Berkeley Police Chief Mike Meehan has resigned, and the acting police chief will be Andrew Greenwood, city officials said Wednesday.
According to a memo from Berkeley Mayor Tom Bate's office, the Berkeley City Manager has accepted Meehan's resignation. Meehan cited personal reasons for his unexpected departure and wrote in his resignation letter that "the time is now."
Meehan joined the Berkeley Police Department in 2009.
A 23-year veteran of the Seattle Police Department, Meehan also headed Violent Crimes, which includes overseeing the homicide, robbery, CSI, gang, polygraph, bias crimes and fugitive units.
However, his time in Berkeley was not without controversy.
In an internal survey, Meehan was criticized for weak leadership, insufficient staffing and lack of communication skills.
"That direct feedback tells me that I am failing some members of this organization,” Meehan wrote in a recent email to the police department. “That is unacceptable.”
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On Wednesday, some in the community wondered if a scandal of some sort had prompted Meehan's abrupt departure.
"I think it’s kind of bizarre that he would quit just because he doesn’t get along with the officers," Diane Griffin said.
Others accused Berkeley police officers of chasing out the "nicest person" in the department.
Bates disagreed.
"It really has to do with his ability to lead the force," he said. "I think there were tensions between him and the police department, internal fractions, policies. Thank God it wasn’t misuse of force or sex scandal or guns or covering up something.
"I don’t think there’s any scandal there."
Berkeleyside reported that morale was at an all time low inside the Berkeley Police Department. But Meehan was also praised by Bates for building excellent community relations. Berkeley police have not had an officer-involved shooting since 2012.
In 2012, Meehan made headlines when he sent an officer to a reporter's house in the middle of the night to ask for a changes in an article. His handling of themurder of Peter Cukor has also come under fire.
But Meehan isn’t the first Berkeley police chief to clash with his rank-and-file and tension has been building for years, Bates said.
"There’s always some friction between management and labor," said Sgt. Chris Stines, president of the Berkeley Police Officers Association. "We don’t always see eye to eye, but I don’t think those things are necessarily unusual."
Stines declined to elaborate on the tension alluded to by Bates, but on a whiteboard at the union's office NBC Bay Area noticed that someone had written, “Chief — needs to go.”
Meanwhile, Greenwood, who will take over his new position in mid-October, is a "fantastic" choice, Stines said.
