Former U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer is maintaining her push for community policing after she was assaulted and robbed Monday in Oakland near Lake Merritt by Jack London Square.
"Looking back on it, it was very scary," Boxer told KCBS Radio’s Rebecca Corral on Tuesday morning. The assailant was practically a child, she said, but they pushed her very hard in the back and stole her phone. Mostly, Boxer was shocked that it was happening at all to her.
At the very least, she said, she wasn’t too scared to yell out after them, "How could they do this to a grandma?"
Boxer is sure the assailant didn’t know she was a former senator. "I was just an easy mark, I’m a little person with gray hair," she said. "Why would you hurt a person who has the potential to love you?"
Boxer has had a small apartment in the area since 2005, and has traversed all over Jack London Square and Broadway without incident before Monday.
The mugger looked barely more than 17 or 18 years old. "Where is the love in the heart of these children?" Boxer asked. "Society, we need to make sure that they feel loved."
"We have to double down in Oakland," she said, on making it the great city that it can be and is starting to be. Boxer believes the A’s need to stay in Oakland, to help the community thrive and keep jobs in the area.
Boxer said that different tactics for policing are also needed.
She said that for the most part, it’s not accurate that Democrats want to defund the police. Instead, there needs to be "more community policing, more good policing, get rid of the bad guys and gals," she said. "We need that multi-pronged approach."
It’s not just Oakland, she said. Crime is a problem nationally.
"I know this city can be incredibly great," she added. "We have to work to make that happen."
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