State: California - Oakland City Council

The City Council urges the City of Oakland to immediately halt the use of tear gas for crowd control during the COVID-19 pandemic and requests that the Oakland Police Commission immediately review and propose changes to OPD’s policy regarding the use of tear gas for crowd control in order to halt such use and to prevent excessive damage,The Oakland Police Commission shall schedule and submit its proposed recommendations and changes to the Department’s policies for use of tear gas to the Council for consideration,the City Council urges the Alameda County Sheriff, California National Guard Troops, and any other law enforcement agency in city of Oakland to refrain from using tear gas for the aforementioned purposes.

Just a day after residents demanded Oakland’s police department be defunded and its use-of-force practices changed, a proposed charter amendment that would allow the commission to hire its own civilian inspector general—who has authority to review, analyze, and make recommendations on policies and procedures regarding police misconduct and use of force—has been approved by the Oakland City council.

The midcycle contains reductions to public safety services, freezes 15.00 FTEs in vacant civilian positions within the Oakland Police Department across multiple sections. This freeze will reduce ODP’s capacity for collection, examination, analysis of evidence from crime scenes, civilan support for patrol functions, capacity for intenral financial analysis and fiscal operations, and the operation of the neighborhood services unit. It also increases the adminstrative capacity of the Department of Violence Prevention to faciliate its independent operation.