Dullums Says 'I Love Crime' -- Plans To Run City Singlehandedly

It appears as if all the rodents are jumping off the sinking ship that is the government in the City of Oakland.

Yesterday, Police Chief Wayne Tucker tendered his resignation, creating yet another vacancy in the upper echelons of the city's governance structure. Not surprisingly, nearly every single interested observer other than Mayor Dullums views this development as a good thing.

By most accounts, the police department descended into chaos under Tucker's "leadership" while violent crime soared. Supposedly the only thing Tucker has done well is to implement parts of the Riders settlement -- which has helped decrease the department's homicide closure rate while failing to decrease the number of scandals and botched investigations. Most view this as a pretty negative thing.

Except Dullums. Apparently he's been holding his crime reports upside down this entire time, so he thought Oakland was sitting at a multi-year violence nadir.

Whatever the reason, he was the force stopping Tucker from resigning in recent months. And, after the chief's resignation, Dullums had only good things to say about his tenure. I suppose there's no merit in pointing out that the hundreds of grieving families with relatives shot dead in Oakland's killing fields might tend to disagree.

The only other item worthy of note in this story is the rapidly shrinking number of lieutenants surrounding Dullums. He has still failed to appoint a permanent City Administrator, and it seems likely he will do the same with the position of Police Chief. Perhaps eventually we'll be left a lawless and blighted city with only one remaining public official -- a very, very sleepy mayor.

It makes you wonder if Dullums' master plan is to destroy as much of Oakland as possible so he can pick up real estate on the cheap, resign and then make a bundle.