‘Absurd!’ City of Oakland to fine 102-yr-old man because he can’t keep home free from graffiti
Oakland is slapping a wheelchair-bound 102-yr-old man with fines after thugs graffitied his home instead of going after those who did it. The City of Oakland has fined 102-year-old Victor Silva, a wheelchair-bound man, $1,100 for defacing his home by defacing it. The city's focus was on Silva, who has lived in the crime-ridden city for over 80 years and cannot afford to remove the graffiti himself. The fine was imposed on Silva Sr. for not removing the paint himself and an additional fine will be added for each failed inspection in the future. Silva's family's commercial business in Oakland has been broken into three times this past year. The Oakland police force reported a 38% increase in robberies from 2022 to 2023, with a 44% increase from 2023.
Published : a month ago by Terresa Monroe-Hamilton in
Oakland’s priorities seem massively screwed up as the city slaps a wheelchair-bound 102-year-old man with heavy fines after thugs graffitied his home.
City officials decided to fine the elderly man because he could not remove the graffiti or afford to pay someone to do it for him. The focus was not on those who committed the crime, but on Victor Silva, Sr. who suffered the vandalism to his property.
Silva has paid taxes in the crime-ridden city for over 80 years. Now, he’s facing the threat of a $1,100 fine over someone else’s crime.
“The violation citation demanded that the paint was removed by Tuesday the 19th and that an additional fine would be added for each failed inspection in the future,” the Daily Mail reported.
“It was so absurd, it’s like a joke. If you drive around the city and see the graffiti everywhere, it’s just I don’t know what to say,” Silva’s daughter-in-law Elena told KTVU.
When Silva was younger and not in a wheelchair, he would just paint over the graffiti every time it occurred on the back fence of his Oakland home. He can no longer easily do that but he’s trying.
“Just had a roller and a paintbrush and just painted it. It was very easy because I was a contractor,” he recounted according to the Daily Mail.
“I’ll be 103 in two months or so. That slowed it up a little bit, you know,” Silva mused.
In a very sad turn of events, his 70-year-old son now has to paint over the graffiti.
“It’s hard to keep up with it because as soon as we get it painted, It’s gonna be graffiti on it again, and it won’t last,” Silva Jr. remarked.
“Up the road from Silva’s home, a large utility box is also covered in six different kinds of graffiti. The utility box has no owner, except the city, to be threatened with charges,” the Daily Mail wryly wrote.
Adding insult to injury, the Silva family’s commercial business in Oakland has been broken into three times this past year.
“During one break-in, Silva Jr. caught a person inside the shop and he called 911. ‘And I’m put on hold every time,’ he said. ‘So it’s hard to understand where our tax dollars are going. They can’t answer 911, but they can come out and hassle you about a fence?'” he asked.
Silva was asked how he managed to make it to 103 and responded, “Very easy. Just keep breathing and, you know, behave yourself.”
“I would hate to think that there [are] other hundred-year-old people that are being harassed like this. Oakland has to change. The system is not working,” he commented.
Oakland is notorious for its rampant crime which has spiraled out of control in recent years under Democratic leadership. Many businesses in the city have shut their doors for good.
“Recently, Taco Bell locations in Oakland were forced to close and switch to drive-thru w and cashless payments only. The decision came after the chain was subjected to a series of robberies amid an unrelenting crime surge in the city,” the Daily Mail noted.
“Data from Oakland’s police force reveal that robberies increased by a massive 38% from 2022 to 2023. Motor vehicle theft in particular saw a major rise, with the force reporting 44% more in 2023 compared with 2022. There were 8,675 car theft cases in the city in 2022, compared with 12,956 last year. Burglaries also jumped 23% from the previous year,” the media outlet added.
And then there is In-N-Out which has never closed a store… until now in Oakland.
“Another fast food chain has been hit by the crime-surge – In-N-Out’s chief operations officer, Denny Warnick, wrote in a statement: ‘Despite taking repeated steps to create safer conditions, our customers and associates are regularly victimized by car break-ins, property damage, theft, and armed robberies,'” the Daily Mail wrote.
“The fast food burger joint sits in a square mile with several gas stations that cops say are the targets of around a dozen violent crimes every day. The parking lot of the In-N-Out Burger is hit daily,” the media outlet concluded.
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