goal is policy.
It is trying to counter the narrative, that is in the civilian oversight [people] and even in city government. There is this narrative that police are lazy, police don’t do their jobs, we don’t need that many police. That’s what I am trying to counter, really.
And it is the data and fact of just showing up at these meetings and saying [what I know]. The problem is: the only people who are showing at these meetings and speaking, as members of the public, are these activists!
Yup, so you show up?
I show up, and I am not a member of anybody. I’m just a homeowner, showing up to these meetings to counter that.
So, you get up and speak?
Oh yeah, I have been, for like a year. And I bring facts. I bring data, just like the article that you read [see it here].
It was very good, actually.
And that’s what I bring up, what you read.
And you have some journalism experience?
None, I am just a physician. This is my first foray into anything like this.
What do your neighbors think? Are people supporting you?
Oh completely.
If I didn’t have the support of my neighbors… That’s why I go. I am going there to represent my neighbors. I bring neighbors with me. We car pool in my minivan. Many speak as well. I encourage them. I say, ‘Just say what you think. You have one or two minutes and just speak your mind.’
But when we go there, we get heckled by those people, they boo us.
And are they mostly People of Color, or mostly White?
Both. It’s just the activists, those same activists show up every time. This is the first time they have had a countering [opinion], someone coming in with something different to say. They are challenged by it.
Instead of trying to go against the message, they go against the messenger.
Ad homonym?
They call me racist. They call me Trumpist. They say I am a plant from the Police Union.
You are what?!?
I’m a plant from the Police Union. I have come up and said, ‘Nope, I have no relationship with any of these people. I’m not paid.’ I am as a homeowner, as a mom, because I want a safer city.
I am here because I care.
Aah.
And they can’t seem to make sense of that. I have been a pain in their side.
What I do, I try to expose. I try to share this message with my neighbors. We have our neighborhood council. Just share that this is what has been going on in the city. It has been going unchecked for years.
So, if you don’t like it, come and speak up. Ha, ha, ha.
Absolutely. Well, you are doing God’s work. It is an incredible thing to have so many communities jammed into one municipality. I guess Montclair is not part of Oakland?
It is!
Ah, Piedmont is not part of Oakland.
The City of Piedmont is surrounded by Oakland. It has its own separate police, its own city government.
But this area [Montclair]—we’re all Oakland.
It’s fabulous, and it goes on for ten miles
Ha ha ha. Our city is fantastic. I love going to all parts of our city. I’ve worked in all parts of our city. I have walked it.
As a physician?
Yes.
I used to do wound care in nursing homes. I would go to nursing homes in West and East Oakland, and I treat the patients there. I talk to the nurses and the staff and everyone else. So, I am familiar with these different areas of Oakland.
Unfortunately, you know, when I come and speak, the Police Commissioners [say], ‘We only hear complaints from people not affected by crime. And your views really don’t matter.’ Another Commissioner said, ‘If you are criticizing the Commission, you are anti-Black.’ So, that was discouraging.
Hold on, a commissioner said, ‘If you are criticizing us, you’re anti-Black’?
Yeah, and that was when I brought 15 of my neighbors to the Police Commission to speak up, supporting the police chief in his changes to the pursuit policy.
Was that Mitchell at that time?
Yeah, Mitchell.
This was just a few months ago. That was their response to that. From there, I told my neighbors, ‘There is no point in coming to these meetings. You are not going to be able to change their minds.’
They are actively trying to dissuade other views.
Un huh.
I changed the strategy to go to the city council meetings, because they are elected officials. They do listen to the constituents and, actually, you do make more headway there. And they have more power. And they will respond to feedback whereas the Commission is unelected, and they can sort of do whatever they want.
They’re not held accountable by the public.
Right, right. So, it is basically people protecting their turf, shouting you down. Just accusing you—
Exactly.
Because they have had that turf for a long time. They’ve had nobody come and counter that narrative. Like ever! Then I showed up.
I am not some, I don’t know… I am educated, I speak well, I come with data. I am not just like yelling at them or anything like that. Over time I hope I develop a little bit of credibility, right? In order to counter that.
Do you ever think of running for City Coun—
No way, no!
I think of myself as I cheerleader for Oakland, right? I want to spread awareness—that’s number one—spread awareness, educate, encourage participation.
The more your voter base is engaged and participating, then they are going to make better decisions when it comes to the ballot box. And that’s where change can happen. That’s the only reason I am doing this. I am not interested in any political job.
Are there any City Councilors from up in the Hills? There must be one or two.
Our District Four City Councilmember lives up here, Janani Ramachandran, she lives up here in the Hills. Usually everyone else lives in their district.
Yes, OK. Well, incredible work you’re doing.
I hope it was helpful.
Yes, very helpful.
This interview was done on 7/12/25. For more on Dr. Mandal, see "From Peru to Oakland: An Indian American Journey". Posted on Aug 28, 2025 - 05:43 AM
by Doniphan Blair
Dr. Rajni Mandal was focusing on raising her two daughters until 2024, when she started bringing facts and figures to the public meetings of the Oakland Police Commission. photo: D. Blair AFTER READING ONE OF RAJNI MANDAL'S
incredibly articulate articles about Oakland's current problems with its civilian Police Commission, we met on July 12th at her house on a side street in the wooded, hilly Oakland neighborhood of Montclair. A doctor of East Indian extraction, she was born in Peru, raised in upstate New York and graduated from Cornell, Duke and NYU, although she is well acquainted with Oakland, having worked as a wound care specialist in many of its nursing homes.
