On the other hand, the Councilmembers and many of the city “insiders” (political, business and otherwise) have remained curiously silent about the absolute chaos that I hear about third-hand. Chip Johnson, try as he may, is starting to sound like he is on a one-person crusade. We wonder…if everything Chip says is true, then why is no one esle “in the know” supporting what he says?

There are four common excuses that people use to explain this conspiracy of silence and the absolute absence of whistleblowers:

1. everyone wants to be “civil” and polite;
2. we don’t want to cause conflict between the races;
3. lest that the spotlight be turned on the whistlblower’s own skeletons in the closet
4. because everyone has an interest to protect (political, business, job) and blowing the whistle does not serve that interest.

I’ve come to the conclusion that, in order for Oakland to progress, its next leader has to be free of all the above 4 restraints on speaking the truths.

The truths are:

1. What is disguised as “civility” is really a conspiracy of silence to keep from the public how bad things REALLY are.
2. The racial tension is about to blow unless someone exposes that the cause of “race relations” in Oakland is too often exploited for personal gain rather than used for serious reconciliation and conflict resolution.
3. Everyone with skeletons to keep in the closet either need to get out of politics or fess up to them and move on (the public is surprisingly forgiving).
4. People with influence in city politics should decide whether it is the city’s best interest they are working for or their own self interest. If it is the latter, they need to be either exposed or should depart the scene voluntarily.

The longer the conspiracy of silence remains in place, the longer Oakland will keep sliding deeper into the hole. In today’s economic environment, the slide is just that much faster.

Danny Wan is a former Oakland City Councilmember and the current City Attorney for Morgan Hill.

Hannah James posted two important pieces in the press on the internal mess in OPD. These follow others by the Chauncey Bailey project regarding OPD’s handling of both the investigation and the raid of the Bakery headquarters to stave off anticipated killings. Chief Tucker has not been candid or effective in either matter.

Tucker is fond of stating that accountability is foremost in police work, YET, that accountability has always stopped at the officer and Sergeant level during Tucker’s reign at OPD, and has never gone on to the Captain, Deputy Chief, or Chief level. Does anyone remember DC Pete Dunbar’s demotion to Captain during the last year of Chief Word’s administration? As I understood the matter then, he was disciplined for not having put in motion the compliance effort with the Negotiated Settlement Agreement that ended the Rider’s Case. The demotion, while painful to those who knew and worked with Dunbar, was accepted as fair, and he sucked in the responsibility in a very gracious and healing statement accepting the demotion: a class act.

In the Tucker era, a different set of rules seems to apply. Those at the lowest rank have the highest and most scrutinized level of accountability; those in the upper ranks, little or none at all. The Chief himself? He can lie to the press, change his story once or twice with contradictory answers, and not feel accountable (timing of the raid on the Black Muslim Bakery: first, not delayed at all; when faced with the facts and statements by others in OPD, delayed because DC Kozicki and Capt. Ed Tracey, who were on camping trips, wanted to be present, and it was delayed 2 days, during which C. Bailey was assassinated). Continuance of Derwin Longmire in Homicide after the revelations of his handling of the investigation and apparent protection of Bey IV; continuance of Longmire’s superior E. Joyner in place; and continuance of J. Loman, Joyner’s superior in place, and then elevating him to Deputy Chief, a position that few in OPD and few outside OPD who know its personnel’s strengths and weaknesses applauded. The person in charge of the Bureau of Investigations during this period was Assistant Chief Howard Jordan, who was elevated from Captain to Ass’t Chief, again as evidence of Tucker’s idea of accountability for upper level commanders in OPD. Jordan is a nice guy, liked by his colleagues, but not a heavy-weight in the Department and without a notable track record of stellar accomplishments. Why is Jordan in place while the investigation of his subordinates in the Bureau of Investigations continue for their questionable handling of one of the most important criminal cases in Oakland in the last several decades? The same for Loman, who now has a sexual harassment charge being investigated.

The house of cards Tucker has created is trembling and threatening to crash. Why hasn’t the Mayor sacked him or called him on the carpet for explanations? Violent crimes continue to escalate, and will during the economic tsunami we are entering. Tucker’s record smells like a compost pile and continues to get worse with every newspaper revelation. On Monday, Jan. 12, the Oakland Tribune ran an editorial on the continuing and escalating troubles in OPD which listed the Valladon pay increase padding, the sexual harassment problems of Loman, the apparent mishandling of the Chauncey Bailey investigation, and the delayed raid on the Black Muslim Bakery. The editorial ends with the judgment that there “…is no excuse for the embarrassing level of management dysfunction” at OPD.

