City Hall Graduates New Police, Keeps Them Off the Street

Twenty-eight new officers who graduated from the police academy on April 11 are being kept off the streets for three weeks or more. (KCBS, April 24, 2008)

Normally, academy graduates get a week of vacation then pair up with field training officers – working police who take on a rookie as a partner.

The police department failed to line up enough field training officers, so it sent the new recruits on two weeks of vacation followed by another week behind a desk.

We do not presume to micro-manage the police department, but it seems obvious that management in the department or at City Hall just does not understand the need to confront the public safety crisis in Oakland.

If there aren't enough training officers, why not give these recruits walking patrols in small groups for awhile? Even if the time does not count as field training, the officers could add to the street presence Oakland so vitally needs.

Meanwhile, it is common that as many as half a dozen veteran officers will show up at a neighborhood crime prevention council meeting. They are not assigned to the local area; they earn overtime sitting there; but they fulfill a checklist requirement of the court-supervised settlement agreement negotiated in 2003 after the so-called Riders "scandal," although no officer was ever convicted of misconduct.