Bipping is a post pandemic phenomenon that feels as indigenous to the Bay Area as sideshows and Mac Dre murals. I’m aware that it happens in other places but members of the criminal underworld in Oakland have mastered it. As a matter of fact, if it were a college course then it would have to be taught at either Cal State East Bay or UC Berkeley. The art of breaking into cars and stealing all valuables inside of it in 8 seconds or less, taught by Professor Lil Hyfee/Sociology Department/3 units.
Celebrities like Alex Rodriguez, B. Simone, and Lyfe Jennings have all been victims of this crime. And tens of thousands of folks just trying to make a living, get their cars hit up every single day in The Town. People like me.
Last summer I got my car window broken and I literally had nothing inside my car. I caught them trying to pull down my backseat and get into my trunk. I screamed, “Yooooo!!” and the wiry teenager got into an awaiting car and they drove off. I felt frustrated, violated, and enraged. I had to pay $475. The vandals were off to the next car with no consequence. That was over a year ago. Now thieves have gotten even more brazen, but how? Why? Don’t they face any repercussions for doing this? Well, according to Assistant Chief Tony Jones as well as the rest of the Oakland Police Department, the answer is No.
In a video recently uploaded to X, he stated in what appears to be a town hall meeting, that because of Prop. 47 if they catch someone in the act of breaking into a car and that person has an ID then they must cite them and let them go. But San Francisco public defender Jesse Hsieh rebutted this claim. He said that smash and grabs and car burglaries are indeed felonies and he gets several cases for felony car burglaries. He went on to say that he was trying to figure out how the same crimes are felonies in San Francisco but citable offenses in Oakland. Then there was silence. Finally, Assistant Police Chief Tony Jones says, “Well maybe I misspoke.”
No potna! You did not misspeak. The Oakland Police Department is intentionally letting people rob The Town blind. Admit that you all are still harboring a lot of resentment from the Black Lives Matter/Defund the Police Movement. And now you want to bring every activist and George Floyd sympathizer to their knees for being recalcitrant. Once we beg you for forgiveness (a process that some have already started in the media and in city council meetings) then you will be able to hire an abundance of police, change laws to arrest more people which will ultimately lead to more prisons being built, and then you all will be able to get back to aggressively shaking down innocent Black people who look “suspicious,” and there will be no organization powerful enough to chastise you because all you’ll need to say in your own defense is; “You see what happens when we let them run amuck. Let us do our jobs or the mass bipping will come back tomorrow.”
See video here!
And I know all of this may sound like a conspiracy. I don’t deny being a conspiracy theorist because, as a wise person once said, “The only difference between a conspiracy theory and the truth is time.” The fact that a city such as Oakland situated just north of the Silicon Valley, right across the Bay from San Francisco, with an International airport, a major league baseball team, a rich legacy, and over 420,000 residents can decide to decriminalize car burglaries is beyond absurd. We should all be very concerned about our Assistant Police Chief’s comments and how they have led to a golden age for Bippers in Oakland.