Dr. Mandal is of medium height and brownness but with an outsized, upbeat presence and personality. She started by offering me a cup of tea, which I took light, no sugar.
cineSOURCE: One of the things I am very interested in is multicultural evolution and the arts. Oakland has a lot of potential—
Rajni Mandal: Huge!
It is kind of a catastrophe, as I guess you know.
I came here in ’89, just in time for the earthquake. [Then] Jerry Brown moved here, and he became mayor, and he gave it his best shot.
How long have you been here?
About 15 years.
He did a damn good job. There was one scandal: Jacques Barzagi. Then Oakland did very well from 2010 'til Covid, when it collapsed.
And here we are, five years later.
Are you hopeful about [the new mayor of Oakland] Barbara Lee?
Based on the impassioned speech she gave on Thursday to the federal judge, yes.
The judge was really taken with her and really impressed with her. I think her political acumen is really good. She can definitely use that political capital to do things, and there is great potential for her ending the federal oversite [of the Oakland Police, instituted after the Riders Scandal of 2000].
She said it was one of her priorities, in her hiring, to have one person directly reporting to her whose main job was to get rid of federal oversight.
That one person?
Michelle Phillips. She was our inaugural Inspector General and she left about a year ago for Minneapolis to be their director of Civil Rights Division. The mayor called her personally to have her come back.
Wasn’t Chief Mitchell supposed to be the go-to guy for all that stuff?
Dr. Mandal with her minivan, in which she ferries around her kids or her neighbors who want to voice their opinions in municipal forums. photo: courtesy R. Mandal I got the impression that Mitchell wasn’t too happy to spend half a day reading reports.
Yes. It’s a lot of work, and a lot of work he could be using—
Does Mitchell seem like a talented guy?
Yes! I was really impressed and so were my neighbors. He speaks really well. He tells it like it is. He is also very diplomatic, but he stands his ground! And that has irked the anti-police people.
Like [the police chiefs] Armstrong and Kirkpatrick before him, they were ousted because they spoke up against federal oversight, among other things.
Kirkpatrick evidently misspoke about a police raid, and she was definitely out of her league.
Yes.
She was a woman solving the sex crisis—I can understand that [Mayor] Schaaf wanted to find some sort of solution to this endless sex crisis.
You’ve seen LeRonne Armstrong speak, and he’s pretty good?
Yeah. I think he’s pretty good.
Unfortunately, again, that was a very political time, with [Mayor Sheng] Thao and the Police Commission. He had a press conference where he spoke up against the federal monitor and said, basically, he was being ousted for quote unquote speaking the truth.
I mean, there was a myriad of other issues.
Well, Armstrong had that other scandal [about a rogue cop involved with a hit-and-run accident and a gun discharge in an elevator]. Where do you come down on that? It is hard for me to discern.
It’s hard. Yes, there were issues, but would it lead to the Chief being fired? I don’t think so. What I think led to the Chief being fired was political capital.
He didn’t have enough?
He didn’t have enough, especially with the Sheng Thao administration.
Especially because the woke were totally against him. He’s from my neighborhood in West Oakland and so, whenever I am hanging out with the homies, I say, ‘So, does anyone know LeRonne?’ But I haven’t been able to find him.
Ha ha. I talked to people who knew him personally and supported him for his City Council run. He ran for City Council at large—obviously, he didn’t win.
Dr. Mandal waiting to speak at OPD's July public meetings. photo: D. Blair He would say ‘Why are Oaklanders so interested in protesting police killings in Minneapolis when right here we have a 100 killings a year?’ By our own kids, mostly young Black men. That was really speaking truth to power.
Yes, absolutely. What we had most recently, the pursuit policy, it has been a really big flash point in the Police Commission—
Outlawing high speed pursuit?
Yes. Currently, Oakland has one of the most restrictive pursuit policies in the nation. It has to do with the fact that officers have to ask for additional approval if they are going to chase above 50 miles per hour. They also have an extra layer of supervision compared to other places, but it is really that 50 miles per hour limit [that bothers them].
That was set a couple of years ago because there was a fatality, and the Chief changed the rules to the 50 miles per hour speed limit. Since that happened, the number of pursuits went down significantly, and everyone said, ‘Yeah, that’s great, the less pursuits the better.’
But then what happens is—because our policy is such an outlier compared to the surrounding area—people come here from other places in order to rob convenience stores or anything else. And they know they can’t be chased.
Those are the two sides of the issue. Obviously high-speed pursuits have a risk to pedestrians and other residents, but there is also a balance. Pursuits are one tool that is used for fighting crime.
Chief Mitchell has proposed to take away that restriction and take away that one extra layer of supervisor approval associated with it. He has not really made anyone happy. The people who are talking about increased crime, especially convenience store crime, the cars ramming into stores, that sort of thing, really wanted officers to pursue for property crime. Whereas currently, it is just violent crime. He's not changed that, we’re still going to stick with violent crime, we are just getting rid of the speed limit.
And the other side is just as unhappy because they want zero pursuits. So, this going to increase the number [of pursuits] slightly, but it is not good enough for them. He is trying to come up with a compromise but compromises don’t make anyone happy.
Yeah. He is fortunate, the murder rate has gone down significantly.
Absolutely. And the CHP [California Highway Patrol] has a huge part to play in that.
That was from [Governor] Newsome and Sheng Thao—she made the request.