Lawrence Green’s charges are the last straw for me. I have worked with him closely when he was in charge of PSA 2. He is an energetic, creative, mentoring police commander. His PSOs were among the very best, and he had a lot of them that fit that description. His leadership of PSA 2 saved community policing in Oakland at a time that most of its personnel were reassigned. Green was responsible for creating the PSA yahoo groups by pioneering in PSA 2 and doing such a superb job of connecting citizens and OPD at a time of diminished resources that Chief Word ordered the other PSAs to develop yahoo groups of their own. Green pioneered in publishing crime statistics on the yahoo group, something that was not done and was viewed with suspicion or outright anger by some of the other commanders in OPD not accustomed to or comfortable with sharing with the public. The connection of citizens involved in community policing, community improvement, public safety across Oakland today is an outgrowth of Green’s pioneering work in PSA 2. He absolutely understands and trusts the cp partnership of engaged citizens and the police department.

Contrast this with Chief Tucker and his infamous statement that he was worried about cp officers “going native” by working too closely with the citizens in their beats. This was followed by putting cp resources in the hands of Dave Kozicki who immediately transformed them into a tactical squad to be moved around the city to deal with hot spots and special situations. Kozicki also put a deep chill on the cp partnership, letting it be known that police officers were not to partner too closely or share any details of police operations, duty orders, special assignments, activities away from the assigned beat, etc., or serious consequences to that officer’s career would follow.

Not only has Tucker done his best to deconstruct community policing, he has also failed to control or improve public safety in Oakland. Since he took charge of OPD, crime has increased exponentially, especially violent crime. He has no regard for beat integrity, which he regards as “old fashioned” policing, and likewise for cp which is based on beat integrity and a genuine sense of ownership of the beat and its situations. A recent Chip Johnson article on Richmond’s success at driving down crime highlighted the Richmond Chief’s focus on keeping police resources in their beats and knowing the people, situations, problems. Sounds like community policing and the practice that Tucker has repudiated again and again both orally and in the practices of OPD.

Dellums says that he absolutely supports community policing, yet supports a Chief who not only does not, but is actively hostile to its tenets and structural needs. Tucker ought to be let go because of his hostility to cp and his utterly incompetent management of OPD and public safety in Oakland. One scandal after another comes to light, finally prompting the Oakland Tribune (no liberal venue) to criticize the whole management of OPD.

Think of it: Tucker at the helm with no experience in urban policing; Ass’t Chief Jordan with no major accomplishments or strengths and the person in charge when the Chauncey Bailey investigation foul-up, the delayed raid on the Black Muslim Bakery, and the sexual harassment charges against DC Loman occurred; (promoted by Tucker, Loman, too) DC Loman in place without the credentials or the accomplishments to deserve that position, and, now, charges against him.

DC Kozicki, a tactical expert and motorcycle fanatic running Patrol and most of the police department personnel, dedicated to tactical deployment, has effectively emasculated community policing by disconnecting PSOs from the citizens, and by advocating tactical deployments that take PSOs out of their beats frequently.

Tucker and his carefully-chosen top management assistants mentioned here don’t measure up to the challenges. Has violent crime decreased? No. Is OPD better managed in the sense that homicides are solved, burglaries are reduced, robberies of citizens on the streets and in restaurants are reduced, car break-ins, car-jackings, shootings, and the like? No.

Has Tucker performed acceptably?

Look to Richmond to the North and San Jose to the South for answers. Tucker has not performed to the D-Minus level. That dog can’t hunt and needs to be retired–now before he does any further damage.

Plummer hammers the Trib for apparently being too critical in its coverage of Oakland Police Chief Wayne Tucker. While Plummer’s knowledge and authority when it comes to law enforcement may be without question, his expertise about Oakland seems to be…um, lacking. Anyone who follows Oakland’s public safety problems would no doubt find it difficult to stomach such exuberant praise for a man presiding over a department currently burdened with multiple disturbing scandals. Considering violent crime has risen a staggering 53% in the four years under his tenure, I don’t know how to read a line like “Chief Tucker is the best thing that has happened to the Oakland Police Department in many years” without laughing out loud.

