OO will be sitting in on the OPC meeting tonight, with main reporting focus on pursuit policy, secondary on OPD updates. The meeting starts at 5:30pm, but they started late: going into closed session now, with scheduled return at 6:30pm. Pursuit will directly follow Open Forum

Okay, back from closed session, and meeting is starting.

Moving into Open Forum

Staffer has announced that Council President Jenkins is here.

Lance Wilson of APTP says its outrageous for Council President Jenkins to have withdrawn appointments of Commissioners Farmer & Garcia-Acosta at Rules today. Jenkins said there were "concerns" & sent appointments back to SP. He says its a disrespectful way to treat volunteers

There's probably more people here than usual, but that just means its not a lot of people. Only three people spoke during Open Forum.

Garcia Acosta just noted that no one from OPD is here. Weird. The Pursuit policy is the first item on the agenda. But Mitchell arrived in the meantime

We're on to the Pursuit Policy.

It is a bit strange for the vote on this to be happening tonight, with Jenkins in audience, after he apparently single-handedly made the move to withdraw the re-appointment of Chair Garcia-Acosta.

Garcia Acosta tees up item, noting the key changes in Mitchell's edits is 1) officer initiating a pursuit, followed by getting permission; 2) & the removal of Armstrong's 50 MPH limit. He says OPC met with stakeholders, Mitchell to partner on edits after Mitchell's initial draft

Mitchell is going through history of pursuit policy, which allowed broader and broader rationale for pursuit from 2022 to 2011; the criteria begins to tighten in 2012 with NSA direction to reduce pursuits.

Mitchell: by 2013 the changes to satisfy the NSA direction began, new pursuit policy approved in 2012, 2014; from 2014 remained mostly the same until 2022, with pursuits allowed only to forcible crimes or firearms possession.

Kirkpatrick's changes in 2018 were minor, waiving criticism and discipline for terminating a pursuit.

Armstrong's changes in 2022, 9212; Mitchell explains that Armstrong said he was reacting to "emergency" conditions, which were two pursuit fatalities in the same year. Limited pursuits to 50 MPH without supervisory permission

Mitchell going through the events of 24-25; with Jenkins/Reid ordering review by OPC of pursuit policy and recs. OPC recommended not changes; then Newsom directed changes, with that, Mitchell began to propose changes

Mitchell says the first draft had more substantive changes; now going through the addition of stakeholders, including the OPC after direction from City Attorney and public.

Mitchell noting a very detailed history here...he notes that no one was sure if the OPC had the power to change the policy until the City Attorney's decision.

Mitchell noting the first substantive change in the policy. OO reported on this previously, here it is

Mitchell's third change would rescind Armstrong' 9212, here's that order,. With rescinding in the policy, officers are directed to refer to 19 risk factor formula https://public.powerdms.com/OAKLAND/documents/2953680?ref=oakland-observer.ghost.io…

Mitchell says the violent forcible felonies are still the only predicates to initiate a pursuit. It's extensive

Despite claims about this list, it seems like it would encompass much of the concerns about reckless driving in general.

Commissioner Riles asks about the risk factors being used throughout the pursuit. Mitchell also notes that an actual component of the policy is this addition by kirkpatrick

Mitchell's explanation of this passage doesn't feel like it accurately reflects the text; he said it means that any officer can call in a termination to the pursuit.

Commissioner Dawitt confirming commercial robbery as a predicate for pursuit; Mitchell, confirms that they are forcible felonies. Mitchell noting that a burglary is not a predicate for pursuit, however

Mitchell noting the difference of using a vehicle to break through a storefront, as opposed to trying to run down people as a weapn.

Dawitt notes that Mitchell had previously created a draft that included sideshows and burglary and asks him to explain why it hasn't ended up in a final edit.

Mitchell says that though those crimes have proliferated & he wanted to address them, they looked at nation wide best practices & discussed w/stakeholders and saw it's not considered best practice:"pursuit of non violent felonies is just not on the table...so that was removed"

Jackson-Castain asking why 9212 is being rescinded: is it because of the additional administrative reporting load? Or is it because officers have been dissuaded from initiating pursuits.

Mitchell: "we've seen that with today's vehicles, you get to 50 pretty quickly...officers noting w/risk factors, they decide not to pursue..." he says data shows that the pursuits have diminished, because officers asking selves if they are even in policy if they start pursuit

Mitchell gives example: If officer is passed by driver going 60 MPH, and officer even begins process of pursuit, and vehicle crashes, they officer could be out of policy. Mitchell also adds that 9212 added another redundancy for reporting, as well, per her question

Jackson-Castain asks if rescinding 9212 is expected to have pursuits increase, Mitchell says that they will monitor that and keep OPC posted and then have another convo about that if it is rising

Garcia Acosta wondered if there is a way to inform the community about the advent of a pursuit, following up on Farmer's question if there is any loudspeaker communication with public about pursuits. Mitchell says they do not inform public as a practice, because they are in coms

Somehow the issue of incoming police radio silence came up, Mitchell noted that's been put on hold regardless, it could come back to Commission

Mitchell confirming that rescinding of 9212 would eliminate duplicative reports.

Garcia Acosta asks :"two layers of reports would go away with rescinding?" Mitchell confirms

Commissioner Williams asks if there is technology that can be incorporated to help with pursuit; Mitchell says that best tool OPD has is "air support...once AS has eyes on vehicle, the vehicle can shut down"

Mitchell says that Flock also helps, they can follow up later to arrest individuals, he notes that they use them to follow vehicles to destination. He notes that drones are not fast enough to follow vehicles, but they can be used in limited space to identify vehicles.