Yup.
So there is still a very heavy woke sort of mafia operating?
Dr. Mandal, working as a 'wound doctor' in West Oakland nursing homes. photo: R. Mandal To touch on those two things, so we recently had a CHP chase that led—indirectly not directly—to a teacher from Castlemont [High School] being killed, Dr Marvin Boomer. Originally, the witness accounts said the police were right behind the speeding car, and that is why it lost control.
But when the actual video footage and the time line was released, it turned out the police had stopped pursuing him, and were just doing helicopter surveillance. The fleeing vehicle lost control, but there wasn’t an active pursuit at the time.
But all that was mired…Especially the Anti-Police Terror Project, the leader is Cat Brooks—
She ran for mayor?
Yes, she ran for mayor.
They came up in the wake of this tragedy to try to ignite the anti-pursuit stance. That was taken up by a lot of media outlets and everything else. I think The [SF] Chronicle published it first: Well, actually there was no pursuit happening at the time, [but] it was still not enough to counter them.
These woke, if you want to call them that, or anti-police advocates, are still very heavily entrenched in the city government. The [civilian oversight] Police Commission was echoing all their points during a meeting. They still have a big sway in public opinion as well as the government.
Are they still determined to have fewer police?
Yes, absolutely.
So back in 2020, there was this Reimagining Public Safety Task Force that happened after the whole George Floyd protest, and the goal of this task force was to defund the police 50%. Cut the number of officers—everything—in half.
They had all these recommendations, not all of them have gone through, but one of their points was to civilianize officers. If there are jobs that are not quote unquote law enforcement, administrative for example, civilians should do it. Transfer those jobs to a non-police person—for example IT—which totally makes sense, totally makes sense.
Unfortunately, with the budget cuts, they have frozen all the civilian positions. There are more cops doing those jobs, because the work still has to get done.
In addition to that, Internal Affairs is a big issue, because that’s the department that has been under federal supervision, because of all the officer misconduct and the scandals that we’ve had. So now the new target is: They want all the Internal Affairs Division—all those investigations—to be that transferred to the investigative branch of the Police Commission, the Community Police Review Agency (CPRA).
They spent $100,000 just recently to get an outside study to figure out if this possible, to see if this can happen, and that study was just released a month or so ago [June 2025].
It caused a big stir because, obviously, you can’t get rid of the entire Internal Affairs Department. They don’t just work with misconduct, they work with a lot of other things that have to do with rules and regulations, policy, reporting to the federal government. You can’t totally get rid of it, but that was the goal, they wanted to get rid of it completely.
But now it turns out—and this is one of the issues with civilian oversight—who’s overseeing the civilian oversight? There’s nobody.
There’s the CPRA, the Community Police Review Agency, that investigates the same 100 cases—they share 100 cases with Internal Affairs, both investigate at the same time. Yeah, there’s duplicate efforts. So yeah, you could move over cases over to that civilian agency and free up officers—that’d be great.
But this civilian agency has not had consistent leadership, has been using Excel spread sheets to track cases, does not have actual standardized training procedures, standardized operating procedures, standardized reporting procedures. And, they can’t meet their deadlines.
They say it’s because they are understaffed. But it’s an issue of not just of understaff but poor leadership, and poor oversight and poor organizational structure, to begin with.
These people say, ‘Oh, we have to get civilians to do these things.’ You have to make sure who you are transferring the work to people who are the same quality and, currently, we don’t have those things.
And the MACRO thing [Mobile Assistance Community Responders of Oakland] doesn’t seem to be taking off?
Ha ha. The MACRO was initially a pilot study. I think it focused on West Oakland, and then it moved to East Oakland. Then it expanded to the whole city but without anyone really telling them to do that.
It’s only 26 people.
It is very small. They have, I think, four buses out every shift.
But the whole goal of MACRO was part of this Reimagining Public Safety Task Force, in order to off load OPD, right? And have them deal with the mental stuff. Sounds great, but currently they only take three calls a day.
Dr. Mandal makes a salient point at the OPD's public meeting. photo: D. Blair Um huhn. So that is not working. And most of the work they do is sort of self-driven, [health] checks, giving out water bottles. They find people, and they do [their service]. So, it is actually not offloading OPD, which was the main reason.
So it hasn’t really helped—virtually nothing?
Exactly. That’s another mired issue. They kept their funding in this next budget round through the Fire Department. So, they are trying to get an oversight body or something to fix it up, so that it actually works. We’ll see.
So the federal oversight?
We have a judge, Robert Orrick, and the monitor is Robert Warshaw.
Both Roberts. Some people say they are corrupt.
Yeah, if you look at Warshaw and Associates, Robert Warshaw, he has done this little gig in multiple places. I think it was in upstate New York as well as Maricopa County, Arizona. They sort of kicked him out, because they noticed…
And he was getting a 100 Gs a year or something?
Yes, he’s getting a good amount of money. What he’s doing, and what he has done previously, his MO: he has withheld compliance, right? Saying ‘Sorry you’re not complying, not complying,’ but actually changing he reasons for it and not giving any indication of how you fix it.
The chief and the city brought [that] up at the last meeting, on Thursday, to the judge. The plaintiff’s attorney was saying, ‘This is just excuses. You shouldn’t have to be told how to be compliant. You should know what to do.’
But the issues, if you look at all the reports from the last several years from the monitor, he just shifts back and forth, back and forth, and doesn’t actually give any [reasoning] out.
