I Drove Into Oakland's Most Dangerous Hoods. It Was Nuts.

How does a city get to this point??

Oakland California. It’s been dangerous here since the 1960s when crime began to increase. By the end of the 70s, Oakland’s murder rate was twice of nearby San Francisco and even New York City. Crime here peaked in the early 1990s, when gangs made parts of this city a warzone. Today, it appears those numbers are getting close to where they were at their peak in 1993.

This is international drive, which bisects east oakland. According to crime stats, two thirds of all violent Oakland crime happens here in east oakland, despite the fact that this part of town only has about a third of this city’s population. This is also by far the poorest part of Oakland.

Now we’re going to head into two really bad and dangerous neighborhoods in east oakland where crime is the worst. Both are on the western side of international blvd. The first one is here, in an area which is called the Coliseum neighborhood. Now if you know anything about Oakland, you know that anything near the Coliseum is bad news. Here’s the map of the route I would take.

The day was fairly nice - the skies were party cloudy and it was about 65’. It was late in the day on a Thursday in late October, 2021. Let’s enter the hood

Now the first thing you’ll notice is all the bars on the windows and the bars on the street line and the fences and the barbed wire. It was hard to find a house in this entire neighborhood that wasn’t walled or fenced in or where there weren’t any areas to escape.

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[chrisa]

Former Oakland PD here. When he said 1 in 4 crimes are solved, I LOLed. First of all, we don't even show up to most non-violent crimes. We can't. When we log in to our police car terminal at the beginning of the shift, there are between 100-300 calls waiting for just two districts (about 15 officers). Secondly, of the calls that we do show up to, maybe 1 in 20 are solved. So if you include the 9-1-1 crimes that we don't show up to, maybe 1 in 100 are solved. BTW, there are shootings about every hour in the city. Seriously about 20 shootings per day. We don't even get called to more than half of them. EDIT: When I say we don't show up, I mean we don't get dispatched to those crimes. Officers don't simply choose not to go. Officers don't have the option to refuse a call when dispatched.

[stommx]

I live in SE Asia, where poverty levels are way worse than places like Oakland, and crime is basically non-existent. It's not a poverty issue but a cultural one.

[Prme_Zer]

My brother did tours in Iraq and Afghanistan with the Marines. When you came back he became an OPD officer. I asked him whats its like to be a cop in Oakland. He told me he felt safer in the war zones.

[redprimo]

The death knell for Oakland was their mayor's very public announcement that the police would no longer respond to non-violent crime calls.

[immortal.bog.wizard]

Former Oakland resident, just wanted to point out something you said. "Poverty is not the root cause of crime and violence in Oakland, it's dumb people." And then you went on to make remarks against council investing money into the communities. But where do dumb people come from, if not a lack of education and opportunity? Disenfranchised communities are not allotted the same education and learning as other communities, which breeds ground for gangs, drugs, violence, crime because people find themselves without opportunity and resort to these illegal systems because they're accessible. It's a vicious cycle that's been purposefully perpetuated by the government. That's a long time. Would love to hear your take on how we lessen the number of "dumb" people.

Also that 2% being 18million being removed from the police budget, that's an EXORBITANT amount of money.

[youngcoco]

As someone who lives and moves through these areas night and day it’s hella funny watching outsiders talk about it like this. It’s really not that scary I promise mostly just regular people going about their day 😂

[ShadesBlack]

This guy is talking about how terrible it is, but absolutely nothing happened to him during his entire field trip. Fascinating.

[benshore]

My grandfather bought a lot in the hills of Oakland in 1927. He had an architect draw up plans for a house. They lived there until 1950 and then moved to Walnut Creek. The house is still there 🎉

[p.higgins]

Former Oakland CHP Officer here. I did 5-ish years on the graveyard shift. Gun pulled on me @ point blank range my second day on the job... shots fired in my direction about 6 months later on the East side. Sideshows were always a good way to dust up a pursuit during a traffic stop. Lots of guns and drama out there. I'm grateful to have made it out alive.

[WILLYLYNCH.]

The problem is culture. It's not poverty that creates crime. I've lived in a few very poor areas with minimal crime.

[Mike_Davidson]

Nick made sure he drove though the hood at the crack of dawn when everyone’s asleep. 😂😂😂😂

[LouDiamondPhilips]

The man wishing a happy birthday was very sweet bless his heart!

[deemamcdonald]

I've lived in Oakland 32 years of my life and I've never had a problem. I live in one of the neighborhoods in this video, I've never been harmed. I know it's bad people here that cause Oakland to look horrible but it's also a lot of us wonderful people here.

[davidguerra]

I’m a truck driver I got lost in Oakland one day and I remember thinking to myself, am I still in America ? poverty sucks in every way crime, bad school zones, drugs, I pray for the good people that are stuck in neighborhoods like this.

[jcolterh]

My closest friend lives in Oakland. It's amazing how the distance between a good neighborhood and a bad neighborhood is only a 2 minute drive. The good neighborhoods are in the hills the lower you go the worse it gets.

[daledow]

I was talking with Compton resident about 15 years ago. He actually told me how you can tell the good side from the bad side? Me being curious said no how do you tell the difference. He said the bad area had bars on the upstairs windows also. He said with a straight face as he was serious. Now I get into a bad area I automatically look at upstairs windows to see how bad the area is.

[keonterichard]

Imagine driving in Oakland and throw up the bunny ears to a OG

[oaktownlando]

Crazy because I grew up around fenced in houses in Oakland. I always thought that’s just how house were until I went to other cities and found a very different story.

[tamikapate]

I currently live in Deep East Oakland. I live in, work in and love my city. It’s so sad that there is so much crime and murders. And the rent and house prices have the nerve to be high as hell.

[drew]

Had a class with an Oakland Firefighter and he told me that it's so out of control that no one is signing up to become firefighters anymore. Homeless encampmants starting fires, drug overdoses, multiple gunshot wounds, and other various chaotic shitshows are wearing down first responders in Oakland.