Oakland is a world-class city with world-class terrible crime and a forever scandalized police force that often does more harm than good. Meet new OPD Chief Anthony Toribio and then say good-bye, because he's out after two days on the job.
Toribio was the deputy police chief before his two days as police chief, which followed the resignation of previous new chief Howard Jordan, who also abruptly resigned. As of late Friday afternoon, Sean Whent is "acting police chief," but this is hardly indicative of the name of the new or acting chief later today, or this weekend, or Monday.
From the San Francisco Chronicle:
A report last week by Thomas Frazier, appointed by a federal judge to oversee Police Department compliance with court-ordered reforms, said police supervisors were failing to hold officers accountable for abusive actions.
This week, a report by a city-commissioned consultant team led by [former NYPD commissioner] William Bratton said the department was so ineffectively structured that there was only one part-time investigator assigned to handle the 10,000 burglary reports filed last year.
The department has been under the oversight of a federal court monitor due to its failure to fully comply with court-ordered reforms stemming from a decade-old police abuse case.
Oakland has a lot going for it, with fine weather and famous sports teams and bohemian neighborhoods and great restaurants and shady downtown lake and fancy hillside enclaves as pricey as anywhere in the San Francisco Bay Area. But Oakland also has a persistently terrible crime plague and a police department in constant crisis.
The sprawling city's 400,000 good people live in fear of approximately 1,000 persistent violent criminals along with a bold handful of truly awful cops. We might just have to face the hard facts that Oakland is suffering from a magical curse.
In a comment on the Oakland Tribune site, one reader offered probably the best idea to fix not just OPD, but the grossly mismanaged City Hall in charge of the department:
Is it possible to revoke the city charter and start from scratch? Prime Bay Area real estate land wasting away due to mis-management. Major West Coast port, railway, airport, regional mass transit, lake, hills, and boating docks in the central location of SF Bay, yet it's one of the most avoided cities in Cali. Any ideas?
[Photo: Getty Images.]