So the judge told the city and the chief [of police] ‘The next time you talk to him on the phone, tell him exactly what you told me. And, if he doesn’t come back and give you what you need, talk to me. And I will make sure that it gets done.’
So now at least he is on notice, which is good.
And obviously Barbara [Lee] and Floyd [Mitchell] are pushing to end it?
The only people who are not are the Coalition for Police Accountability and the Police Commission. The anti-police activists submitted a letter to the judge. The Coalition for Police Accountability is a separate [group] founded by Rashidah Grinage, who is an activist. Currently the chair is Millie Cleveland.
So this group—a funded and organized group—is also very entrenched and considered ‘subject matter’ experts for the city on, basically, police oversight.
They sent a letter to the judge that completely disparages the whole process. It said that the Chief is against reform, that all he does is complain about the NSA [Negotiated Settlement Agreement], and he doesn’t care about getting out of it, and he thinks it’s a sham. [The letter is] talking all about how the Police Commission is not funded, the Police Commission can’t do the things they [are supposed to] do because the city doesn’t care about oversight and is not funding them.
A lot of allegations without much substance. And they’re biased. They’re not part of the city, so they don’t have to be factual in what they say.
Is the police department that corrupt?
No!
People have their doubts because from the Rider thing [a gang of corrupt cops from the 1980s and ‘90s].
There wasn’t a lot of police killing. There was one during the Oakland Occupy, and a couple out in San Leandro. And, of course, Oscar Grant but that was in 2009, and that was a BART cop.
I am a bit favorably inclined to the Celeste Guap thing [the 2016 police scandal involving an underage sex worker] because, obviously, she was very much an active participant.
Yeah.
And her mother was part of the police [a dispatcher].
And this scandal was not just OPD centered. That scandal was spread out [to other cities].
I think [she] was kind of romanticized… I actually talked to a very interesting woman, who worked undercover as a prostitute for the police—she was a policewoman. She didn’t let me interview her face front but we talked on the phone. Pretty fascinating, the way she talked about it.
There are a whole lot of questions we can jump into: Can Oakland be made into a liberal California city, or do we have to acknowledge that in any wealthy region there is poor region that has—
The public meeting, when Oakland police officers presented the proposal for new equipment, including an armored 'BearCat' car, was surprisingly cordial and humor-filled, despite the political tensions. photo: D. Blair When Sheng Thao fired Chief Armstrong, the people were saying ‘Well Armstrong may have made a mistake but he’s a pretty good guy.’ In a more traditional, semi-corrupt Oakland, we would say, ‘Well, he is from West Oakland, and he has been working here for 40 years, and let's just go with him.’
But other people said ‘Well, Sheng Thao has to uphold the law’—this was before she was busted [for corruption]—
Ha ha.
—which kind of spoiled her argument.
Other people said, ‘Well, no, Oakland has to move forward into a kind of liberal, abide-by-the-law [city]. She has to make an example and put her foot down and say, ‘We can’t tolerate any deviance.’
It is a very complicated sort of discussion. What do you feel about that?
My description of liberal is different.
I am a registered Democrat. Liberal values include treating everyone the same, trying to be equal, to decrease income disparity and try to offer supportive and preventive services in order to do that.
But I do think Oakland and the Bay Area is way more to the left than me. I consider myself a liberal and a democrat, but that is not good enough in Oakland.
When you say liberal city, I think we already have a very liberal city.
I meant full rule-of-law city.
Are you considering rule of law equals no corruption? Is that what you mean?
I mean zero tolerance of what Armstrong was accused of: [covering up] a rogue cop who fired a gun in an elevator. That’s a bad vibe.
Oh totally! There has to be rule of law; there has to consequences for actions. But I don’t believe in collective punishment, if that makes sense. So, I do agree that the people who were involved with [the discharge of a gun in an elevator] and the people who covered it up, they have to account for their actions. But I don’t think that the entire 1000 or so people who are in the department should be penalized, if that makes sense?
It is not just the police but you also have non-sworn staff, like the dispatchers. It’s 620 [officers] but you only have 520 active officers because of medical and administrative leave.
It’s been 620 for 30 years.
We had over 700 for a bit.
That was for just one year, when [Mayor] Libby Schaaf refunded the police on the down low, and she even got it up somehow. She did that amazing thing.
Yeah.
I remember when Jerry [Brown] put a proposal [on the ballot] saying—for some reason he split the proposal in half—he said should we get 80 more police officers and move from 620 to 710 or whatever it was. And Proposition B was: Should we finance the 80 officers.
So, Proposition A passed with 99%—
Of course!
—but Proposition B, nothing. That was kind of the beginning of this whole…
You asked, ‘Why did I go into this?’
So, like a lot of people since the pandemic, [I noticed] crime has increased everywhere in our city. And it has gotten closer and closer to your neighborhood, if it wasn’t there already. If you weren’t a victim of crime, you are by now, either property crime or other crime. Or you have seen crime happening right in front of you.
We had a shooting in our neighborhood and neighbors banded together—
Right here?
Right here. Over catalytic converter theft, they shot at the person who was—
A homeowner shot at the—.
No, the catalytic converter thief shot a homeowner.
In addition, we had a lot of break-ins. Again, the level of crime here is nothing compared to other parts of Oakland. But, I think, it is the fact that—and people have talked about this—the quote unquote spread [of crime]. Everyone is sort of more aware of it.
