Mandatory Overtime Leaves OPD Near Collapse

The city council has complained a lot about the expense of overtime in the Oakland Police Department. Here is the human impact, as reported by Alan Campbell on the PSA4 discussion group:

It is my understanding that OPD is now requiring its officers to put in mandatory overtime. I spoke to an officer that was on mandatory overtime, during the day, over the 4th of July weekend.

Also, it appears that mandatory overtime is being used to create teams to deal with sideshows on weekends. While officers were required to put in mandatory overtime for sideshow duty, there were 12 – yes, 12 – open beats. In addition, the officers on sideshow duty were not allowed to respond to routine incidents that were reported or that they happened to see (they did respond to the serious stuff, like officer needs assistance).

This raises some serious questions. How does this mandatory overtime sit with the recent overtime audit and concerns? If officers are required to put in mandatory overtime, isn't this a recipe for burnout? Twelve open beats during a shift is a lot of uncovered territory within the City of Oakland. This is very scary. The "thin blue line", is becoming like vermouth in a dry martini.

Comment: Now we understand why police officers on the street unanimously greet us with enthusiasm whenever we hand them our commentary titled "Oakland needs more police." We get raised arms, cheers, and "right on."

The 12 unprotected beats are not unusual. Weeks ago an officer at a meeting of a Neighborhood Crime Prevention Council reported similar numbers.

Oakland has officers on overtime because the city council froze hiring for nearly three years before a hiring academy finally began Feb. 28, 2005. During this time, the sideshow problem became too serious to ignore, for example, when U'Kendra Johnson was killed by Eric Crawford's car.

But the council persists in denying us peaceful neighborhoods. It is collecting the Measure Y taxes, but it is not providing the 802 officers required by Measure Y.

And they're working mandatory overtime.

News report adds to mandatory overtime scandal

Police Chief Wayne Tucker told the Oakland Tribune that because of understaffing, officers are required to work at least one overtime shift every two weeks. (Sept. 8, 2005) Even with forced labor by patrol officers, on a recent Wednesday five of the city's 35 night-time beats were unstaffed. On that day the three shifts had 16, 14, and 11 officers working overtime.

It should be obvious that with half a police department (comparing Oakland with Atlanta, Boston, Cleveland and most other major cities), the choice is either heavy overtime or complete abandonment of the streets to a small crowd of thugs. This obvious point seems to be a mystery to council president Ignacio De La Fuente. The newspaper reports quotes him, "All of us are interested in getting to the bottom of why we haven't been able to control overtime spending."

De La Fuente is part of the city council that froze hiring almost three years from early 2002 to late 2004. He is part of the city council that is denying Oakland the 802 officers required by Measure Y, while daring to collect the new taxes. When the councilmembers "get to the bottom" they will find ... themselves.