Residents of houseboats and yachts in San Francisco Bay have spoken out about increasing incidents of piracy from pirates robbing and pillaging their watercraft.
“The beach is open [Oakland-Alameda] The estuary is littered with shipwrecks and abandoned ships, the end of life, and crime has risen to a level that is truly unbearable,” said former harbormaster Brock de Lappe during an enforcement meeting of the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, according to Fox News Monday Digital report.
“Various ships have been stolen and ransacked. Victims are forced to personally confront criminals to recover their property without the help of the police. Is this activity suitable for a 79-year-old senior?”
A resident told the store he was kayaking to help a man who called for help Tuesday night.
“They were screaming, ‘Help me, help me, help me. Somebody help me.’ And I went there in my kayak with a headlight, and there was a sailboat drifting in the estuary, and with my kayak I pulled it to shore,” said the woman, who did not give her name for fear of reprisals.
The sailor in need was a “panicked and frightened young man” who said the pirates had cut his line during the confrontation.
Thieves have stolen boats or used abandoned old canoes to board large ships and yachts in the Oakland-Alameda Estuary, residents said. Dan Hill
“If there had been wind at that time, I wouldn’t have been able to go out there and save this young man who didn’t have a motor and didn’t have the ability to sail the boat,” he said.
An alarming piracy trend has hit the Alameda Community Sailing Center, where four of their safety boats, valued between $25,000 and $35,000 each, were stolen or destroyed, Fox Business reported Saturday.
“We cannot run our program without these boats,” owner Kame Richards reportedly wrote in a letter to the township commission.
“The feedback we received from APD [Alameda Police Department] is that they cannot do anything, and a warning not to approach the perpetrators if we find our boat” Richards added, claiming that it took 35 hours to get a police report from the police.
Four of the Alameda Community Cruise Center’s powerboats were stolen by thieves after they docked in the Oakland Harbor area, the center’s owner said. Dan Hill
“We called them right after it happened, and they said, ‘Hang on, we’re going to send an officer.’ It was dinner time, and still no officers. . . . Then they said they couldn’t help us, and their best advice was to find the boat but don’t go near the culprit,” Richards’ letter said.
“We refused to heed that advice… We were able to take all our boats, and another RIB [rigid inflatable boat] which was stolen from the Golden Gate Yacht Club.
“How much is this boat replacement going to be paid by our insurance company before they take us down? We cannot continue our program without RIB and cannot continue without insurance.”
The episode was downplayed by police in an interview with Fox News Digital last week.
“Crime is the perception of crime and the actual presence of crime,” said Alameda PD Chief Nishant Joshi.
“And I say that because even, of the total number of incidents generated in the city of Alameda, less than one percent of them are associated with all of our marinas.”
Alameda Police Chief Nishant Joshi downplayed reports of hijacked boats, saying “less than one percent of crime” in his jurisdiction occurs on the water. Fox News Some residents claim Oakland’s homeless epidemic is linked to piracy, a conclusion police say is not supported by evidence.Seneca Scott
Joshi added that the police were dealing with piracy complaints with “increased” patrols and efforts to “educate” the sea farming community.
Some residents believe the flood of crime in the Oakland Estuary, the channel that separates Oakland from the suburban island community of Alameda, comes from Oakland’s homeless population.
One voiced their suspicions last month after noticing more small boats tied up around a homeless camp in the city’s Union Point Park. Oakland, a city of 433,000 people is now home to more than 9,700 homeless people, a 22% increase since before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the nonprofit EveryOne Home.
“And you wonder, where do they get these boats? Small boats are expensive,” said Jamie Camacho. “Maybe they took what little money they had to buy it, but it, you know … I know a lot of friends who have lost their little boats and their outboard motors.”
“We have not done in-depth research to identify specific groups in society who are committing these crimes,” Joshi said.
Suspected bandits use small boats to board larger ships and yachts in port. Dan Hill
“But I think of course anyone in a challenged position will turn to crime when they’re desperate.”
The Oakland Police Department has only one officer trained to operate a police boat assigned to protect waterways around the city.
“Fighting crime on the water is difficult, because we only have one full-time marine officer, and that’s myself,” Officer Kaleo Albino told CBS Bay Area last month.
“But in the city of Oakland Police Department, we tend to make things work with what we have, and I’ve trained about ten other maritime officers on how to operate the vessel. So, the ship is available more hours than I am here.”
The Coast Guard was recently enlisted to help protect the area, San Francisco’s ABC affiliate reported last month.
“On waterways, it’s very difficult to draw a line,” Joshi said last week. “There are no roads or fence lines, so we all have a shared interest, just like crime as a whole, to tackle this as a regional approach.”
The increased patrols came after boathouse resident Michael West told CBS he and his neighbors took action on their own instead of calling authorities.
“One in this marina had to defend himself with a weapon against the pirates. And that’s where it is right now,” West said on September 10.
“Everybody here has a gun or a knife or a sword or a stick or something, you know, to protect themselves.”
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
