Police
After several hours of debate, the Oakland City Council voted Tuesday to renew its contract with ShotSpotter, a gunshot detection technology system. The council renewed the $2.5 million contract for one year to start, instead of three, because of concerns about a lack of data and the city’s strained budget. But if the City Council does not make changes to the contract next year, it will automatically renew for the full three years. It was approved by a 7-1 vote,…
Three people were wounded by gun fire when a dispute between two groups turned violent in the parking lot of Skyline High School after a graduation ceremony Thursday. Oakland police and California Highway Patrol officers responded to reports of multiple gunshots on the north side of campus around 7:45 p.m. Two adult victims, a man and a woman, were in stable condition Friday, according to Oakland police Lt. Robert Trevino. A third victim later turned up at a hospital and…
More than 12,000 vehicles have been stolen this year in Oakland, where the thefts are on a dramatic rise. Car thefts in Oakland have increased by 49% since last year, Oakland Police Department data from this fall shows, a jump that has put some residents on edge. The neighborhoods with the highest rates of car thefts include Hegenberger, Coliseum, and Lakeside — with 1,815, 300 and 298 cases, respectively. Gilligan Brown, who has lived in Oakland for more than 25…
Oakland is considering changes to its Police Commission that would impact how the group trains and chooses its members. The City Council’s Public Safety Committee will vote on the legislation Dec. 12 before it can go to the full council for final approval. Introduced by Councilmembers Dan Kalb and Kevin Jenkins, the legislation would expand the eligibility for applicants to join the commission by revising the commission’s conflict of interest rules and further define their roles. Oakland’s new rules would…
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation into law last month that enables speed cameras in Oakland and other cities in an effort to boost traffic safety. The law allows Oakland, San Francisco and San Jose, among others, to use speed cameras to catch dangerous drivers as part of a pilot program until 2032. The cities will place the cameras in different corridors and near schools. The number of cameras in each city depends on its population. Between the middle and end…
Oakland City Council unanimously approved the installation of 300 automated license plate readers throughout the city on Tuesday. The vote comes nearly two months after Gov. Gavin Newsom approved a $1.2 million loan to the city, following Mayor Sheng Thao’s request for surveillance cameras to combat rising crime. Thao tweeted her support for the vote on Wednesday, saying the cameras will help police “track criminal vehicles across the city based on their unique features such as make, model, and color.”…
Nearly a dozen Oakland residents gathered at City Hall Thursday night for a town hall to discuss whether former Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong should be reinstated. Mayor Sheng Thao fired Armstrong in February following an investigation that found he mishandled two misconduct cases. The town hall occurred as the city’s Police Commission faces pressure from residents and Thao to find three finalists for the chief’s job, amid an uptick in violent crime. Several attendees, including former Police Commissioner Brenda Harbin-Forte,…
Oakland has been trying to curb sideshows for years and even celebrated a “sideshow-free” summer in 2010, but the illegal street car shows haven’t gone away, and City Council seems to be at a loss on how to restrain them. The Oakland sideshow saga witnessed a stunning escalation last month as footage of a big rig participating in an event went viral on social media. In a frenzied incident near Keller Avenue and Mountain Boulevard, the rig was caught on…
A federal judge in San Francisco on Tuesday asked the Oakland Police Department, the mayor, and lawyers who brought a class-action suit against the department for input to address what he called the “cultural inability” of the Police Department to hold itself accountable. U.S. District Judge William Orrick did not release the department from the federal oversight it has been under since 2003, when a settlement agreement in the lawsuit spelled out 51 tasks for the department to complete toward…