Oakland Police Department - Oakland

OPD Administration Building Entrance (CC-A Photo by HiMY SYeD)

Founded in 1853, the Oakland Police Department (OPD) has a large presence in Oakland's history and is extremely influential in city politics. OPD takes up almost 50% of the Oakland annual budget. As of early 2013, the force had 612 active officers.

For those looking for services

(For non-emergency services, the office may only be open until 3pm.)

Oakland Police Department Contact Info:http://www2.oaklandnet.com/Government/o/OPD/index.htm

Emergency (Using Land line) - DIAL 9-1-1

Emergency (Using cell phone)- DIAL (510) 777-3211

Non-Emergency - DIAL (510) 777-3333

See a comprehensive list of numbers here.

Want to know what's going on right now? Listen to the live Oakland Police Dispatch Live Audio Feed.

Personnel

Police Chief: Interim Chief Sean Whent

Interim Chief Whent, a 17-year veteran of OPD with a background in Internal Affairs, was appointed Interim Police Chief on May 10, 2013, two days after the resignation of Chief Howard Jordan.

History of the Department

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Previous Chiefs

Police Districts

Oakland has had a varying number of police districts in recent years. It's dropped down to two, and in March 2013 the number was brought up to five based on input from Robert Wasserman who believes community policing will be more effective at reducing crime in Oakland.

A Police Captain will be responsible for each district.

Captain Eric Lewis is overseeing District 1.

Captain Anthony Toribio is overseeing District 2.

Captain Ricardo Orozco is overseeing District 3.

Captain Steven Tull is overseeing District 4.

Captain Kirk Coleman is overseeing District 5.

Problem Solving Officers

Oakland's Measure Y funded the hiring of a number of problem solving officers to focus on preventing crime within the districts they're assigned to. See a current list of PSOs here.

Police Beats (image from Oakland Police Dept)

Current Status of Oakland Police Department Staffing

At any given time, some are injured or sick, so only approximately 240 officers are on patrol at any given time. Five years ago, the OPD had 330 officers available for patrol, and even then it was understaffed. The OPD's target for proactive policing is 37% percent of an officer's time. In order to reach that target, the department needs 527 officers available for patrol. The national average for free time (not responding to a call) for an officer is 33 minutes per hour. For OPD officers it's 1 minute per hour.

For details, see OPD Staffing.

On Friday March 22 2013, The 166th Police Academy graduated 38 new officers into the force. These 38 officers began a six-month training on March 25 2013.

On Friday, Sept 20, the 167th Police Academy will graduate.

Controversy and Compliance

Anthony Batts' resignation:

Port of Oakland/Crowd Control:
Occupy Oakland:
For over 10 years the Oakland Police Department has been under threat of federal receivership due to a lawsuit in 2003. Under the terms of the "Negotiated Settlement Agreement," the department has had a number of federal monitors and is obligated to report to Judge Thelton Henderson. In March, 2013, Thomas Frazier was appointed to the newly created position of Compliance Director.
In 2013, OPD notoriously (infamously) had 3 Chiefs in 3 days.

Big Police Documents

There are a lot of important documents released by OPD. Many of them are hard to find on the Oakland website. A good place to start is here, the "Public Report" page for the department.

OaklandWiki has some pages devoted to reports:

Positions and Announcements

On Tuesday, September 10, 2013 Interim Chief Sean Whent released a statement identifying the Oakland Police Department’s current strategic priorities as 1.) reducing crime and the fear of crime, 2.) increasing community responsiveness and partnerships and 3.) institutionalizing accountability and organizational excellence. Recent organizational changes include assigning additional staff to East Oakland to address the high level of violence in this area of the city, accelerating the hiring process for key civilian positions to free up police officers for additional violence reduction efforts and extending the contract with the California Highway Patrol for supplemental enforcement in areas most affected by violence. Upcoming changes will include field training for the new police recruits and the start of the second recruit class of 2013 before the end of September. Other changes within the next two months will include aligning Crime Reduction Teams with areas of violence, increasing staffing in the Criminal Investigation Division in key areas and inviting community involvement in CompStat crime strategy meetings. Full statement here.