Homicides could affect attorney general race

The number of killings so far this year is nearly triple last year’s rate, according to Oakland police.

"He will be held responsible for that,” Elizabeth Garrett, a law professor at the University of Southern California. "It doesn’t surprise me that he’s acting quickly to appear to take charge of the situation.” Though, she added, it may be too late to affect the outcome of the June 6 primary.

Brown has created a new crime suppression unit, with 115 police officers reassigned from other areas, that will target problem areas.

"We are going to move them around the city like a chessboard, so they’re deployed more strategically,” said Capt. David Kozicki, who’s in charge of the new unit.

For example, 16 officers are investigating three homicides that occurred Thursday rather than the 10 who would have investigated prior to the change, he said.

"It’s being flexible,” Kozicki said. "Criminals adapt and we need to show that we’re going to adapt right with them.”

But Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, who’s running against Brown, calls that approach too reactive and has sent out of series of blistering news releases expressing his displeasure and Brown’s ineptitude.

"(Brown’s) been asleep at the switch,” said Delgadillo, who points to his hardscrabble youth on the eastside of Los Angeles as his crime-fighting experience. "I wouldn’t have allowed this to happen. I believe very firmly that one needs to be proactive.”

Delgadillo, who attended Harvard University, earned a law degree from Columbia Law School and was elected city attorney in 2001, said he’s implemented measures that fight crime at its roots. He pointed to a truancy reduction program; a neighborhood prosecutor program, designed to put more criminals behind bars; and gang injunctions, which attempt to limit gang activity in certain areas.

Brown called Delgadillo’s attacks "cheap political rhetoric from a guy who sits behind a desk and has no idea how to fight crime effectively.”

Both men want to challenge state Sen. Chuck Poochigian of Fresno who’s seeking the GOP nomination.

"I would bet the television ads are being made,” said Mike Spence, president of the California Republican Assembly, a conservative grass-roots organization, adding Oakland’s increasing homicides will be a big liability for Brown. "Oakland was his only hope of shedding his soft on crime image.”

While serving as California’s governor from 1974 to 1982, Brown vetoed the death penalty bill — which the Legislature subsequently overrode — and he appointed Supreme Court Judge Rose Bird, who was ousted by voters in 1986 for her anti-death penalty rulings.

He has since said he’d have no problems enforcing California’s death penalty laws.

Brown, who initially shocked observers when he first ran for Oakland mayor in 1998, now wants to replace Democratic Attorney General Bill Lockyer, who is forbidden by term limits from running again. His father, former Gov. Pat Brown, served two terms as attorney general.

"My job as mayor is to take the streets back from the criminals,” Jerry Brown said. "What they’re doing is they’re increasing their havoc and we’re increasing our response. This is what it’s about. ... There are these spikes in crime and the cops go out and fight them.”

Ultimately, voters will hold the mayor responsible for Oakland’s crime rate, Garrett said.

"He does have to be very concerned about a spike in crime in Oakland,” she said, "even if it’s for reasons out of his control.”<