by Bob Walsh
The Oakland Police Commission is a relatively new body. They are a group of civilians, none has ever worn a badge. On Thursday night they voted unanimously to fire the Chief of Police, Anne Kirkpatrick. who was hired by the mayor three years ago. To be effective the mayor had to endorse their action. She did, called the chief, and said BYE BYE.
The commission was created by voters in 2016, shortly before Kirkpatrick was hired. The session during which the vote was taken was closed.
There has been open tension between the chief and the commission over the last several months. Most of it circled around the commission's decision to fire five cops involved in a 2018 shooting. Both the chief and an internal investigation cleared the officers.
The commission was also pressuring the chief to hire more minority women as cops. The differences of opinion got nasty.
In 2016 a significant number of Oakland cops got jacked up for banging the under-age daughter of a police dispatcher. There were also some unfortunate racist text messages and emails sent thru the department system. The department went thru three Chiefs in nine days in June of 2016.
The current deputy chief will be acting chief until a new chief is hired. I wonder if they will have trouble getting a quality candidate considering the amount of power the police commission actually has.
Kirkpatrick gets a one year severance package.
3 comments:
A civilian review board is fine as long as there is a person on it with knowledge of criminal justice. Without that knowledge they are like a blind man at a urinal. Their ignorance is going to splash on someone.
Interesting bit of symbolism there.
Sounds like the chief was actually treated as an employee to me.
Do what the boss says or bye bye.
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