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Don Link's Reply to Report of Proposed Abolition of Beats Mr. Pine's polemical purpose has once again led him to misrepresent the discussion going on in OPD about the problems of covering patrol beats. Chief Tucker is both a nimble thinker and a skillful manager of his police resources. Patrol response (911 and non-emergency) must be available for every beat in the city 24/7. Normally, it is covered by patrol officers assigned to specific geographical beats for a 10 hour shift. Because of the shortage of sworn staff during this period when back-to-back Police Academies train and prepare new officers for duty, OPD is forced to resort to overtime and shifting resources. This means that low-crime beats (such as those in the hills) might not have assigned patrol coverage and be covered on an as-needed basis. Mandatory overtime coverage of beats is normally a 4-hour shift, leaving the other 6 hours covered by shifting resources from other beats. The discussion that I have heard – and it is one of many scenarios – establishes a patrol pool in each PSA to respond to the calls for police service, in this way using the resources where they are needed, when they are needed. As I understand it, if this approach is implemented, it is a temporary stop-gap to deal with the shortage of patrol resources available today. In the near future, as staffing levels rise, OPD would return to the Patrol 35 system with officers assigned to their designated beats and responsible for answering calls originating there. To date, no decisions about this have been made that I am aware of. It is a talking point among many. OPD and the Chief are caught between a rock and a hard place. Oakland's government allowed OPD to fall below its authorized force of 739 sworn back about the time that Measure Y passed. There had not been a Police Academy to train new officers for 3 years if my memory serves me. Advertising, processing applications, performing the requisite testing and background checks, is a several month process followed by 6 months of Academy training, and then an additional 6 weeks of Field Training with specially designated training officers before the new officers are ready for full duty. The whole process takes about 1 year, start to finish. The final piece to the puzzle is standards. Oakland could hire new or transferring (lateral) officers as quickly as it liked if it forgot standards. New Orleans did that decades ago. Oakland's standards are among the very highest and Chief Tucker is maintaining them in the face of citizen and Oakland city government demand for a quick build-up. The first lateral academy (police officers trained and experienced from other jurisdictions applying) had 52 applicants, accepted 15, and graduated 8. The arithmetic for from-scratch police officers is even more daunting. 1500 applicants will yield 75 graduates from the police academy a year later – 5% success rate from the applicant pool. If Chief Tucker has a better way of deploying his resources until OPD is staffed to its authorized level of 802, I feel that we should look at his ideas and see if they have value. Sticking with the old program in changed circumstances is what Oakland did in the past. Fresh, innovative thinking is what the new Chief brings. Regarding community policing, which is my special interest in the whole equation of the policing issue, Chief Tucker understands the community concern and commitment, and is committed to community policing himself, so much so, that he agreed to a formula that has 40% of every Police Academy addition of positions to OPD being allocated to filling community policing officer positions funded by Measure Y. Thus, the re-staffing of OPD to the 739 authorized positions (which are funded in the current budget for 2005-07) is going on simultaneously with the fielding of community policing officers funded by Measure Y. No one is having any fun in this period that the turn-around takes place. Police staff is stressed by the pressures of overtime and citizen demands for better service. Citizens are impatient for more sooner. To date, only the surcharge on the public parking tax has been collecting any funds for Measure Y. The November/December 05 property tax payment will be the first to contribute to Measure Y activities, and it will not be available to the city until the first quarter of 2006. Citizens can take solace in the fact that we have a dynamic, take-charge, experienced police chief. This is his swan-song, his opportunity to put into practice everything he learned during a full career with the Alameda County Sheriff's Department. He was retired, compensated by a good pension, and chose to return to duty for one last challenge. The money wasn't the lure, I suspect (the headaches of dealing with Oakland's demanding citizens and politicians would outweigh the financial rewards), but the intriguing challenge of putting OPD back together again as the pre-eminent police department in California and the U.S., a status it once enjoyed. It had the raw material and will but needed leadership and guidance to find its way back to its earlier pre-eminence. My opinion,
Don Link, PSA 2 |
