Safety
While protests were cited as a key reason for high police overtime costs last year, several other factors escalated those costs.
Oakland Police Chief LeRonne L. Armstrong has established a special division to reduce violent crime.
On Nov. 25, one day before Thanksgiving, Squaw Valley in Lake Tahoe ushered in the first day of the snow season. At 9 a.m., the parking lot was already more than half full, with about 2,000 cars. People wearing their ski boots and helmets lined up in the 34-degree temperature to collect their season passes. It looks like any other snow season—except this year, everyone is standing six feet apart and wearing masks. Lake Tahoe offers world-class skiing and is…
Commissioner Tara Anderson described the policy as “one of the most progressive use of force policies in the country.” But some advocates say the policy does not go far enough to change the department’s practices.
The Mobile Evaluation Team (MET), an expanding crisis response unit in Oakland, is one example of fledgling efforts to meet the city’s rising need for mental health crisis services.
Oakland residents gathered this past weekend to reflect on the past year since the death of Nia Wilson.
When Oakland Fire Department (OFD) Captain Christopher Foley and his coworkers learned that one of them had been killed in a San Jose shooting, not long after 36 people died in the Ghost Ship warehouse fire, they needed help—and found it in the department’s peer support program.
Tuesday night’s Oakland Public Safety Committee meeting’s main agenda item—reviewing a report about holding a special election to amend the regulations that govern the Oakland Police Commission—was initially upstaged by jarring testimony from former Councilmember Wilson Riles Jr. about his arrest last week. Councilmember At-Large Rebecca Kaplan introduced the issue for the committee to address. “Our colleague, former Councilmember Wilson Riles, was arrested—” Kaplan began, but was interrupted by members of the crowd yelling, “brutalized!” “And brutalized, and improperly treated,…
The Oakland City Council voted earlier this month to move forward with a new plan for preventing violence. This is the latest development in the city’s ongoing efforts to establish the new Department of Violence Prevention.