A 102-year-old wheelchair-bound man has been threatened with a hefty fine from Oakland officials after thugs graffitied his home and he was unable to remove the paint.
The home of Victor Silva, Sr. is a frequent target of vandalism by thugs in the crime-ridden California city.
Silva, who has lived and paid taxes in Oakland for over 80 years, was faced with threats of a $1,100 fine from the City of Oakland for the graffiti.
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.
‘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,’ said daughter-in-law Elena Silva to KVTU.
A 102-year-old wheelchair-bound man was threatened with a hefty fine from Oakland officials after thugs graffitied his home and he was unable to remove the paint
The home of Oakland-born Victor Silva, Sr. is a frequent target of vandalism by thugs in the crime-ridden California city
Silva, who has lived and paid taxes in Oakland for over 80 years, was faced with threats of a $1,100 fine from the City of Oakland for the graffiti
In his younger years, Silva went to the trouble of painting over the graffiti time and time again.
‘Just had a roller and a paintbrush and just painted it. It was very easy because I was a contractor,’ he said.
However, since he’s been wheelchair bound it hasn’t been as easy to cover up the paint on the back fence of his Oakland home.
‘I’ll be 103 in two months or so. That slowed it up a little bit, you know,’ said Silva Sr.
These days it’s Silva’s 70-year-old son who has to paint over the graffiti each time it pops back up.
‘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,’ said Silva Jr.
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.
‘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,’ said daughter-in-law Elena Silva
Nowadays, Silva’s 70-year-old son, Silva Jr., has to paint over the graffiti each time it pops back up
Pictured: Oakland’s Democrat Mayor Sheng Thao
The Silva family own a small commercial business in Oakland that has been broken into three times in just the last 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?’
When asked how he managed to live to 103, Silva said ‘Very easy. Just keep breathing and, you know, behave yourself.’
Silva Jr added: ‘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.’
has contacted Oakland City Council for comment.
Crime in Oakland has spiked in recent years, leading many businesses in the area to shut down 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.
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.
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 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.