OAKLAND, California — Brenda Grisham had just celebrated the holidays with her family in Oakland on Dec. 31, 2010, when tragedy struck.
They were about to leave for church from their home on 73rd Ave. and Fresno St. when two rival gangs started to fight nearby. One opened fire, then the other.
Grisham’s daughter was shot first. Her son, Christopher LeVell Jones, ran to the car to get his niece but was fatally hit by a bullet. He was 17 years old.
Since then, Grisham has emerged as one of Oakland’s most vocal voices, speaking out against violence and corruption as she seeks justice not only in memory of her son but for the hundreds of families who have lost loved ones in Oakland’s crime-filled streets. She’s become an advocate for victims and their family members and has turned into a major thorn in Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price’s side.
2024 ELECTIONS LIVE UPDATES: LATEST NEWS ON THE TRUMP-HARRIS PRESIDENTIAL RACE
“My interaction with District Attorney Price, even back in March, concerning the way she spoke to some families was appalling,” Grisham told the Washington Examiner. Grisham said Price waved away family members and said she was too busy to listen to their concerns.
“She chose to disrespect those families in my presence, and then she attacked me and never apologized,” Grisham added. “I expected her to change course and come apologize to the moms but that never happened. It just continued and continued, and the disrespect continued.”
In fact, there’s so much bad blood between Grisham and Price that Grisham’s name is the first on the recall petition against the new district attorney.
Like Grisham, business owners, residents, and visitors to Oakland and other parts of Alameda County say they don’t feel safe in their community and blame Price. Most want her out of office.
Alameda County voters will have the power to do just that on Tuesday when they vote on whether to recall Price.
The outcome is a pivotal moment for the future of how criminal cases are prosecuted across the liberal California county, which was described to the Washington Examiner as “a land of lawlessness” and “the new Detroit of the 80s” by resident Javier Jones.
“There is more dysfunction and corruption here,” Jones said. “It’s exactly how it used to be in Detroit. Price doesn’t know what she’s doing and has gone from being inept to dangerous.”
Price is a former defense and civil rights attorney. She had never prosecuted a single case when she was elected to the prestigious position. On the campaign trail, she promised criminal justice reforms and a “new era at the DA’s Office” if she was elected. She got a big financial boost from billionaire Democratic mega-donor George Soros and Laurene Powell Jobs, widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, when she first ran for the job in 2018. She lost that race but ran again in 2022 and edged out Terry Wiley, the county’s chief deputy district attorney.
Soros, who funneled more than $5 million into his fundraising PAC, the California Justice & Public Safety, from 2018 to 2020, has turned off the money tap to Price and Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon this election cycle. Both are deeply unpopular, facing a recall, and in danger of getting kicked out of office.
It would be a hard fall for Price, the first-ever black woman to serve as Alameda County’s top prosecutor. When she was sworn in, she was very clear about her liberal agenda, and excitement started to build.
She vowed to overhaul the way the district attorney’s office conducted business, which included prohibiting the use of sentencing enhancements, a tool prosecutors use to increase the penalty for a crime by adding time to a base sentence. She also sought to resentence felons facing long prison terms, end the practice of charging minors as adults, and crack down on police misconduct.
Price said her leadership would ensure progressive justice for diverse and often disenfranchised communities. But less than a year after she took the oath of office, residents (fed up by her handling of crime) started the recall process.
The challenge to Price marks the second recall effort in two years of a liberal district attorney in the Bay Area. The first took place in 2022 with the recall of San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin.
If Price’s recall is successful, it would be a blow to the type of criminal justice reform championed by Price, Boudin, and Soros. If Price is able to beat the recall, it would send a powerful message that voters in Alameda County are still on board with the progressive agenda despite all of the problems.
“I am not in favor of recalls in general because I think it costs too much money and time, but Price has got to go,” George Latvilla told the Washington Examiner. Latvilla has lived in Oakland for four decades and said leadership, city services, and crime have cratered under Price.
Edward Escobar of Coalition for Community Engagement/Citizens United is backing the recall. He said that Price prioritizes the rights of criminals over victims and has shrugged off her promise to fight for minorities, particularly with Oakland’s Asian American population, which saw a surge in hate crimes.
“She talks about reforming the criminal justice system, but it’s her version that is dysfunctional; it’s defective,” he told the Washington Examiner. “She says, ‘Oh, the perpetrators are victims too.’ I’m sorry, but you don’t say that to the real victims of crime. I agree with her that criminals are the victims of the social economic injustice that has occurred, but that’s not her job. She’s guinea pigging the people as a social experiment.”
Escobar said he takes issue with Price’s willingness to drop gun enhancement charges.
“Remember the phrase ‘Get a gun, go to prison’? Now it’s ‘Use a gun and hey — you might be more successful and there no consequences,’” Escobar said.
Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) has also thrown his weight behind the recall effort.
“Pamela Price has failed the people of the East Bay, and we are uniting to seek her recall from office,” the California Democrat, who accused Price of being too lenient, said. “The cops catch, and Price releases.”
Price’s office has also been dinged for missing filing deadlines on more than 1,000 misdemeanor cases which have been collecting dust on her desk. The San Francisco Chronicle, in its endorsement of the recall, called her inaction a “stunning miscarriage of justice” that “left victims hanging and eliminated rehabilitation and accountability for offenders.”
In the short time Price has been in office, she has been accused of punishing opponents, hiring allies with questionable credentials, including her own boyfriend, ignoring public disclosure laws, and demonstrating a level of incompetence that is in its own league, according to those who have been on the receiving end of her ire, Grisham said. Most recently, Price has been accused of trying to extort money from a political rival.
Before she was sworn in, Price had never prosecuted a case. She promised voters she would be ready to hit the ground running on Day One and boasted that she would hire a crack team with “proven records of leading justice reforms” to support her.
Her team included Royl Roberts, a man who passed the California bar just six months prior to being hired by Price. The other chief assistant she hired was Otis Bruce Jr., who was recruited from the Marin County prosecutor’s office while he was under investigation there. The results of that investigation revealed he had shown gender bias, made disparaging remarks, and often intimidated young women. Then there was Eric Lewis, a former Oakland Police Department deputy chief who was given the option to retire or be fired in 2021. Price then hired her boyfriend, Antwon Cloird, as a senior program specialist, giving him a six-figure salary for a job that was never publicly advertised.
Price has pushed back on claims she is not suitable for office and has blamed the push to oust her on outside special interest groups and billionaires.
“Alameda County is not for sale,” she said, noting its progressive roots. “This is the home of Earl Warren and the Black Panther Party. We are the Democratic Party of Barbara Lee.”
Last week, she and about 100 supporters held a rally outside the Alameda County courthouse.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“We are in the midst of a resistance that is more loud than massive,” she said, adding that the recall against her “weaponizes people’s grief and pain” and seeks to silence the voice of supporters of criminal justice reform.
Emeryville City Council Member Kalimah Priforce acknowledged Price “does not use a one-size-fits-all maximum punishment for every case approach” but instead “looks to address the root causes of crime.”
