Batts up for new police chief job, Quan issues statement

Oakland Police Chief Anthony Batts is being considered for the job of San Jose’s new police chief, after just more than a year of service in Oakland. Oakland Police Department spokeswoman Holly Joshi confirmed that Batts is one of two finalists for the position, but said that neither Batts nor the San Jose Police Department have made any decisions yet.

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Public safety meeting addresses gang injunction, death of Derrick Jones

Half of Tuesday’s three-hour Public Safety Committee meeting at Oakland City Hall addressed November’s fatal officer-involved shooting of an unarmed East Oakland man. Oakland Police Department Chief Anthony Batts announced he has asked the Federal Bureau of Investigations to open a federal civil-rights investigation to determine whether the OPD officers wrongly used lethal force.

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Police staff numbers won’t receive boost from Measure BB

When voters passed Measure BB in November, Oakland residents may have thought they were helping resolve the Oakland Police Department’s funding and staffing woes. But with the new year around the corner and a city budget still in crisis, Oakland officials and residents warn that the effects of the measure’s passage are more complex than that—and could end up causing more harm than good to a city recently ranked the fifth most dangerous in the nation.

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Oakland police force understaffed, deputy chief confirms

At a press conference held Monday afternoon in the lobby of Oakland’s police headquarters, Deputy Chief Eric Breshears said that the Oakland Police Department is significantly understaffed, a situation he expects to worsen in the new year. The conference followed the publication of a Matier & Ross column in the San Francisco Chronicle earlier that day reporting dire staffing figures.

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Evening Mehserle protests turn ugly

Protestors at night

Updated 8:54 p.m.: Police have begun arresting protesters who have been wandering raucously around Oakland in response to the announcement of the Johannes Mehserle sentencing. Oakland Police spokesperson Jeff Thomason estimated that more than 100 protesters have been arrested.

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Police, community commemorate first “sideshow-free” summer

Oakland Police Captain Ersie Joyner addresses the dangers associated with the reckless driving congregations known as sideshows at a reception on Monday night.

For more than two decades, the automotive attractions nicknamed “sideshows” have been a dangerous and illegal ritual in Oakland, claiming many lives along the way. Often referred to a “block party on wheels,” sideshows are impromptu tire screeching, doughnut-spinning, traffic-blocking congresses of cars surrounded by a crowd of people cheering on drivers as they execute dangerous twists and turns.

On Monday night, the Oakland Police and leadership-training group Youth Uprising celebrated the city’s first “sideshow-free” summer in 20 years with a reception that highlighted the dangers of the Oakland-born tradition.

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