I was glad to see the front page article on Chief LeRonne Armstrong in this morning’s San Francisco Chronicle, in which the Oakland Police Chief slammed the City Council for its disastrous, scandalous and cynical defunding decision last Thursday.
It cannot have been easy for Armstrong, who keeps a low profile, to go public. One of his predecessors, Anne Kirkpatrick, was unceremoniously fired by a vacillating Mayor Libby Schaaf, who was pressured by anti-cop critics into getting rid of a Chief popular among the rank-and-file. The same Schaaf holds Armstrong’s fate in her hands. And the same anti-cop critics still hold sway, such as Regina Jackson, who chairs the Police Commission. Armstrong, who has chosen to avoid controversy since taking office Feb. 8, had to take all these factors into account before he made his decision to talk.
I’m sure his cops on the streets will have a single reaction: About time. The truth is, Armstrong has been viewed by them as more or less of a lackey to the anti-police movement, a political chief thinking more about his future career than about his loyalty to his troops. When Armstrong appeared next to President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris at a gun control event in Washington, D.C. last April, there was chatter in the Oakland Police Department. Morale had sunk so low that it was easy for cops to envision their Chief lining his nest while they suffered.
I personally have felt sympathy for Chief Armstrong. My own feeling is that he loves OPD and he loves his cops, and he sees himself as a buffer between them and the virulent forces, exemplified by Jackson, Cat Brooks, Nikki Fortunato Bas, Carroll Fife and others, who would take pleasure at abolishing the department while crime ravages the city. Where cops call him a “political chief,” Armstrong would probably argue that the best he can do at this time is to keep the City Council and the Police Commission from inflicting even more damage upon OPD than they already have. If part of that defense includes keeping his mouth shut publicly, so be it.
So it must have been even more difficult for him to have reached his decision to talk to the Chronicle. He kept his remarks carefully curated to avoid inflaming the cop-haters. “As of July 1, there will not be one additional resource to help address public safety,” he said, adding, “And we won’t have an increased presence on the ground in the city of Oakland. That concerns me.” That is a diplomatic way of expressing what he really wanted to say: You people on the City Council are fucking morons, and you will be responsible for the death and mayhem that follow.”
Steve Heimoff