Plummer is certainly within his rights to try to defend his friend and former colleague, although referring to hard-working Oakland police officers as “sniveling cowards” really seems like it’s going a bit too far. But there was one line in the piece that I found just completely beyond the pale, and I had to go back over it like six times before I was sure I wasn’t misreading it. Plummer asserts that “the Tribune’s civic duty should be to instill a sense of confidence in the police department and its excellent leaders.” While I have no doubt that most government officials would love nothing more than for the local media to serve solely as a mouthpiece to disseminate their propaganda, I imagine you’d be pretty hard pressed to find one willing to admit as much in public. Well, except the Mayor, I guess. But the suggestion that doing so is not just desirable, but a “civic duty,” well, that’s just insane.

In other news:

• Two new voices joined the blogoaksphere recently. Click through and welcome Our Oakland and An Oakland Citizen.
• Oakland City Attorney John Russo issued an opinion (PDF) basically saying that the City can’t deny a film permit to the producers of Gentlemen of Leisure even if we wanted to. Duh.
• Every time I think Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums can’t possibly get any worse, he turns around and proves me wrong. After windows at Wells Fargo and a bunch of other businesses in City Center got smashed following last Wednesday’s protest, Dellums responded by saying he was going to hire unarmed private security to patrol downtown. Nevermind that downtown’s two Community Benefit Districts have already hired their own private security firm (to begin service in February). Nevermind that the City has a terrible budget crisis and probably shouldn’t just be tossing money around willy-nilly (the Mayor says he’s going to use redevelopment funds to pay for it, but what funds? Didn’t the State take all our unencumbered redevelopment money?). Nevermind that I’m not even clear on where the Mayor gets the authority to just spend money without Council approval. What I want to know is this. If the like 400 police officers downtown on Wednesday night couldn’t prevent businesses from being vandalized, what are a handful of extra unarmed guards supposed to do about it? Ugh.

Doubtlessly, this news will result in the same litany of excuses from the Mayor and Police Chief that we heard last year about how the rankings (PDF) aren’t accurate and besides, most of the good citizens of Oakland can rest easy at night, safe and sound, because crime isn’t a problem in their neighborhood. Remember this gem from last year:

In Oakland, police Chief Wayne Tucker said people might be misled by the report.

“The department is always interested in how we’re being rated,” he said, “but I think a rating can be very deceptive.”

He said being ranked fourth on the list of dangerous cities could easily lead people to believe the whole city is under siege from crime. Tucker said the reality is that crime is concentrated in “two reasonably small areas” in East and West Oakland.

We might also expect to hear, like we did last week from Oakland Police Chief Wayne Tucker and Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums, that violent crime is down from last year. This was untrue last week, and continues to be untrue this week. Property crime is down, but violent crime is up.

That’s the comparison as of November 20th (xls).

Anyway, back to the rankings. This year’s top 10:

1. New Orleans, LA
2. Camden, NJ
3. Detroit, MI
4. St. Louis, MO
5. Oakland, CA
6. Flint, MI
7. Gary, IN
8. Birmingham, AL
9. Richmond, CA
10. North Charleston, SC

And as a reminder, here’s how Oakland fared over the last decade:

2006: #4
2005: #8
2004: #21
2003: #24
2002: #21
2001: ? (not in top 25)
2000: #28
1999: #24
1998: #22
1997: “#16
1996: #18

Anyway, I do agree that ranking cities as “most dangerous” or “safest” is a kind of silly thing to do. Not that I think there’s anything wrong with looking at the statistics and noting that we have more violent crimes per capita than almost any other US city or where our property crime rate per capita falls or anything like that, but I just find the way CQ Press phrases their list really odd. (Update: After I posted this, I saw that they’ve dropped the “most dangerous” and “safest” labels from the rankings. Oh well. The way these used to label their list was odd.)

In any case, when you read about this in the newspaper, and see everybody jumping up and down trying to discredit the rankings, like this:

“We don’t need a poll to tell us that public safety is the No. 1 issue in the hearts and minds of Oakland residents and the top priority for the mayor’s administration,” said Paul Rose, a spokesman for Mayor Ron Dellums.

He attacked the credibility of the report.

“The FBI questions the use of the statistics, which forces many to question the validity of such a poll,” he said.

…

Indeed, criminologists and law enforcement across the country pan the most-dangerous cities list when it is published every year. This year, the report looked at 378 cities with at least 75,000 people. Its conclusions were based on per-capita rates for homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and auto theft.

