By Alex Gronke Hello Spot.Us community members.
A quick update: We chatted recently with Alex Gronke and he is making good progress on his piece. He expects it to be done soon. We know it has been a long time, but as noted in earlier emails - we thought it better to try and push the story forward rather than rehash what is already out there. As you might guess the OPD has been a bit of a moving target.
If you have questions or concerns about this. Please contact David AT spot dot us.
Meanwhile here's the lastest from Alex Gronke also published at The OakBook. The numbers below are very interesting.
The $1.5 million Oakland officials agreed to pay the relatives of Gary King, Jr. two weeks ago is one of the larger single settlements the city has paid as a result of alleged police misconduct in recent years.
In 2007-08, the city paid $1.2 million for the roughly 77 claims and lawsuits brought against the Oakland Police Department, a list that ranges in seriousness from towing the wrong car to wrongful death.
While claims and lawsuits against the police department have been declining, the Oakland Police Department accounts for more than one of every four billable hours logged by the Oakland City Attorney. Meantime, the number of citizen complaints received by the police department continues to rise.
The Oakland Police Department’s Internal Affairs Division projects that it will receive 2,300 complaints by the end of this year, which is up considerably from the 1,700 complaints representing 3,215 allegations received in 2008.
Compare that figure to Long Beach. In 2007, that city’s Citizen Police Complaint Commission handled 285 complaints, a 16 percent decrease from the year before.
In Oakland, the IAD sustained only seven percent, or 219 of the allegations investigated in 2008.
Around 200 of the OPD’s 1,325 employees received three or more complaints in 2008.
African-Americans filed 39 percent of the complaints, while 44 percent of the complaints failed to specify race, gender, or both.
Hiring
As of September 23, the Oakland Police Department’s number of sworn officers was down to 794, and the department was losing 4 police officers a month to transfers, disability, retirements, resignations, terminations, and deaths. No one knows when the police department will reach its mandated staffing level of 803 sworn officers.
The last police academy graduated 38 new police officers nearly one year ago, and there are no plans to open a new academy. At least one position has been filled. Anthony Batts, the new chief, is expected to be on the job following a swearing in ceremony on October 20th.
Overtime
Overtime has long been a problem for the department. In 2004, Oakland City Council hired an outside consultant to help find ways to cut OPD’s overtime.
Not much changed. In 2007, OPD clocked $27 million of overtime. That was more than twice what had been budgeted. At the beginning of the year, Mayor Ron Dellums asked that police department cut its use of overtime by 25 percent. A report from the police department shows that it spent nearly $3 million on overtime pay in July and August of this year.
Posted by Spot. Us on 10/07/09