And whether that is fair or not fair, I can’t say, but all I can tell you is my experience. A lot more people were really scared. They were wondering: ‘Where are the police when you call them? Why do they take so long or only come at two o’clock in morning? Why have we never seen a police officer patrol our area?’ These questions came up.
You can barricade all you want, in your house, in your neighborhood, whatever, but that doesn’t change the fact that the entire city is hurting, right? And if you don’t fix the systemic issue, you’re not going to be able to to fix anything, if that makes sense.
Staffing and policy is what I am focusing on, basically.
Dr. Mandal arriving at Oakland's City Hall to try her luck with elected officials. photo: courtesy R. Mandal About a year ago.
I find that one of the interesting things about Oakland, is these millionaire districts.
I know—crazy disparity!
I used to come right up here to rehearse with my band.
Where? Winters’ house?
No, I forget exactly. It was the same exit but up on the hill. It was an architect friend, he built a house but he couldn’t sell it so he moved in. It was so steep there—nowhere to walk—but a nice place to rehearse.
I am assuming that the vast majority of these [Montclair] people are bleeding heart liberals who moved to Oakland—because they could have easily moved to Sausalito.
Of course.
But they moved to Oakland, and they volunteer, and they donate. Some of them may even invest in things or run non-profits, or something like that.
I love that because I grew up [next to] the Harlem ghetto, but I went to a very elite private school—so I have always had a mix of people—
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Racism was over for me in 1960 but classicism is even harder. But that, to me, is also over. You know, Keith Richards says it very well, ‘Just because I am a billionaire, doesn’t mean you can treat me like shit.’ And Oakland has achieved a type of classist equality or unity.
I would counter that.
I am saying compared to other places.
Oh completely—California in general. The majority of the metropolitan areas of California are definitely like that, [very liberal] compared to other areas. But I think in Oakland there has been more of a divide in the ideologies of different areas of the city.
So, the San Francisco Chronicle, I think last fall [actually April 11. 2025, see article], published a great article about the different electoral groups in Oakland . And where they are geographically located, and what were their main thoughts about public safety, the police, about homelessness, about all these different issues: What was important to them?
You saw there was a big divide between quote unquote The Hills and West Oakland, but East Oakland [the poorest part of the city] and The Hills have very similar values.
That is interesting. I have to look that up.
I can send it to you. It was a fantastic article, especially when it came to public safety. That was just mind boggling. The issue is that, when it comes to voter turnout, The Hills obviously has a higher voter turnout then East Oakland. But when you combine West Oakland and the middle Jack London area, and another [the rest of the city], those outweigh the turnout on The Hills and the East.
And they were talking about what are the prevailing populations and who shows up to vote, and who’s basically making those decisions. It is very interesting, and I do recommend you see that. It does show there is a classist slash geographic divide.
There is always a certain amount of classist stuff but I think, just by virtue of being here, people are—
People are way more open [in Oakland], I agree. But in the government, there it is the different.
Well, the city government was completely captured by woke people.
Yes.
My fear is that so many people moving in—and I go on NextDoor, and I can hear that they’re grumbling—as more and more people move in—and, of course, the Black population has gone from 50% down to 21%—there will come a time when they are not going to stand for it anymore. They’re going to just start voting and going to City Council meetings and various things.
Un huh.
I’m predicting, down the road, ten or 15 years, there is still going to be an entrenched, you know, thug population, who are just rebels—
Yeah, yeah.
—and they’re mugging people and they’re making bank and stuff. The thing I was mentioning earlier—about Oakland being a little fuzzy on the law, and accepting some corruption—could sort of fudge things. [That would] allow the different energies to continue.
If you ever have a chance, there is a fantastic documentary called ‘Cocaine Cowboys 2’ [2006] []. The first one became famous and takes place in Miami. It follows Blanca, whatever her name is [Griselda Blanca], the famous woman narco trafficante.
Yeah, yeah.
She was an incredible murderer. Finally, her hit man said, ‘You can’t kill the kids,’ and she said, ‘Kill the kids.’ Finally, he said, ‘I can’t do this anymore’ [and he turned state’s evidence].
But anyway, the second—I made documentary films and, technically speaking, they both are terrible because they have loud music going constantly—but the second one, ‘Cocaine Cowboys 2’ [2008], is about Oakland.
Really?!?
And it’s just absolutely unbelievable, man. A guy from Oakland [Charles Cosby], he was reading the paper, and he saw a tiny notice that Blanca had fled to California, was arrested, and was in Santa Rita Prison [Dublin, 25 miles from Oakland].
What?
And this was the beginning of the Crack ‘80s. So being an entrepreneur, he could see business—
An opening!
Dr. Mandal makes another well-worded point in an Oakland Police Commission meeting. photo: courtesy R. Mandal He’s very reasonable guy. He’s just an entrepreneur.
Yeah.
In any another business, he could have done very well. It doesn’t delve that much into whether he killed people or not, but it seemed like he ran a straight business and then got out. He bought a few houses or a street in East Oakland—obviously for his mother. Anyway, it is a look into this other side.
The complexity of our multiculturalism—
Agreed.
—is off the charts.
Yes.
Some people think that if you just get Black and White people together—but how ‘bout the Hmong?
Yes. That’s one of the things.
Or the Yeminis?
Yes, the Yeminis, too.
The Yeminis have been here for three generations. Now I see them all burka-ed up, much more than five years ago.
