Oakland, Calif., residents were fed up with rising violent crime and burglaries that made even routine trips, like stopping at In-N-Out near the airport, feel risky. Adding to their frustration, the city's last major league sports team announced it would leave after 57 seasons. With the population declining since the pandemic, currently at 425,000, discontent grew. This led to a recall election against Mayor Sheng Thao just 18 months into her term — a rare event. Then, two days after the recall qualified for the ballot last week, FBI agents raided the home of Thao and stayed there for hours, the New York Times reports. The raid has now cast a shadow over her future, even as she defiantly vowed on Monday to fight for her political survival. “Everybody understands that she hasn’t been charged with a crime,” said Brenda Harbin-Forte, a retired Alameda County Superior Court judge who is a main organizer of the recall. “But our focus is that you can’t lead a city and be distracted about whether any day now you’re going to get indicted for a federal crime.”
Few would blame her alone for the city’s problems, which were occurring well before she took over at City Hall. Crime was already on the rise, and homeless camps had proliferated since the early days of the pandemic. Two major league sports teams had already fled. The city had lost its glimmer in comparison with the previous decades in which it had attracted residents as a soulful, more affordable alternative to San Francisco. What Oakland needed from Thao was a turnaround. The prevailing mood is one of frustration. The exact targets of the federal investigation remain unclear. The FBI confirmed that agents had searched the home where Thao and her partner reside, as well as three other properties in Oakland that are associated with the Duong family, which runs California Waste Solutions, a local company that collects recyclables for the city. Thao, a Democrat, is the daughter of working-class refugees and a survivor of domestic violence. When she was sworn in, Thao became the most prominent Hmong American officeholder in the United States.