Just remember that whether Oakland is more or less “dangerous” than Detroit (#3) or Atlanta (#16) or San Francisco (#102) or Berkeley (#132) or Los Angeles (#158) isn’t the point, and shouldn’t be the issue. The problem is that CRIME IN OAKLAND IS TOO HIGH, and that’s true regardless of any kind of ranking anyone wants to do, or any comparison to this year or last year or whatever year, or anything that happens in any other city.

BTW, it’s the Mayor’s birthday today.

The general political climate in Oakland at the beginning of the summer was best summed up by the Trib in their Council race endorsements, which they introduced by saying “If there were ever a city crying out for leadership, it’s Oakland,” then proceeded to endorse the re-election of every single incumbent. Oakland voters followed suit at the polls in early June, and sent Nancy Nadel, Jane Brunner, Ignacio De La Fuente, and Larry Reid back for four more years.

Mid-June news of a large-scale gang bust by the Oakland Police Department was almost immediately eclipsed by allegations that Oakland City Administrator Deborah Edgerly had interfered with the 2-month investigation by tipping off her nephew, a member of the Acorn gang and City of Oakland employee, that his phone was tapped.

Faced with widespread citizen outrage, Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums took the opportunity to demonstrate his unique ability to find the absolute worst possible way to handle a municipal crisis, first giving her until Monday, June 23rd to either resign or be fired, then pre-empting his own deadline by sending out an e-mail on Friday, June 20th directing all department heads to report directly to him. Nevertheless, Edgerly remained at the helm at the beginning of the following week.

Then on Tuesday, June 24th, Dellums held a press conference announcing that Edgerly would retire from her post, at the end of July (although she would continue to work for the city for as long as six months while selecting her own replacement) but claimed that the announcement was unrelated to the brewing scandal, saying her retirement plans had been in place since January. When pressed for details on the search for Edgerly’s replacement by Chip Johnson on KQED Forum, Dellums Chief of Staff David Chai remained insistent that the plan had been in place since January, but refused (or was unable) to answer follow-up questions about when the search for a replacement had begun.

By Friday, June 27th, Councilmembers Ignacio De La Fuente and Pat Kernighan were calling publicly for her to be placed on administrative leave until her retirement date, and Dellums finally did so that night, naming his interim CEDA director Dan Lindheim acting City Administrator. Edgerly fired back the next Monday, claiming that Dellums didn’t have the authority to appoint her replacement, in response to which, the Mayor finally fired her on July 1st, then told reporters the following day that claims he had behaved indecisively were “absurd.” Ultimate fallout of the Edgerly scandal is yet to be determined, awaiting the results of an FBI investigation, for which subpoenas were issued in late August.

Reaction to the Edgerly mess from the rest of City Hall varied widely. Oakland City Attorney John Russo, Oakland City Auditor Courtney Ruby, and Oakland City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente stepped in with government reform packages, offering proposals ranging from a new anti-nepotism law to an audit of hiring practices to records reform, while District 3 City Councilmember Nancy Nadel called such actions “opportunistic power grabbing (PDF)” and warned that we should wait for all the facts before “rushing to judgement.” Calls to eliminate waste in Oakland’s government were met with derision by District 4 Councilmember and wanna-be Mayor Jean Quan, who announced in a newsletter that she believes the worst case scenario is that the City has less than a million dollars in waste that could be cut.

The administrative crisis was compounded by a financial one. The Council passed a mid-cycle budget with $15 million in cuts in June, but got two bits of unpleasant news the next month. First, in response to findings of vote counting irregularities with LLAD from activist David Mix and ORPN founder Charles Pine, the Council admitted defeat and agreed not to collect the tax, putting them another $12 million in the hole. Then Dellums acknowledged that the revenue estimates he had presented in his (late) budget proposal were inaccurate by millions of dollars and announced he was bringing in former City Manager Robert Bobb to sort out the mess and find a replacement for Edgerly. Bobb announced two weeks ago that the actual deficit was somewhere between forty and sixty million dollars. Matier and Ross later reported that Oakland’s fund reserve dropped from over $60 million last year to $22 million currently. Although the City is unable to account for where the money went, Finance and Management Committee Chair Jean Quan tried to put a rest to concerns, saying “It’s not like the money was stolen.”