I assume that’s from the antisemitism and the woke thing and they think, ‘Oh, great, we’re moving toward that.’ I’ve tried to interview them, too. It’s hard to get them to commit.
Yeah.
I got [a Yemini store] on my corner. I knew the guy there for 20 years, but he moved back to Yemen—
Argh!
with his fifth wife. We were friends. I felt safe, going there. I knew he would jump out from behind the counter with his shot gun.
Right.
We called him Muhammad for some reason, but his name was actually Ahmed, we learned later. One time I said to him, ‘Muhammad, how many people have you seen killed on this corner?’ ‘Oooh, many, many,’ he said, smiling. ‘How many?’ ‘Oh many, many.’ ‘How many? Give me a number, ten? ‘Ten!?!? Acchhh!’
Way more!
It’s insane. This is like a block from my house.
And I also knew his nephew, who shot himself. I guess he was pulling a gun on a [robber]. He got kicked out of the family for becoming a druggie.
Muhammad gave me insight into the community. His father was born here—so they’re born here—but, I guess, because they live in the ghetto and deal with mostly alcoholics, there is no connection to the community. There is no interest.
At the Oakland Street Fair, I did see what looked like a Yemini girl, who was scantily dressed. So, it looked like she had transitioned over.
Yeah.
It’s a very weird part of our multicultural mix: They’re over here, on the side, selling alcohol to the heathens—
Yes, ha, ha, ha.
and retiring back to Yemen—even though they are born here! But I did find a couple of enlightened ones—I mean, not enlightened—
More westernized?
I mean hipsters, whatever. I met one ten years ago and was going to do a graphics job for him, but it never came to fruition.
I have reached out to bunch of people to do an interview? I couldn’t find anyone. I am just picking up information. I just go over to my corner store.
Yes, I was going say that.
I just chat with the guys working there. They let go of a bit of information. Whatever, as you know it’s an enigma, it’s a complexity.
It is so multicultural, which is fantastic, but then it is also hard, as you said, to get cohesion.
Yeah. No, it’s impossible.
It’s impossible to get a coalition of people together, because they’re so disparate, right? And different lifestyles, different ideas. It is very hard to get a consensus.
So, the people who come into government, right, are some of the people who can get a consensus. They’re a group who are very organized and have a cohesive message, which may not be the message of the majority. But, because they have that organization, cohesion and financial support, they’re able get into government and do the policies that match their values, if that makes sense.
Yeah, yeah. Of course, you’re familiar, we’re in a kind of multicultural crisis worldwide.
Oh yeah.
England is just freaking out.
Un huh.
New York is about is about to go socialist—and, umm, that’s why I really love Oakland.
Yeah.
Well, first of all: California!
Of course.
I did interview a guy in my neighborhood who ran a little league [baseball team] and he would take the kids to the Bay—they had never seen it before. But, of course, you know, someone has a car, and they could drive in two minutes—
Yeah.
to the Bay. But they’re not interested.
[His neighborhood is] called Ghost Town and is right next to my neighborhood, and now there is brewery called Ghost Town. I was offended by that. It’s like having a bar in Auschwitz called The Gas Chamber.
Yeah, that’s not, that’s not…
But, whatever. It is beneficial, you know, it brings business, people. There is taco truck there.
Yeah.
West Oakland is booming, I don’t know if you’ve been to Raimundi Park?
Yes, it’s amazing, Prescott Market, all of it, yeah!
But, it seems to me that—I love Prescott Market, it’s all very multicultural—but they’re all techies knocking down 150 Gs a year. At some point, they’re going to have nothing of [common] interest with Celeste Guap and her family.
And, ah, I don’t see how we’re going to grow together.
Exactly. We are growing more apart. I think that is what it is, and the resources are also being spread more apart. So, I do agree. The people who need it the most are not always the beneficiaries.
And also, there was this: maybe I sent it to you? The Bay Area Council Economic Institute just put out a report about Oakland and how the public safety is affecting the economy.
Of course.
We already know, like duh!
They put facts and figures and everything else in it. [They showed] just how, yes, there may be areas that are booming, comparatively, but in the majority of Oakland, business is down. Businesses are leaving, real estate values are going down, rents are… everything is dropping. Business tax revenue is going down because there are less businesses.
The main reason why is people are not comfortable going into those areas because they don’t feel safe. And the businesses themselves are being broken into. It is too expensive to run a business in Oakland because of all that overhead [from the theft] and they’re leaving. [The report] quantified and they did surveys and everything else to show that.
Even though you have nice pockets [of the city]—what looks to be really awesome things—not enough people are coming down into Oakland, even from the East Bay.
When they should! We’re like the number one foodie city in the country!
It was voted number one by Conde Nast! I don’t know how that happened.
But hey—even with that—people are still not coming!
What I assume happened is that: In the Covid bust, rents became very available, and there are foodies all over the Bay Area, and they looked over—and there were a bunch of new building—
Yeah, there were.
And they said, ‘It is pretty cheap,’ and they moved in and started doing new stuff.
I actually put that out on my building chat, and one of the people in the building runs a Korean restaurant. I said, ‘Did anyone else notice this happening, becoming number one restaurant [city in US].’ He said, ‘Yes, and I am one of them. I started,’ such and such a place.
It’s a huge industry and experimental, and there is so much of it.
But, you know, the majority of Oakland—they were surprised. ‘What do you mean number one?’ ‘What are you talking about?’ Again, it is because, I think, not many people are going to those places from Oakland. From the East Bay, no one is coming to shop in Oakland.