One novel argument that's come up here for rescinding 9212 has been that limiting speed is already covered by the 19 risk factors, and pursuits can be shut down for much lower speeds.

Mitchell: it usually takes a minute or so for a helicopter to move to site..."if its already up, it happens pretty quick..." but it can take longer if the heli needs to get airborne. Point of question from Williams is that initiating pursuit allows the addition of airborne tool

Mitchell says training would go on for some time before the policy goes into practice: "and on a specific day, the new policy would go into place...". Williams asks if there's a reassessment, Mitchell says there will be a quarterly reassessment phase, w/ info presented to OPC

I distinctly remember Orrick saying he wasn't concerned with the basics of the pursuit policy, but now Mitchell is saying that the NSA judge/monitor is a big part of the policy. Maybe a convo happened afterward

Riles, who headed the ad hoc that initially suggested no changes in pursuit, says he appreciates the way that Mitchell has approached the changes and thanks him.

Dawitt says he supports changes, but thinks they don't go far enough. He says that local jurisdictions already allow pursuits for property crimes, and it sets up Oakland to invite crime "when they know this". Basically saying local jurisdictions are outliers from nat'l standards

Mitchell redirected as an answer that technology will allow the capture of the offenders, and went on quite a bit about DA Jones Dickson needing time to show that there are consequences

Garcia-Acosta wrapping up the convo, with Vice Chair Booker. Both say that they will get criticized for going too far/not far enough. Booker says that increasing pursuits is dangerous, and violence doesn't necessarily help.

Booker noted that they get a lot of commentary to allow the Chief to make the decision, but confirming that he has "you're saying this is an educated decision..."

Chief of Staff notes that CM Houston is also here. Houston will likely say he doesn't think the policy doesn't go far enough, as he consistently has.

First written commentary: BPAC sent a commentary letter, says they aren't supportive of an increase to pursuits; Jennifer Findlay asks if the policy went through NSA and plaintiffs attorneys

My understanding is that the majority of Commissioners support the changes and will likely vote for them, but we'll see.

Lance Wilson of APTP said he would rather there be no changes to pursuit policy, but he said faced with the reality that if OPC vote no, it will go to the Council where current composition would likely expand pursuits greatly, he feels this policy is better than that option

Another speaker with APTP reads the horrifying list of negativce outcomes of police chases, notes that most burglar alarms are false alarms, asks if its worth losing a life to catch a burglar

Millie Cleveland of Coalition for Police Accountability says the language is vague in policy, officers should be required to immediately contact supervisor, says outcomes on officer's violating will be bad

Another speaker from APTP

Speaker says he canvassed in West Oakland and though people complained about crime, they did not think that increasing pursuits would do more good than harm. He says he's glad that Mitchell's previous edit was deleted

Speaker says he was a friend of Martin Boomer, and that one life lost in a pursuit is too many. He says that there's nowhere in Oakland where a pursuit is safe and doesn't support changing the policy.

This speaker was the first to point out the ambiguity in text that doesn't have a concrete time period in which to ask for authorization for the pursuit. Surprisingly, no one has brought this up previous to my knowledge

Many of today's speakers have been young Black and Brown people who don't support any changes, with about 15 speakers so far, only one has demanded significantly more pursuit capability, most don't even support any changes.

APologies for not catching exact names of orgs, I will have them in the wrap up newsletter. This speaker says that there's just no place in Oakland where a pursuit is safe

Another speaker who says the ambiguity in language will be abused

Alyssa Victory of ACLU wrote a letter just read by Chief of Staff, ACLU does not support the changes.

That's it for speakers. Garcia Acosta brings it back, and says that any one decision is just a part of a lot of decisions and moving parts, and he says that a lot of the ideas need to come back for further discussion. "there's no right answer..." he says in prelude for vote.

Dawitt makes the motion to approve the policy as is. Seconded by Booker [I believe, just by voice]. Some back and forth to confirm what is the version being voted, current version submitted in this agenda.

On roll: Booker, Williams, Riles, Jackson Castain, Dawitt, Garcia Acosta all vote yes, unanimous vote, policy as introduced on today's agenda passes. Big change is elimination of 50 MPH initially instituted by Armstrong, less significant changes on language to initiate a pursuit

Riles asked about the lack of dashcams and GPS to monitor OPD; he syas that OPOA has declined these in the past. Promise to bring these back for more discussion.

On OPD report: OPD is down to 644 personnel, with operational strength of 519 after counting over 100 long term leaves and vacancies. Current academy has only 18 officers, from target of 33. It does not look good.

In his questions, Dawitt basically communicated that he'd spoken to an officer that had tried to use the excuse that officers are afraid to do their job because of over-discipline. The officer kind of shot it down, notably.

In conversations with previous CPRA staff, I've been told some officers involved in oversight of officers take the issues very seriously. Probably not the majority, but worth noting.

Mario Contreras asked the percentage of Skelly cases that result in reversed discipline.

Yolanda Barron was sideswiped, attacked by people who sideswiped, off duty intoxicated EMT's ;but she had a non-emergency police number that was incorrect

Barron says that she was attacked by a number of white people after being sideswiped, and she feels she's being discriminated against. She's been unable to make a report.

Jennifer Findlay asking how OPD will do the work with fewer officers, notes fewer people want the job, increasing attrition. Wonders if Oakland has a plan for this obvious reality

Findlay says she's also disappointed in Mitchell's response on what to do if a masked person tries to kidnap you, "go along and sort it out in the morning", at a previous meeting. She said that's absurd.

The meeting isn't over, but that's my reporting for the evening. Some observations in the end, almost no one came to speak about the pursuit policy from the right, or who wanted it to be expanded, though it falls far short of those demands made over the last several years.