Things just got worse in August, when the City experienced a spree of local business robberies that appeared to have no rhyme or reason, with targets ranging from a pizzeria on Skyline to a nail salon in Temescal to a monument to mediocre cuisine in Rockridge. Dellums responded by blaming the economy, informing the citizens that the apparent crime rise is perception, not reality, and calling in the volunteer Guardian Angels to patrol our streets. The spate of high profile crime wasn’t limited to restaurant robberies – Oakland residents also got to deal with arsons in West Oakland, a four year old boy getting hit by a stray bullet, and this weekend, the second murder this year of a pregnant teenager. A Labor Day shooting in East Oakland brought the year’s homicide tally to 95, up from 88 this time last year.

In response to rising concerns about crime, the Council agreed to place a parcel tax on the November ballot that would hire 105 additional police officers and 75 additional police service technicians over the next three years, at a cost of $275/year for Oakland homeowners. Dellums named former County Health Department director Arnold Perkins as his temporary Public Safety Director. Although the public will have to wait until September 11th to see the Mayor’s full public safety program, residents got a preview of Perkins’s answers for the Oakland crime problem in a Trib editorial this weekend, where Perkins suggests to Martin Reynolds that citizens combat the crime problem on their own by bringing fried chicken to the groups of young men loitering on their streetcorners.

You know, following this stuff day to day, you’re always angry, of course, but as with anything, after a while you just sort of get used to it. There’s outrage, sure, but somehow it just gets dulled over time. I had a wake-up call this weekend, watching the way people not from Oakland reacted to my telling them, in this kind of jaded, matter-of-fact way, about the restaurant robberies and the statements in response from Dellums and Tucker. Their response, which was just complete disbelief that anyone would tolerate living in such a place, made me realize just how totally, totally fucked-up the situation is in this town. (I am sorry for the language. Although I may have a few sailor-like tendencies in person, I do try to restrain myself on the blog, but sometimes there are no other words.) The people of Oakland deserve better, and there is absolutely no reason we should tolerate the status quo even a day longer. Immediate action is needed from City Hall. As for what that action should be, well, you’ll have to wait for tomorrow on my thoughts there. Today is just about reveling in completely justifiable outrage.

For those who missed it somehow, Dellums says that the problem will not end until we all start running around writing down license plate numbers of all the suspicious looking vehicles we see. The Mayor also made the extremely helpful observation that he thinks people are robbing restaurants because they are “targets of opportunity.” Um…duh.

Meanwhile, the police department basically blames the continued robberies on the media, saying that all the coverage of robberies and no reporting on arrests emboldens would-be robbers. Again…duh.

The police department thinks this is unfair, since they’ve actually arrested 52 robbery suspects in the past two months, although none of those arrests are of suspects in the recent restaurant robberies. So…52 suspects. 60 days. Out of how many crimes? Well, between June 24th (xls) and August 24 (xls), we went from 1,897 reported robberies for the year to 2,606. So…two months, 709 robberies, 52 arrests. And the problem is with the media not reporting arrests? If they say so.

Anyway, I mostly haven’t written about it yet because it’s just too depressing. The latest pleas for help and rounds of blame and sad defensiveness are just so totally pathetic that my immediate reaction was one of pity rather than anger. Both Dellums’s and Tucker’s remarks just give off this overwhelming stench of complete desperation. And yeah, it’s totally unacceptable that they can’t get a handle on things, but my feeling at this point is that both really are doing the best they can. The problem is that both are just completely overmatched by their jobs. And when you’re doing your best and working as hard as you’re capable of (I’m not saying that the Mayor is working harder than most people would be capable of, BTW, just that I don’t think it’s in him to do anything beyond what he’s already doing), and the result is just flat-out not acceptable, that means it’s time to hand the reigns to someone else. At this point, the best thing both Dellums and Tucker could do to help Oakland move forward is to put their egos aside and admit that these extremely important jobs should be filled by someone with more energy, more ideas, and more, well, just general competence.

But he said something else at the same event that I find even more upsetting. In response to a question about crime or the police department or something like that, Bobb reported that he had actually asked Oakland Police Chief Wayne Tucker recently what the department’s crime reduction goal for the year was. Tucker responded that they didn’t have one. Take a second to let that one sink in.