Well, June’s Pizzeria in West Oakland—
June’s is different.
You’re going to have these amazing spots. But, as a whole, the economy is down, because people aren’t coming. Places like June, places like Raimundi, places like Prescott show the amazing potential of the city. The amazing potential—and the fact that we are not reaching that [potential] across the city. I mean, right?
To deal with the crime… Well, Armstrong, he started a few things—I don’t think he started this one thing—but they were paying parolees to go to parole meetings, a little amount. Twenty bucks if you do this, 50 bucks if you do that, and it was working.
That is the thing that is so amazing, four miles from [Oakland] down Telegraph is UC Berkeley, you could walk it. It would take you about one hour.
Yeah, yeah.
One time, I was at party, and I mention I had been at Castlemont High School doing a photo shoot. I said, ‘Boy, that place is rough,’ and she said, ‘It’s not that bad. We got 30 people into Ivy League colleges last year.’ I said, ‘Really?’ ‘Yeah, I’m the head of advanced placement.’
And so, the combination of money, and intellect and talent, and poverty and tragedy, and where it can bleed across. The opportunity, you know. Huey Newton’s brother Melvin became a professor at Laney [College], I think.
For those who want to get out of it, it is possible. But some don’t. They’re rebels and, of course, rebels get the girls. And they get respect in the hood.
Un huh.
Now this guy Charles Cosby is the type you need to bring out and talk about… whatever. I’m just spit-balling here.
That is why, I think, in the city, there are plenty non-profits that provide the mentoring, that provide the coaching, that try to do these preventive practices, right? Try to change that culture.
Yeah. It seems there are actually more non-profits than anywhere else.
Yes, that is correct. It seems that way.
And I think a lot of it comes from right around here [the Oakland Hills].
Yes. I think it is a great thing because the need is there. The need is certainly there.
The flip side of it is: Who is watching where is the money coming from? Is it being used appropriately? Especially if it is city money—but that’s a whole other story. But yes, the need is definitely there.
Oakland has got such diversity but also such disparity that you need to do something in order to bridge that gap.
Yeah.
The study I was telling you about: If you want to fix the economy, you got to fix public safety. And to fix public safety, number one—and I agree with all their recommendations—you have get the police out of federal oversight. If you do that, you free up the police of a lot of administrative work, which the police currently does, which they don’t really need to do.
The second one they said was, we need to fix the civilian police oversight agencies that we have. We have too many! We have the Police Commission, then the investigative branch of the Police Commission, and then the audit branch of the Police Commission. There are three separate ones.
And the only one that has law enforcement experience is the audit branch. So the people doing the investigations and the people doing the policy work have no law enforcement policy or practice experience.
So this is just the Woke Mafia?
Exactly. They are saying you need to revise that. You can still have community members, [but] make it one organization. Still have community members, but also have law enforcement to be part of that process, too. And they said, if you have civilians out there, and they have this much power, it is very easy for them to become manipulated.
Which is what is happening now.
Yup. And the $20 million for dealing with the [federal] oversight, that is the salaries for 80 police officers we’ve been waiting for 25 years!
Exactly! We could save a ton more money, and make our officers more efficient, if we get [relief from federal oversight].
I thought it was very interesting. A lot people say, ‘Oh yes, if we have more police everything would be fine,’ and I agree with them, but you also have to think about the policy aspect and the oversight aspect.
And you need more MACRO—I mean, 26 people, man! Three calls a day?
But you have to make sure that MACRO can really respond to those calls. Because, currently, there are so many regulations about what calls they can take. That’s why they only take three [calls] from OPD. If you are going to do something like that, make sure they are trained, and that you have the policy, whatever, the requirements, so they can actually offload case.
Because, currently, they can’t.
A friend told me, when they put the call out for MACRO, 1500 people went down—I think that’s what he told me.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
People are interested.
Well, Curtis Silva, he’s kind of a right-wing guy, and he is still running for mayor of New York.
Ha, ha, ha.
But, you know, he actually had people out on the streets and patrolling neighborhoods, you know.
Oakland actually did that in 2006, very briefly. So, in 2006 the murder rate jumped back up. And people were so freaked out, because of the Crack ‘80s—there were the Crack ‘90s, too.
Yes, yes.
They were only ten years out, and they were so freaked out. Pastors and council members started walking the streets of East Oakland. And [the murder rate] went down, it really had an effect.
I would have thought the Woke Mafia would have done something like that, instead of just complaining. It seems like a pretty good way to make your presence known and to be useful, that sort of thing.
I agree. There are a lot of word: you have to do more ‘community policing’ and you have to do more ‘violence prevention.’ And that’s great, but you also have to have enforcement. There is a lot of talk and lot of money going into things, but there’s not boots on the ground.
It’s not transferring over.
They do actually have an immense amount of programs. I haven’t done a comparative study, but paying the parolees, all the different things. They had midnight basketball, before Covid.
Covid obviously hit a lot. And it is still on its way out, and we are still trying to rebuild.
Covid was bizarre. There was no traffic law in West Oakland. People just running right through red lights—well, they would look both ways.
Ha, ha. Well, it is still like that!
Currently right now, in the past three years, [many] pedestrian deaths. There’s been over 30 people who die on the streets of Oakland every year, from pedestrian and bicyclist due to automobiles, due to speeding and running red lights.
And that is just appalling—it is the highest in the area!
Yup.
