Arrest of former Oakland councilmember sparks outrage at committee meeting

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.…

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Oaklanders grab coffee with cops (and horses)

Coffee with a Cop

Oakland Police Department (OPD) officer Michael Tacchini loves caramel macchiatos. They aren’t his favorite, but he likes to get them when he’s in a “good mood,” he said. Tacchini and about a dozen other OPD officers were in pretty high spirits as they gathered Wednesday afternoon at a Starbucks near the Oakland Coliseum BART station.…

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OPD struggling to hire Oakland-based officers

Tuesday night’s Oakland Public Safety Committee meeting revealed that the Oakland Police Department (OPD) is still struggling to hire officers who live in Oakland, despite new recruitment efforts, and that the majority of last year’s $500,000 traffic safety grant went towards paying officers to work overtime to police traffic violations.

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