Sarah Ravani

June 28, 2021

After four homicides over two days, the debate over policing in Oakland intensified Monday when the police chief sharply criticized the City Council’s move last week to redirect about $18 million away from the mayor’s proposed police budget.

Chief LeRonne Armstrong said the budget vote means fewer officers will be on the streets and response to 911 calls will be delayed. He added that a surge in violent crime makes it more crucial to increase police funding and said that the social services and violence-prevention programs meant to replace officers are not fully operational yet. Oakland saw four homicides over Friday and Saturday, bringing the city’s total to 65 for the year compared with 32 at this time in 2020.

“We find ourselves in a crisis,” Armstrong said at a news conference Monday. “We see clearly that crime is out of control in the city of Oakland and our response was for less police resources.”

Yet another shooting was reported right before the press conference began, and a victim was in critical condition, Armstrong added. Then, just hours after the press conference, two armed robbers held up a television news crew that was interviewing Guillermo Cespedes, the head of the city’s Department of Violence Prevention, outside City Hall. The suspects fled after a scuffle with a security officer and no injuries were reported.

Armstrong’s strong statement reflects a hardening of sides as the city grapples with how to best address a surge in violent crime. Armstrong, who was appointed by Mayor Libby Schaaf, finds himself on the side of the mayor and two council members who opposed the progressive majority on the council that pushed to shift resources from the police.

Some residents want an increase in police while others are advocating for shifting resources to try to address the root causes of crime, and city leaders are lining up against each other.

That debate is playing out in the wake of the City Council passing a two-year budget that cut $18.4 million from Schaaf’s proposed spending on police. The money will instead fund violence prevention measures and social services. In May, Schaaf proposed a two-year budget, which goes into effect July 1, that would have increased funding for the department, spending $693 million in total.

Schaaf would have paid for two additional police recruit academies, bringing the total to six. The council’s adopted budget funds four police recruit academies instead. The approved budget will also freeze 50 vacant officer positions.

Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas, who led the push to shift resources from the department, said Monday she appreciates “the chief’s passion and commitment to keeping the people of Oakland safe. I know he has lost loved ones to violence, like so many others in our city this last year alone.”

She said she shares his public safety goals, but differs in “how we must allocate our public safety resources for the next two years. For me, the time has never been more urgent to increase our investments in preventing violence from happening in the first place.”

She has said transitioning low-level, nonviolent 911 calls to other departments would help officers focus on the highest-priority cases.

Armstrong spoke emotionally Monday about the loss of lives to gun violence. He pointed to a photo of LaShawn Buffin, a 53-year-old woman killed Jan. 19 in East Oakland.

“That is my god-sister,” Armstrong said. “That means something to me.”

Armstrong said he responded to a report of a shooting Saturday night where a man was killed. As he walked through the neighborhood, a woman yelled from her window, “Do something about it.”

“Without the resources, it makes it challenging to make Oakland safe,” he said. “When the yellow tape is gone and when the streets are cleaned up, there is still hurt and pain and tragedy in our community.”

In a statement on Facebook, Bas said the first year of the city’s two-year budget is a “transition year” and residents will receive the same level of police service. Bas said there are no layoffs or reductions to the police force.

Thursday’s vote came after the city’s Reimagining Public Safety Task Force met for nearly a year and put together a list of recommendations on how to best use funds from the police department to bolster social services. In May, the City Council voted to prioritize 12 of those recommendations, which included creating a new unit within the Fire Department to respond to certain calls for homeless people and mentally ill that police previously responded to. They also included moving some traffic enforcement into the transportation department.

Out of the $18.4 million, the council redirected about $17 million to the Department of Violence Prevention, which works in partnership with the police department, but Armstrong said the new programs don’t yet exist and will take time before they’re launched.

In the meantime, Armstrong said, the city will suffer from not having additional police resources.

“As of July 1, there will not be one additional resource to help address public safety,” he said. “And we won’t have an increased presence on the ground in the city of Oakland. That concerns me.”

Oakland currently has 714 police officers — roughly 165 officers per 100,000 people, while San Francisco has 202 officers per 100,000 people.

Council Member Loren Taylor, who was at the news conference, said after the event that he is frustrated because his district in East Oakland feels the impact of gun violence disproportionately.

“We don’t have the number of violence interrupters that are trained ready to do the work today,” he said, adding that it can take up to a year to hire for those positions. Taylor had proposed five police academies instead of four. He voted against the budget Thursday.

“We need to center the voices and the lives of our community members as we are reimagining public safety,” he said.

Councilman Dan Kalb, who voted for the budget, said there will be no shift in resources on July 1 when the new budget goes into effect. The cut to the department’s budget is roughly 2.5% and any impact might be seen at the end of the first fiscal year, he added. 

Still, the investment and priorities council made are critical, Kalb said.

“We’ve been saying for years that we have to step up and put serious investments into a range of violence prevention and intervention strategies that will help reduce violence,” Kalb said. “It’s not going to be an easy transition. We have to do that at some point and we are starting that point now.”

Sarah Ravani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sravani@sfchronicle.com