First Steps Taken to Launch Recall Campaign Against Alameda County DA Pamela Price

This story contains a correction.

A recall campaign targeting progressive Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price has taken its first steps toward launching.

On Tuesday, the committee Save Alameda for Everyone (SAFE): Recall DA Price, registered with Alameda County, filing documents that went public Wednesday.

It’s a necessary requirement before fundraising, which will be used to gather signatures in an effort to launch a recall campaign against Price. The Alameda County DA has been under scrutiny from advocates of tough-on-crime policies for her efforts to reform the district attorney’s office.

Brenda Grisham is the principal officer on the committee to recall Price. Grisham’s 17-year-old son was shot and killed outside their East Oakland home in 2010, launching her work as an advocate for violence prevention.

Another officer on the committee to recall Price is Carl Chan, leader of the Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce.

“We are doing this on behalf of people in the county, and we just want to keep people safe. Especially seniors, children and families. They deserve protection and making sure that we have the proper law and order in place to protect everyone,” Chan told KQED.

Chan became outspoken in support of police and more prosecutions of crime after a rise in anti-AAPI hate in the Bay Area and the nation. Chan himself was assaulted in 2021. He said his attacker yelled either “Chinatown” or “Chinaman” at him before punching him.

Lauren Richardson, communications coordinator for Price’s political campaign, said it was important to emphasize that Price won 53% of the vote in her election.

“She has overwhelming support in Alameda County,” Richardson said. She argued that there are people who profit from the numerous recalls of progressive district attorneys nationally. “They’ll think Ms. Price will be an easy pushover. And I think they are sadly mistaken,” Richardson said.

Price took office in January this year after defeating Terry Wiley, a prosecutor who worked for Price’s predecessor, Nancy O’Malley. On the campaign trail, Price promised progressive reforms, including not charging juveniles as adults, sentencing reform and a pledge to keep a closer eye on police misconduct.

Since assuming office she’s made good on some of those promises, including reopening investigations into eight law enforcement killings and in-custody deaths, and reducing charges in some high-profile cases — much to the vocal dissatisfaction of some in Alameda County.

Grisham and Chan’s public stances on prosecutions may clash with that of Price, who has moved to shorten sentences for some crimes during her time in office. That includes removing “special circumstances” in the charges of two men accused of killing a toddler, Jasper Wu; the men will no longer face the possibility of life without parole in their case.

Wu’s death has become a flashpoint for critics of Price. But Cristine Soto DeBerry, executive director of the Prosecutors Alliance of California, says the arguments against Price echo those that were used against San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin — that crime is rising, and that it’s because of the DA’s policies.

“Similar efforts are being made against DA Price to suggest there are changes in crime that are attributable to her. The irony there is that crime is down since she’s been district attorney in Alameda [County],” she said.

Oakland Police Department crime data (PDF) through June of this year showed that crime overall was down in the city, but as of July, an uptick in auto and residential burglaries shows annual crime to date on the rise. That’s an important data point as Oakland is the source of much debate over Price’s policies in Alameda County.

There is some nuance to the data, however.

Summer months are known to drive crime statistics upward. And while robberies and burglaries are trending higher in the most recent data, assaults with a firearm are relatively flat, as are residential robberies.

Cat Brooks, a longtime East Bay criminal justice reform advocate and co-founder of the Anti Police-Terror Project, said she’s not surprised to see a recall launch — even though she thinks it lacks any basis in fact.

“They were threatening to recall her when she was running for office,” Brooks said. “It’s the continuation of the backlash to the success of ‘defund’ [police] and the call to invest in community solutions instead of law enforcement.”

Despite the launch of the recall campaign, Brooks says an effort to recall Price will face more opposition than a successful effort to recall Boudin in San Francisco last year.

The key difference, she said, is that San Francisco’s gentrification has left it whiter and wealthier, whereas Alameda County has a larger Black population, as well as a larger population of progressives, who support criminal justice reform.

“Unlike San Francisco, we have more than 3% Black people,” Brooks said. “I think Alameda County is going to see this for what it is, and I think Alameda County is going to fight back.”

KQED editor Scott Shafer contributed to this story.

July 13: An earlier version of this story used Oakland Police Department crime data from May 29 – 4 June, 2023. The story has been corrected to reflect trends represented in newer data from June 26 – 2 July, 2023.