With permission of the author, I’m reproducing in its entirety a message that the President of the Oakland Police Officers’ Association, Barry Donelan, sent yesterday to City Council President Nikki Bas.
Feb 28, 2022
Dear Council President Bas
Two months into 2022, the converging crises of police staffing, and violent crime continues to take a heavy toll on Oakland residents. As you are well aware, the city’s most vulnerable communities and neighborhoods are paying the tragic price for this unacceptable state of affairs.
The City’s appalling police staffing crisis is fueled by the anti-police rhetoric continually streaming from your City Council meetings which is driving hardworking, dedicated Oakland police officers to leave in droves at a time when Oakland residents are facing decades-high levels of violent crime. Today, the Oakland Police Department (OPD) has only 673 sworn members, five less than the Measure Z staffing minimum established in 2014.
The numbers are stark and ominous.
In the ten years between 2010 to 2020, the OPD lost sixty (60) sworn members per year, most to retirement. Last year, amid your Council’s constant demeaning of police officers, Oakland lost eighty-six (86) sworn officers. Only twenty-seven (27) due to retirement. At this critical juncture, no matter how many police academies the Council authorizes, OPD is structurally incapable of keeping pace with attrition.
In just the first two months of 2022, the pace of attrition has predictably increased as eighteen (18) police separated from the Oakland Police Department. Thirteen (13) left in February alone. The departures in such large numbers directly result from the policies and rhetoric promulgated by your Council. Voting for more police academies in the face of such attrition has little impact when officers continue to leave at a faster pace than you can hire new ones.
Law enforcement agencies all over now enjoy the benefits of Oakland’s well-trained and experienced police officers in their ranks. Those communities value your former cops’ services and experience, and unlike Oakland, these communities invest in public safety, not vilify it. Since July 2021, Oakland Police Officers transferred to the following law enforcement agencies:
Alameda County Sherrif’s Office
Alameda County District Attorney’s Inspectors
Concord Police Department
Menifee Police Department
Fremont Police Department
Pleasant Hill Police Department
City of Orange Police Department
Santa Rosa Police Department
San Francisco District Attorney’s Office
San Francisco Sheriffs’ Department
Brentwood Police Department
Alameda Police Department
Pittsburg Police Department
Placer County Sheriffs’ Office
Pleasanton Police Department
Hayward Police Department
Manteca Police Department
Walnut Creek Police Department
San Jose Police Department
In 2020 I repeatedly warned of this crisis. I wrote you and your colleagues sounding the alarm. In December, I invited every Council member to attend a police shift change and thank your police officers for their service while wishing them happy holidays. Only Council Member Treva Reid accepted the invite and engaged with police officers serving your residents over the holidays. The fact that you and your colleagues are unwilling even to say thank you to the men and women who strive every day to protect the residents of Oakland speaks volumes and is at the core of what is driving this exodus of police officers out of Oakland.
Given the critical and dire nature of the police staffing crisis in Oakland, I urge you to stop ignoring the problem. Instead, consider the following immediate steps:
1. Stop the anti-police rhetoric promulgated by your City Council and support your Oakland police officers. Currently, no Oakland police officer believes they have any support from you.
2. Have MACRO immediately take mental health calls as promised. Doing this will reduce the burden of calls on the depleted ranks of Oakland cops. You announced this program a year ago, and we are still waiting for it.
3. Finally, engage with the OPD And the OPOA to invest in hardworking and dedicated Oakland police officers to stay working in Oakland and not leave.
I urge you to act. Oakland Police Officers support OPD’s recent patrol reorganization to better respond to our residents’ 911 calls amid shrinking resources. But we are all aware aware that as attrition continues, ultimately there will be no officers left to respond to our residents’ 911 calls for help and that will be your legacy in office.
Yours sincerely,
Barry Donelan
President
Oakland Police Officers’ Association
cc: Oakland City Council
Mayor Libby Schaaf
Chief LeRonne Armstrong
Oakland Police Officers’ Association Board of Directors
[This is Steve again] Donelan’s message is shocking in its exposé of how horrible this City Council treats our police and exposes all of us to danger. Bas, by the way, responded almost immediately to Donelan—the first time, he says, “in over three years” he’s received a response from her. In her angry, defensive and dismissive note, Bas called Donelan’s statements “inflammatory and untrue.” You might want to contact Council President Bas and the other council members and let her know how you feel. Here’s Bas’s email: NFortunatoBas@oaklandca.gov
Donelan’s j’accuse against Bas and her City Council is absolutely accurate. For years, we’ve watched the Council try to neuter the Oakland Police Department by severely reducing its budget. That tactic, of course, failed utterly, because the citizenry rose up in outrage. But that hasn’t stopped the City Council, or at least some of its members, from routinely issuing “anti-police rhetoric,” in Donelan’s words, “which is causing hardworking, dedicated Oakland police officers to leave [OPD] in droves.” Donelan, as you saw in his message, begged Bas to “consider “ three steps that would alleviate the situation. Bas refused even to consider any of them, which means that more police officers will quit OPD in the future, leading to a situation in which “there will be no officers left to respond to our residents’ 911 calls for help.”
It is fantastic, unbelievable, appalling that somehow these ideologues like Bas and her colleagues, Fife, Kaplan and the others, have taken power in Oakland. It also is infuriating that we, the people, think so little of our city, or even of our own safety, that we allow them to continue along their destructive path. Again, please read Donelan’s message carefully. He speaks not only for himself, but for the hundreds of Oakland cops he represents. His anguish is theirs; their pain is ours. Please rise up and speak out to Bas in the strongest possible way. Tell her she shall no longer be allowed to insult, demean and weaken OPD. Tell her if she can’t be part of the solution, then she’s part of the problem. Tell her to lead, or to get out of the way.
Steve Heimoff