Oakland Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong recalls the peaceful streets of his youth

OAKLAND — As Police Chief LaRonne Armstrong walks through the West Oakland neighborhood of his youth, a smile lights up his face.

It’s one of the few smiles he’s had over the last month as the devastating toll of a gang turf war continues to mount and shootings have become nearly a nightly occurrence.

At a recent news conference covering developments in the latest round of homicide investigations, Armstrong got to the heart of the problem.

“We got to get guns out of the hands of young people,” the chief told reporters. “It’s not just a police issue. That is an issue for families. These things start at home. In this moment, if we care about our children, we have to make sure they are safe. Far too many kids have access to guns.”  

So when he strolled through his old neighborhood with KPIX’s Juliette Goodrich, you could not fault the chief for letting his thoughts drift back to a more peaceful time.

“Some days I’d just ride my bike of dribble a ball here,” he said in a park near 13th and Willow streets. “The neighborhood was always a close knit community. Everybody knew each other. They knew my mother. They knew my grandfather who owned a business a couple blocks down.”

Armstrong recalled a time that many who grew up in small towns across the country can easily identify with.

“My mother could call me from the porch,” he said. “When it was dinner time, she’d come onto the porch and scream my name and I could hear her and I’d know it was time to come home…We’d just run home for a snack and come right back (to the park).”

Now, Armstrong said people are living in fear.

“People don’t feel safe,” he said. “They can’t come out here without feeling that something is going to happen.”

To make Oakland safer and return it to the idyllic moments of the past, Armstrong said the justice system must take a tougher approach.

“In so many of our shooting and homicides, what we’ve been surprised is that people would take those kinds of actions,” he said. “Again, it is people’s brief that they won’t be held accountable. So when people lose faith and start believing that they can get away with these kinds of things, they do more brazen things.”

So far this year there has been 101 homicides in Oakland.