Even with arrests having been made in connection with the killing of an Oakland police officer, one city leader is calling on the mayor to declare a state of emergency.
Councilman Noel Gallo, the one proposing the state of emergency, says it would give Mayor Sheng Thao the ability to move forward in choosing a new police chief.
Thao fired former police Chief LaRonne Armstrong last February, and the city’s been without a permanent leader ever since.
Gallo will meet with Thao on Wednesday to push her to make good on her threat to declare the state of emergency over the Oakland Police Commission’s delays in delivering her a slate of candidates from which to choose a police chief.
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Without the state of emergency in place, the process plays out. That gives the commission until March to get the mayor a new list of finalists. She rejected the last one.
It’s been a difficult year for the people of Oakland. Robberies went up 38%, there were 32% more burglaries and a 44% increase in motor vehicle thefts, and 126 people were killed in the city.
One of them was Oakland police Officer Tuan Le, who was shot and killed last Friday while working an undercover burglary operation.
"If someone has the audacity to attack an Oakland police officer, they're attacking every resident of Oakland," Oakland Police Officers' Association President Barry Donelan said.
As Le’s family and the city mourned the loss of the 36-year-old officer, OPD and other law enforcement officers poured over video, electronic and physical evidence from the scene. They later arrested suspects in San Francisco, Livermore and Sacramento.
The arrests happened within 100 hours of Le’s killing along the 400 block of Embarcadero.
