Safety Alert: Oakland Adopting Citizen Cops Program In Reorganization

Crime-ridden city will be divided into five districts with community leaders

Five districts. Five district captains. Citizen cops. That’s what law enforcement will look like in Oakland, Calif., after it reorganizes to address long-running history of trouble with crime and bad blood between police and residents in black and Hispanic neighborhoods. In small areas of the city, district captains will be able to reach out to community leaders and citizen cops. “The police can’t do it by themselves,” says Capt. Steven Tull, commander of one of the first two policing districts to be created on March 16. “The community must really be engaged because sometimes the community might have the solutions, they might have ideas and we need to respect that.” Late last year, Oakland avoided becoming the first city in the nation to lose control of its police force to federal authorizes. The force has dwindled from a peak of 837 officers in 2009 down to 611. Although budget cuts caused the reduce the force, Mayor Jean Quan pledged in her recent State of the City Address to restore the force to full strength by hiring 200 officers over the next five years. (New York Times)

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