Recall supporters blamed Price for a rise in crime in the county in 2023 and disputed Oakland Police Department data showing crime dropping in 2024. They accused her of incompetence and corruption, pointing to hundreds of misdemeanor cases her deputies failed to prosecute and allegations of anti-Asian discrimination and extortion.
The effort also garnered support from family members of some crime victims who expressed frustration with what they saw as overly lenient sentences and a lack of support from the office’s victim-witness advocates.
On Tuesday night, some of those families packed into a recall campaign party in San Leandro hosted by Save Alameda For Everyone, the group behind the effort.
“I want her to leave the office so we can get a little bit more justice for the victims,” said Erika Galavis, the aunt of two Berkeley teenage brothers killed at a house party in North Oakland in 2022.
Galavis said she got involved in the recall campaign after Price neglected to press charges against two of the suspects in the case.
“Right now, she’s not doing her job as a DA. Right now, she’s letting a lot of criminals go,” Galavis said. “You can sense that there is a chaos within the DA’s office internally.”
In response, Price said recall supporters were upset that she won the 2022 election, accusing them of trying to overturn the will of voters. That argument was bolstered by longtime East Bay Rep. Barbara Lee and state Sen. Nancy Skinner, who said recalls were “undemocratic and a waste of public funds.”
Price, whose supporters included the ACLU of Northern California and a host of other local progressive groups, insisted that law enforcement groups and the former DA have been threatened by her willingness to bring misconduct charges against police officers and by her ongoing investigation into misconduct by former county prosecutors.
“I’m not surprised by this outcome. I am disappointed, but I’m not surprised,” Alameda County Public Defender Brendon Woods said.
Many of the same issues Price has been blamed for also happened under the leadership of former DA Nancy O’Malley, who is white, he said. “And she wasn’t blamed for it. She wasn’t persecuted for it in the press.”