If I hadn’t been completely convinced already that Tucker just needs to go as soon as possible, hearing that certainly did it for me. If you haven’t jumped on that bandwagon yet, you may want to take a gander at some of Ron Oz’s essays. Oz has many interesting things to say about policing, although I recommend taking his demographic comparisons with a grain of salt, well, not even that – just ignore it. He has a habit of taking data from two different sources and draws sweeping conclusions from these apples to oranges numbers and makes assumptions based on them and in general, it’s kind of a bad scene. But the police stuff is solid.

Desley Brooks characterized the city’s use of Measure Y funds to date as an abuse of the public trust, and she’s absolutely right:

I realize that this wasn’t an easy choice for anyone on the Council. People are clamoring for more police, and all the headlines have told them that this is a vote on whether or not to hire more police. The local press has derided them for their desire to even vet the proposal at all. Anyone who voted against the proposal would surely be in for a stream of invective from both the media and their constituents. I can see the headlines now “So and so opposes hiring more police!”. Making good choices in this environment is tough.

But our elected officials have a responsibility to do what’s best for Oakland in the long term, whether or not that makes people angry at them today. This was clearly not what the voters were promised with Measure Y, and clearly not what those of us who took the time to study the legislation before heading to the polls thought we were voting for. The Council has put us in a position where we will be obligated to cough up literally millions extra of dollars annually in a few years to cover the basic costs of public safety, and in doing so, has failed the citizens of Oakland.

More than one person has told me recently, during discussions about both Measure Y and Measure DD, “I will never vote for another bond measure in this city again.” I’m not quite ready to make that commitment, but I am certainly sympathetic to the sentiment. I can say that I will not vote for another bond measure or tax increase without some major changes to the City Council. These members have betrayed the public trust and failed to keep their promises to Oakland one too many times.

A big chunk of the money was going to pay for 4 police academies between April and January (big ones, with space for 42 recruits each) and 2 lateral academies between April and January. The police department was also going to use it to institute monthly testing “to ensure a constant supply of applicants.” They were going to offer consolidated tests, so all three phases could be completed in a single weekend. We were going to use advertising funds to blitz local media markets. Mayor Jerry Brown announced that he would be partnering with the Peralta Community College District to create a pre-Academy training program that would help reduce our attrition rate.

Fast forward almost two years. Tonight, Oakland’s City Council will vote on a $7.7 million funding request (PDF!) from Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums to fund an accelerated recruitment strategy that will allegedly bring the department to full staffing by the end of the year. The money is going to pay for advertising, four large academies in beginning in May and August, monthly testing of new recruits, and a compressed testing process, among other things. I want the police force fully staffed as much as anyone, believe me. But if I were on the Council, I would give this plan a big thumbs down.

At the Measure Y Oversight Committee meeting last week, Committee member Eli Naor voiced his concerns with the proposal, and concluded with what I think is the key question here: “Do this pass a certain reasonableness test?”

Oakland police chief Wayne Tucker, in responses to questions I have asked directly, in his quotes in the newspapers, and at public meetings on this subject, has entirely failed to persuade me that there’s any reason to believe this plan will work. When I first read the report, I was skeptical of some components, but endorsed that overall strategy. Three weeks and a good deal of research later, I have become convinced that there is no reason to believe any of these strategies will be effective or that the police department will spend the money as outlined. Furthermore, I now have less faith than ever that Tucker is competent or qualified for his position, and little confidence that his statements can be trusted.

I wrote about Tucker’s misstatement regarding police hiring freezes in other cities earlier today. In another part of his response to Dillard-Smith’s question (you can view the whole response here), Tucker tells the Committee that competition with other agencies isn’t a problem for OPD, saying “We’ve never had problems getting enough applicants.”

At present, the City is taking full advantage of the available qualified candidate pool. The Office of Personnel and Resource Management (OPRM), in cooperation with OPD, is conducting open recruitment and testing for police officers.
…
It should be noted that the law enforcement profession nationwide is experiencing a hiring crisis. Competition for the dwindling pool of qualified applicants is keen. Coupled with the projected increase in retirements among the Baby Boom generation, law enforcement recruiting has reached a crisis point.

So…which is it? Is it a crisis or has it never been a problem? One of these statements is obviously not true. Is Tucker wrong now or was he wrong then?

I just can’t get my head around the fact that nobody pushing this recruitment plan seems to, I don’t know…have it together. At all. In another scene from the Measure Y Oversight Committee, Director of Personnel Marcia Meyers discusses the department’s recruitment efforts, bragging especially about the recruiting website, OPDjobs.com.

