SAN FRANCISCO The troubled police force in Oakland, California, saw its third police chief resign in just over a week on Friday as investigations into sexual misconduct and racist text messages continued to roil the department.
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Schaaf did not explain Friday why Figueroa made a decision to step down, but she said the former acting chief “resigned from his duties” and asked to go on leave.
City Administrator Sabrina Landreth was put in charge of the department, according to KTVU.
However, she denounced the department’s “toxic, macho culture” and vowed to root out “the bad apples”. It’s been a tumultuous eight days in the Oakland Police Department.
Acting Chief Paul Figueroa tendered his resignation to Schaaf on Friday, and the department’s command staff will now report to City Administrator Sabrina Landreth, Schaaf said during a news conference Friday evening.
She appointed Figueroa Wednesday after abruptly removing the interim police chief, Ben Fairow, after learning unspecified information that led her to lose confidence in his ability to run the beleaguered department.
Fairow had been chosen to replace former police chief Sean Whent, who resigned last week.
She said she only had sex with three officers – all from the Oakland PD – while she was underage.
In response to a question from the Express, the mayor said she’s hoping to not have to fire anyone else from OPD. A scandal developed when Celeste Guap, 18, admitted that she’d had sex with at least 14 officers in the Oakland Police Department and another 11 from other departments, starting when she was as young as 16.
“We are hell bent on rooting out this disgusting culture”, said a visibly angry Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf at Friday evening press conference. State personnel laws prohibit her from elaborating, she said.
The police department in the city of Richmond said this week that several ranking officers are being investigated for criminal contact with the woman or policy violations.
She said the inquiry does not involve Figueroa, the LA Times reported, but several African American officers who sent and received messages deemed “wholly inappropriate and not acceptable from anyone who wears the badge of the Oakland Police Department”.
Oakland City Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan said yesterday that the authority had not been briefed on the mayor’s reasons for firing the interim chief.
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) – A district attorney in California has placed an investigator on leave in connection with a widespread law enforcement sex scandal, saying her agency will not ignore human trafficking or the sexual exploitation of a minor.
That timing was right in the middle of a growing scandal percolating beneath the surface of a department that, to the casual observer, looked to be model for a new era of policing, thanks in part to 13 years of strict federal oversight.
New leadership will be critical to making clear the department does not tolerate “unethical behavior, sexual misbehavior or lying”, Schaaf said.
Other protesters donned white clothing with red hand prints to symbolize their belief that police officers who knew about the alleged sex scandal and did nothing, are also at fault.
Also Friday, it was revealed that a former homicide detective has been placed on leave for mishandling evidence in a homicide case and apparently leaving evidence at the home of a girlfriend who would also do his investigative paperwork, according to sources.
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The city’s political leaders appear to be unaware of the department’s systemic problems.
