Fiscal Year 2013-2015 Special Budget Meeting

Initial Findings and Preliminary Recommendations Introduction The Bratton Group spent three days in Oakland from March 5 to March 7 making a preliminary assessment of anti-crime strategies and practices in the Oakland Police Department (OPD). The consultants met with the OPD command staff and with the managers of the Ceasefire Project. We individually interviewed members of OPD's top management, including Assistant Chief Anthony Toribio, Deputy Chief Eric Bershears, Acting Deputy Chief Anthony Rachal, and Gil Garcia, the director the OPD Bureau of Services. We also met with Captain Steve Tull and Captain Ersie Joyner, who are to command District 4 and District 5 respectively under the OPD's new organizational structure, as well as with Captain Johnny Davis who commands the Criminal Investigations Division (CID). The consultants attended a Wednesday meeting of OPD's CompStat and talked informally with vendors and City of Oakland IT personnel who provide technological support to the CompStat process. We held a focus group with Problem Solving Officers (PSOs) and supervisors from the 4*^ and 5* districts. Before departing on Thursday, we met with Chief Toribio and Chief Bershears to brief them on their preliminary observations and findings. The OPD is in the midst of a reorganization that will ultimately decentralize police operations to five districts, a course that The Bratton Group consultants strongly endorse. To combat crime in Oakland, and to do so constitutionally and in conjunction with local communities, it is critically important to decentralize the watch commander system and to establish local districts that can serve as centers for both community connection and crime fighting. The current plan is to initiate the decentralization in two districts in east Oakland (an area currently policed by Bureau of Field Operations 2 or BF02) and to eventually expand to three additional districts in Bureau of Field Operations 1 (or BFOl). The Bratton Group consultants urge that the expansion to the three remaining districts be accomplished as soon as possible and not be delayed for an extended test period in District 4 and District 5. It is important to get the district system up and running and subject to CompStat review. OPD CompStat The OPD CompStat process itself requires significant revision. It currently takes the form of a presentation rather than an inquiry. Ersie Joyner, the captain presenting on Wednesday, March 6, was well-informed and obviously takes an activist approach to his command responsibilities, but CompStat is meant to accomplish more than a mere recitation of district initiatives and conditions. The purpose of the CompStat process is to provide vigorous strategic oversight of a police department's The Bratton Group, LLC 21