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Former US Senator Barbara Boxer was assaulted and stolen from her cell phone in Oakland on Monday afternoon.
Boxer, 80, a Democrat who represented California in the US Senate from 1993 to 2017, said in an interview with The Times that she was robbed while walking near her apartment in Jack London Square. Boxer, who now works for Mercury Public Affairs, said she made a conscious choice to walk on a quiet street so that she could focus on taking a business call.
Boxer said he noticed a young man following her out of the corner of his eye, but didn’t think much of it after hopping into a car.
“Then the driver of the car jumped up and started coming towards me and coming behind me, and at that point I knew I was in trouble,” she said. “When I saw the guy get out of the car, come towards me, I started to run across the street. And he pushed me really hard on the shoulder with one hand, and with the other he put it around my waist and grabbed my phone.
“He ran to the car. I was standing and shaking and I just said to them, ‘Why would you want to do this to a grandma? I have to call my grandchildren. He jumped in the car and fled.
Boxer said she was so close to home that she ran back to her apartment, where she and her husband, Stewart, called the police.
“I told the police that it was so obviously planned that they were looking for someone very vulnerable,” she said during the interview. “It was so planned and the guy knew what he was doing. He hit me so hard. He never said the first word. If he’d said, “Give me your phone or whatever,” I would have given my phone. He didn’t have to push me around.
In response to questions about the assault, Oakland Police Department spokesperson Johnna Watson said that a person was robbed at 1:15 p.m. in the 300 block of 3rd Street. Watson said in an email that the department would not identify the victim of the theft.
The Oakland Police Department is offering a reward of up to $ 2,000 for information leading to an arrest in this case, Watson said.
After reporting the theft to the police, Boxer and her husband went to a nearby Verizon store, where employees were able to erase data from her Apple iPhone and, most importantly, ensure that photos of her little ones. children had been recorded in the cloud, said the former senator.
“It was shocking and so unsuspected. You just wouldn’t imagine that would happen, ”she said. “It shakes you up. ”
Reports that she was injured are false.
“I want to make it clear – he pushed me hard, I didn’t fall,” she said, adding, “I wasn’t seriously injured. I was just extremely shaken up.
Boxer said she had never felt unsafe in the neighborhood where she and her husband had an apartment since 2005. “Never. Not for a minute, ”she said. “That’s why it was so shocking.”
Boxer said she didn’t see their faces well, but her attackers appeared to be young people, possibly teenagers.
“I love Oakland, I really love it, and I’m really, really sad,” she said. “Because really, chasing a five-foot tall, gray-haired grandmother walking down the street talking on the phone?” They didn’t know I was a senator.
“For me, it brings home everything I’ve worked for,” Boxer added. “We need good policing, we need community policing, we need a lot of it and we also absolutely need hope and opportunities for young people. These are young people who find they can get a lot of money for this phone, hundreds of dollars for this phone.
Boxer rebuffed supporters of a campaign to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom and Republicans who would point to the incident as an example of growing crime under Democratic leadership.
“The Democrats have no intention of funding the police,” she said. “They want better policing, fair policing, community policing and more resources to deal with these incidents when they happen and also to tackle the root causes.”
The narrative that Democratic politicians want to undermine the police, she said, is “a false flag. It is simply not true.
Boxer noted that during her career, she founded community policing efforts and after-school programs.
“We have to deal with this with a multi-pronged approach – very good community policing and really tough consequences for kids and adults who do the wrong thing. “
The former senator also wanted to use the incident to send a message to the A’s in Oakland, who could leave the area.
“I also want to take this opportunity to say that I will personally send a message to Oakland A’s – this is the neighborhood you are going to come into, and it could be so wonderful,” she said. “I live a few streets away, there is so much potential here. I love Oakland. It rocked me, but it only made me stronger to fight for what could make this community stronger.
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