The drama continues across the Bay as anti-police-violence activists raise a call for the ousters of Mayor Libby Schaaf, saying that the cycle of three fired police chiefs in the last two weeks suggests she should not be in charge of running Oakland any longer. The East Bay Times quotes Cat Brooks, co-founder of the Anti Police-Terror Project, saying, "Our local government has demonstrated that they are incapable of controlling or holding accountable this rogue police department." Brooks was joined in her statements at the Oakland City Council meeting Tuesday night by representatives from the Oakland Alliance, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Asians 4 Black Lives, Causa Justa/Just Cause, Black Lives Matter Bay Area, Black Power Network, Oakland Rising Action and The Way Christian Center.
Schaaf issued a statement in response on Tuesday saying she also wanted to hold officers accountable for misconduct, and adding, "Even today, we know that there are disparate impacts of law enforcement practices on communities of color, which is why I am dedicated to reform of our police department."
ABC 7 has footage from the anger-filled city council meeting that you can see above, but of course a recall would be a much more complicated process than just a public outcry at the council. Schaaf has only held office for six months, and the problems with the Oakland Police Department go back decades, with one particular scandal, known as the Riders Case, landing the department a federal overseer over the past 13 years.
Currently, two OPD officers have resigned amidst a scandal involving a sex worker who was underage when several officers began having intercourse with her in exchange for tips about prostitution stings, and three others have been placed on leave. Two additional officers have been placed on leave for misconduct allegations involving racist texts and the mishandling of evidence in a homicide investigation, which we learned of last weekend.
Meanwhile, KRON 4 digs up some older dirt on new Acting Assistant Chief David Downing, whom other officers have reported was racially insensitive in what he suggested as a use of force against protesters in the city in the past. They claim he advocated the use of water cannons on protesters during an OPD meeting, and was seemingly "oblivious to the racial overtones" of that.
Downing has issued a statement in response, saying, "I did not intend to suggest that such a method would ever be appropriate in Oakland, or any other community, as a legitimate crowd control method."
And Schaaf has quickly issued a statement saying:
In mid-2013, then-Deputy Chief Downing participated in a discussion regarding OPD’s crowd management policies and practices. The discussion specifically focused on identifying different force options available to OPD for crowd management during protests. Several participants expressed concern about the use of CS gas (or pepper spray), which is a less-lethal law enforcement tool. Deputy Chief Downing shared his concern that if a tool such as CS was taken away, the Department could be left with methods that no modern-day police force would consider and rhetorically referenced use of such antiquated options such as water hoses.During a break, one of the meeting attendees pointed out that the reference to water hoses could be perceived as racially insensitive due to their use during civil rights protests; he acknowledged this and did not use this term again.
The scandals have, meanwhile, caused the city council to put the police academy on hold and suspend efforts to hire new officers "until they have a better process to weed out unsavory candidates," as CBS 5 reports.