It also seems unfinished. There is no link that I could find to the regular Oakland Police Department website. There’s an “apply now” button that doesn’t lead to an application, but to a short form asking for a name and address. Once you submit it, you aren’t even redirected to a normal thank you page! You get this sad thing instead:

Look, I’m not trying to be a jerk here. The website is pretty. And aside from a few rather embarassing typos, it gets the job done. I don’t need frills. But why would you brag about how interactive this site is, and especially, bring up comparisons to other agencies?

Look at LAPD’s recruiting page. They’ve got a short movie depicting a day in the life of an LAPD Patrol Officer. They’ve got wallpapers and screensavers and friggin e-cards! They’ve got streaming video ads to watch, a newsletter you can subscribe to, and big honking flashing banners advertising their signing bonuses and candidate preparation program (PDF!). They’ve got all sorts of testimonials from officers about how rewarding their job is.

Sacramento PD has a ton of information on their recruitment page. They’ve got their recruits in the academy blogging about their experiences. They’ve got a online forum for your to ask questions of their recruiters and officers. You can fill out an application to do a ride along with an officer. You can watch a recruiting video. You can apply online.

I’m not saying that we should have OPD wallpaper, but come on. The people pushing this plan cannot provide accurate descriptions of work already done. They cannot provide answers to questions about the plan that are consistent with their positions in the past. Chief Tucker could not even supply the Oversight Committee with consistent numbers about how many community police officers he intends to hire.

Some of these complaints may seem petty, but I have a real problem giving that much money to someone who cannot provide clear, accurate, and consistent answers about how they plan to spend it. Take, for example, some of the responses I received to questions I submitted about the plan:

Q: How many test spots are available on February 21st and 23rd, and of those slots, how many are currently reserved?
A: We can accommodate 120 on Thursday and up to 600 on Saturday.

Q: I have seen nothing that answers my fundamental issue – with a 6 month long academy, as far as I can see, it is literally impossible to fully staff the department with qualified officers by the end of the year. May academy entrants will not complete their field training before the end of the year, and August academy entrants will not have even completed the academy. The attached timeline projection anticipates 100 Academy entrants in May (this seems highly unrealistic to me, but no use speculating right now since we’ll find out whether that’s possible in 2 weeks), and assumes a bizarrely low attrition rate, particularly considering that experience has repeatedly shown that larger academies have higher attrition rates than normal.
A: Consistent with OPD practices, POT’s become officers when they graduate from the academy.

These are not good answers. They do not indicate to me that the department is taking the problem before them seriously. (For those who are curious: I was later informed that 279 applicants registered for the test on Thursday, February 21st, and 112 took the exam. The 23rd had 568 registered, 331 taking the test.)

We gave the police department a blank check two years ago and look where we are now. No responsible Councilmember should support the request (although I’m sure they all will. Maybe not Desley Brooks). Not only is the allocation of dubious legality, it is, as Eli Naor says, a request to mortgage our future:

He was responding to committee chair Maya Dillard Smith’s question about whether it’s likely the Police Department can recruit so many officers when other agencies are hoping to do the same.

“Two months ago I’d say you’re right on the money when you say we’re in real competition with other agencies,” Tucker said. “Today, I think we’re not … I think there’s a hiring freeze in San Jose and Sacramento and Vacaville and Berkeley.”

You can watch Oversight Committee Chair Maya Dillard-Smith’s question here:

And here is Tucker’s reference to the hiring freeze (this comes at the end of a much longer response):

But then as I was looking at Police Department websites from those other agencies as part of another post I’m working on, I noticed something. They are hiring! That’s right. If you want to join the San Jose Police Department, you can schedule your written test for June 8th (you can take the physical agility test the date before, and your oral board immediately following your written test). If you’re worried about passing the test, you might want to attend one of their optional pre-test seminars in April and May, or their two practice Physical Agility Tests, also offered in both April and May.

Sacramento’s Police Department is recruiting at career fairs, colleges, and conferences, and will be hosting a written test on Saturday.

Since websites don’t always get updated regularly, I called human resources departments in both cities this morning to inquire about police jobs and in both cases was told that yes, the department is currently hiring. I also asked if there had been a hiring freeze in place that was lifted during the last week. Both women I spoke with seemed to find this question bizarre, but told me that no, they were seeking police recruits just as actively a week ago as they are today.