Fiscal Year 2013-2015 Special Budget Meeting

Major Crimes Section 2 is assigned all robberies and all non-gun assaults. Currently staffed by a lieutenant, a sergeant and eight investigators, this unit is not in a position to respond swiftly to robberies as they occur. As the Bratton Group team has observed in an earlier report, 1) the unit's daytime and weekday working hours, 2) the elimination of overtime for robbery investigations, 3) the extended time (usually several days] for a fresh robbery report to reach the unit, and 4) the urgency of processing in-custody arrests before the 48-hour time limit expires all undercut the unit's ability to work on the not-in-custody robberies. Robbery investigators acknowledge a current workload of about 30 robbery cases each. Investigating robbery, a crime that is often solved by eyewitness identifications, requires a quick response to victims and witnesses before memories fade and interest on the part of victims wanes. As for the non-gun assaults, there is only one investigator in Major Crimes Section 2 assigned to them citywide. The Bratton Group team envisages a small, centralized CID team that works on in-custody robbery cases and on any citywide robbery pattern that may emerge, with the bulk of robbery and assault investigations being conducted by the District Investigation Units. The Field Services/Theft Unit comprises a range of functions, including managing all CID personnel assigned to task forces with Alameda County and the federal government. It also includes nominal burglary, elder abuse, financial crime, and auto theft functions, but it is acknowledged that these are not really investigative units but rather charging units who process arrests made by patrol personnel. The single investigator assigned to burglary does not even work at this task full time, and, given the roughly 13,000 burglaries in the city in 2012, this investigator would have no hope of investigating even a small fraction of them. Burglaries, in effect, are not investigated in the City of Oakland. Yet burglaries are the most invasive and violating of property crimes because most people regard the safety of their home as a critically important part of their sense of wellbeing. As will be discussed further below, under the heading Investigating Cases and Managing Evidence, OPD evidence The Bratton Group, LLC 5