Fatal shooting of Oakland police officer again raises concerns about spate of cannabis robberies

The fatal shooting of an Oakland police officer responding to a burglary at a cannabis shop brought renewed calls Saturday for the city to confront a plague of violent robberies and other crimes that law enforcement officials and business owners say has spiraled out of control.

In recent years, groups of armed burglars have targeted numerous cannabis dispensaries, grow operations and manufacturing plants in the city and across the Bay Area, leading to shootouts in Oakland, Martinez, San Leandro and Union City. Multiple people have been killed or wounded.

Now, the slaying of undercover Officer Tuan Le — the first officer killed in the line of duty in Oakland in 14 years — is putting even more pressure on city officials to stem the break-ins.

“It just seems like every month that goes by, things get more and more violent, and the stakes go up,” said Sgt. Barry Donelan, president of the Oakland Police Officers’ Association.

Le, 36, a member of the department’s burglary suppression unit, was in plainclothes when he was killed near the city’s waterfront Friday. No suspect was in custody as of Saturday afternoon.

On Saturday, officers from the Oakland Police Department, Alameda County Sheriff’s Office and Hayward Police Department were on hand as about 150-250 people gathered for a candlelight vigil for Le along the Embarcadero.

Police blocked off a portion of Embarcadero and those who gathered held candles in silence and then placed them in front of three large pictures of Le. Several officers were in tears and some members of Le’s family clutched each other tightly.

The surge in cannabis burglaries accelerated after what police described as a “caravan of armed robbers” broke into multiple Oakland cannabis businesses on Election Night 2020 — a series of brazen attacks that injured several police officers and security guards and left one suspect dead. Burglars in such raids often aim to seize cannabis crops or products to sell on the black market.

This summer in Union City, a suspect in a dispensary break-in opened fire at security guards, injuring one person. A few months later, police responding to a dispensary burglary in Martinez shot and killed a person, prompting a state Department of Justice investigation. And at a San Leandro cannabis warehouse last year, burglars took an employee hostage who was then killed in a shootout.

In Oakland, Donelan said since police have stepped up patrols near cannabis operations, many officers have become fed up with the strain of responding to marijuana burglaries when the department is already stretched thin amid a citywide spike in crime. He questioned whether city officials and Mayor Sheng Thao should allow the cannabis businesses to continue operating.

“This is a seminal call for this administration to decide what’s important,” he said.

Oakland cannabis business owners, meanwhile, have complained police are neglecting to protect an industry that only recently emerged from the shadows. They say officers are sometimes slow to react to crimes at cannabis operations and sometimes don’t respond at all.

“When our police department and our administration do not take these businesses seriously, these are the outcomes that you get,” said Chaney Turner, a cannabis advocate and chair of the Oakland Cannabis Regulatory Commission.

Turner said the issue has come up at multiple commission hearings, adding police officials told her the department sometimes struggles to respond to the burglaries due to a shortage of officers.

Mayor Thao’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But on Friday, she urged Oakland residents to unite in solidarity after the “heart-wrenching” killing. “This senseless act of violence against a member of our police force, the guardians of our city, will not go unanswered,” she said.

When California legalized the recreational use of marijuana in 2016, it was envisioned as a new financial opportunity for communities of color upended by the war on drugs. The state prioritized granting cannabis business licenses to many Black and Hispanic residents in areas with histories of drug arrests.

But not long after Amber Senter, a Black marijuana entrepreneur in Oakland, started her cannabis manufacturing business, she was forced to close because it was burglarized four times in less than a year. She’s since moved the business to a more secure Oakland location she shares with other cannabis companies.

“I would say it was a lot safer when it was not legal,” Senter said. “Sure, there were break-ins and robberies, things like that, but not to this magnitude.”