Um, so, you know, when these activists talk about they want less [police] pursuits? What is happening currently? The number of people fleeing police has gone up by 300%. We have more people fleeing, the police just can’t pursue them.
There is a sense of lawlessness out there. You can get away with running red lights, you can get away with speeding, because no one is going to really catch you, right? I think there is a relationship between that. There is a relationship between quote unquote this sense of lawlessness, people just not following the rules anymore, and now, unfortunately, more people being killed.
Yup, yeah, that is true.
But you are still committed to Oakland? Or?
Yes, of course! Ha.
I think my number one goal is policy.
It is trying to counter the narrative, that is in the civilian oversight [people] and even in city government. There is this narrative that police are lazy, police don’t do their jobs, we don’t need that many police. That’s what I am trying to counter, really.
And it is the data and fact of just showing up at these meetings and saying [what I know]. The problem is: the only people who are showing at these meetings and speaking, as members of the public, are these activists!
Yup, so you show up?
I show up, and I am not a member of anybody. I’m just a homeowner, showing up to these meetings to counter that.
So, you get up and speak?
Oh yeah, I have been, for like a year. And I bring facts. I bring data, just like the article that you read [see it here].
It was very good, actually.
And that’s what I bring up, what you read.
And you have some journalism experience?
None, I am just a physician. This is my first foray into anything like this.
What do your neighbors think? Are people supporting you?
Oh completely.
If I didn’t have the support of my neighbors… That’s why I go. I am going there to represent my neighbors. I bring neighbors with me. We car pool in my minivan. Many speak as well. I encourage them. I say, ‘Just say what you think. You have one or two minutes and just speak your mind.’
But when we go there, we get heckled by those people, they boo us.
And are they mostly People of Color, or mostly White?
Both. It’s just the activists, those same activists show up every time. This is the first time they have had a countering [opinion], someone coming in with something different to say. They are challenged by it.
Instead of trying to go against the message, they go against the messenger.
Ad homonym?
They call me racist. They call me Trumpist. They say I am a plant from the Police Union.
You are what?!?
I’m a plant from the Police Union. I have come up and said, ‘Nope, I have no relationship with any of these people. I’m not paid.’ I am as a homeowner, as a mom, because I want a safer city.
I am here because I care.
Aah.
And they can’t seem to make sense of that. I have been a pain in their side.
What I do, I try to expose. I try to share this message with my neighbors. We have our neighborhood council. Just share that this is what has been going on in the city. It has been going unchecked for years.
So, if you don’t like it, come and speak up. Ha, ha, ha.
Absolutely. Well, you are doing God’s work. It is an incredible thing to have so many communities jammed into one municipality. I guess Montclair is not part of Oakland?
It is!
Ah, Piedmont is not part of Oakland.
The City of Piedmont is surrounded by Oakland. It has its own separate police, its own city government.
But this area [Montclair]—we’re all Oakland.
It’s fabulous, and it goes on for ten miles
Ha ha ha. Our city is fantastic. I love going to all parts of our city. I’ve worked in all parts of our city. I have walked it.
As a physician?
Yes.
I used to do wound care in nursing homes. I would go to nursing homes in West and East Oakland, and I treat the patients there. I talk to the nurses and the staff and everyone else. So, I am familiar with these different areas of Oakland.
Unfortunately, you know, when I come and speak, the Police Commissioners [say], ‘We only hear complaints from people not affected by crime. And your views really don’t matter.’ Another Commissioner said, ‘If you are criticizing the Commission, you are anti-Black.’ So, that was discouraging.
Hold on, a commissioner said, ‘If you are criticizing us, you’re anti-Black’?
Yeah, and that was when I brought 15 of my neighbors to the Police Commission to speak up, supporting the police chief in his changes to the pursuit policy.
Was that Mitchell at that time?
Yeah, Mitchell.
This was just a few months ago. That was their response to that. From there, I told my neighbors, ‘There is no point in coming to these meetings. You are not going to be able to change their minds.’
They are actively trying to dissuade other views.
Un huh.
I changed the strategy to go to the city council meetings, because they are elected officials. They do listen to the constituents and, actually, you do make more headway there. And they have more power. And they will respond to feedback whereas the Commission is unelected, and they can sort of do whatever they want.
They’re not held accountable by the public.
Right, right. So, it is basically people protecting their turf, shouting you down. Just accusing you—
Exactly.
Because they have had that turf for a long time. They’ve had nobody come and counter that narrative. Like ever! Then I showed up.
I am not some, I don’t know… I am educated, I speak well, I come with data. I am not just like yelling at them or anything like that. Over time I hope I develop a little bit of credibility, right? In order to counter that.
Do you ever think of running for City Coun—
No way, no!
I think of myself as I cheerleader for Oakland, right? I want to spread awareness—that’s number one—spread awareness, educate, encourage participation.
The more your voter base is engaged and participating, then they are going to make better decisions when it comes to the ballot box. And that’s where change can happen. That’s the only reason I am doing this. I am not interested in any political job.
Are there any City Councilors from up in the Hills? There must be one or two.
Our District Four City Councilmember lives up here, Janani Ramachandran, she lives up here in the Hills. Usually everyone else lives in their district.
Yes, OK. Well, incredible work you’re doing.
I hope it was helpful.
Yes, very helpful.
This interview was done on 7/12/25. For more on Dr. Mandal, see "From Peru to Oakland: An Indian American Journey". Posted on Aug 28, 2025 - 05:43 AM
