‘Pirates’ in San Francisco Bay sinking sailing school for kids: owner
Most of the attacks happen in the 800-foot-wide estuary that separates Oakland and Alameda.
Even though a crime could happen in Alameda, it falls under Oakland’s jurisdiction if the stolen boat floats into Oakland’s waters, Richards said.
“We declined to heed that advice (from police),” Richards said in her letter to the commission. “We were able to retrieve all of our boats, and another RIB (rigid inflatable boat) that was stolen from the Golden Gate Yacht Club (at the Marina in San Francisco).
“How many replacements of these boats will our insurance company pay for before they drop us? We cannot continue our programs without the RIBs and cannot continue without insurance.”
Suspected pirates using a small boat to board large ships and yachts in Oakland Harbor. (Dan Hill / Fox News)
Former harbor master Brock de Lappe said he asked the commission whether there’s currently another other issues that “poses a great threat to San Francisco Bay.”
“I was told no,” de Lappe said. “This is the top problem.”
Where are the bandits coming from?
Residents and the local municipal commission said the “pirates” came from Oakland’s exploding homeless crisis that has overflowed into the waterways.
The city of Alameda, which is an island with a population of just under 80,000, is rated as one of the best suburbs to live in, according to niche.com.
The city of Alameda, which is an island and considered a suburb of Oakland, is separated from Oakland by a waterway. (Niche.com / Fox News)
It’s neighbor across the water, Oakland, has been crippled by homelessness, which a neighborhood advocate told Fox News Digital in a previous interview has made the city “unlivable.”
Alameda Police Chief Nishant Joshi told Fox News Digital that his department is working with the Oakland PD and the Coast Guard, which has a base in the estuary, to curtail this issue by taking “a regional approach.”
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“In the waterways, it’s very difficult to draw a line,” Joshi told Fox News Digital in an interview Monday. “There are no roadways or fence lines, so we all have a shared interest, much like crime as a whole, to deal with this as a regional approach.”
Watch the on-camera Zoom interview with Chief Joshi here.
