Nearly a year after Oakland’s last police chief was placed on leave ahead of his eventual firing, the two political forces responsible for replacing him still do not appear to be on the same page.
One of those power players, a police oversight body comprised of civilian volunteers, is once again seeking applications for the chief job instead of drawing from an existing applicant pool — effectively rebooting a search that was expected to conclude sometime around the new year but now won’t wrap up until at least March.
The reset came days after Mayor Sheng Thao, who will make the decision, outright rejected a controversial shortlist of three finalists for the job that the civilian Oakland Police Commission had presented to her office — further illustrating a strained dynamic between the two parties, the Mercury News reports.
It is yet another hitch in an increasingly splintered recruitment process that is quickly approaching the same length of time it took to hire the last chief, LeRonne Armstrong, in 2021. Armstrong was fired by Thao last February over his response to a misconduct scandal within the embattled police department.
His firing was the first sign of an apparent disconnect between the new mayor and the commission, which opposed his firing.
That political divide now has expanded into a deep chasm after the commission included Armstrong on its recent shortlist of candidates for Thao’s consideration, despite her repeated public declarations that she would not consider rehiring him as chief.
