Nearly a week after Oakland Mayor Jean Quan’s chief of staff said the mayor’s 100-block crime initiative was based on flawed data, Quan acknowledged the mistake but insisted that her crime plan is nonetheless valid and sound, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Quan admitted she did not thoroughly examine the data that led to her error on what is arguably the city’s most pressing issue: violent crime.
For eight months, Quan has erroneously claimed that 90 percent of the city’s homicides and shootings occur in 100 of the city’s 6,560 blocks – and that propping up these areas would essentially reduce violence citywide. “As mayor, I probably should have taken more time to analyze the data myself and read it myself,” she said. “I didn’t. I’ll take full responsibility for the error of using that particular statistic.” Quan emphasized that the mistake did not undermine her plan, which is supposed to infuse affected areas with extra public services, including policing.