An Oakland community activist who had her car stolen while she was working a weekend festival found it the next day in East Oakland. Except it had been stripped bare and surrounded by other Hondas that had been gutted the same way.
She called the spot a “Honda graveyard.”
The site wasn’t new to the people who live around it. Neighbors told KTVU that the corner had been used as a stolen car dumping ground for months before this weekend, and that the abandoned vehicles had only began to be towed away this week. That’s cold comfort for some, however.
Her car is the latest in a pattern of Honda thefts that has frustrated East Oakland residents, and community leaders are now urging police to address what they see as the bigger problem behind it: organized crime rings rather than the individuals taking the vehicles. It’s an issue that’s apparently been going on for some time but has only recently been brought to light.
What unfolded between the car being driven off Saturday and then being stripped has put a single residential block at the center of a question Oakland has been wrestling with for some time. And now the car’s owner as well as the community wants answers about the apparent crime ring.
How the Car Was Stolen
Jazz Hudson, an Oakland community advocate working with a nonprofit at the Malcolm X Jazz Festival at San Antonio Park, had her car stolen off the street Saturday while she was at the event, KTVU reported. The next day, Hudson located the vehicle herself. It seemed to be in what she described as a “Honda graveyard” among other stripped cars.
t had been torn apart, and it wasn’t alone. She found several other Honda vehicles at the same spot. All of them had been given the same treatment, with some still containing personal items including drivers’ IDs. It seemed the same methodical approach had been taken for each theft.
Neighbors Weigh In
A neighbor near the corner told KTVU that his property has been dumping site for stripped vehicles, and that it took months of calls to the Oakland Police Department before officers came out this week to tow the abandoned cars away.
Selena Wilson of the East Oakland Youth Development Center told KTVU she would rather see law enforcement focus on those organizing the thefts than continue arresting the youngsters carrying them out. The community is pointedly calling on OPD to address the root causes instead of the perpetrators alone.
City officials said the Alameda County Regional Auto Theft Task Force is working to identify and stop the crime rings behind the cases. Hudson, still dealing with insurance, has set up a GoFundMe for a replacement vehicle.