Oakland police chief asks to lift 50 mph pursuit rules
Police Chief Floyd Mitchell said he wants to give officers more autonomy and reduce the red tape to allow a pursuit where a suspect starts driving faster than 50 mph.
But Mitchell added that he is not trying to lift the rules to allow chases for traffic violations or property crimes – the latter of which many residents have been pushing for.
Oakland's policy still limits police chases to violent-crime categories, including murder, manslaughter, kidnapping, robbery and carjacking.
Mitchell's formal request to the Oakland Police Commission was documented in a May 19 letter to Police Commissioner Ricardo Garcia-Acosta, and which was discussed at the commission's May 22 meeting.
The chief does not need the commission's approval, but he did ask the civilian board to formally weigh in over the next four months.
Mitchell's specific request is to allow OPD to "rescind Special Order 9212" put into place in 2022 by then-Police Chief Leronne Armstrong that required the "automatic termination" of all police chases if the speed reached or exceeded 50 mph without a commander's approval.
Mitchell said that driving faster than 50 mph can be achieved "within a matter of seconds" and requiring a commander to weigh in to allow the chase to continue has resulted in far fewer pursuits.
He illustrated his point by pointing to a chart he created showing that police pursuits dropped from 130 to 68 – or by 47% – from 2022 to 2024. At the same time, Mitchell said that police ended up abandoning pursuits, or not initiating them at all, from 522 to 1,228 – or by 135.5% – in the same two-year period.
Overall, on average for the last decade, Mitchell said there are between 77 and 80 police pursuits a year.
The Oaklandside noted that there were many residents at last week's meeting who sided with the chief, but thought he wasn't going far enough.
City councilman Ken Houston said Mitchell's request wasn't "tough enough" and he wanted "law and order" to be restored in the city. Resident Tuan Ngo echoed Houston's sentiments.
But Millie Cleveland, chair of the Coalition for Police Accountability, said she was concerned about giving police officers the sole discretion – without their superiors' input – to drive faster, noting they have abused decisions like this in the past.
John Burris and Jim Chanin, two civil rights lawyers who filed the original Riders suit that keeps OPD under federal oversight, wrote in a May 5 letter to the police commission that they disagreed with changing the pursuit rules. They said it would be "very difficult, if not impossible," to discipline an officer for failing to notify a supervisor during a chase.
"The officer will say I gave the notice 'as soon as reasonably practical,' and given the stress of engaging in the pursuit, driving in a high-speed situation, and avoiding innocent bystanders and uninvolved vehicles, it will be very hard to second guess the officer no matter how unreasonably he or she may have acted," they wrote.
In January, Gov. Gavin Newsom called on the police commission to loosen OPD's restrictions on chases or risk losing support from the CHP.
But commissioners were perplexed as to why the governor would call them out specifically for a policy they don't have a formal say over. Their jurisdiction comes into play only with use-of-force issues. However, because the policy does impact compliance with the federal oversight, the police commission may review and propose revisions to the policy.
But while Mitchell doesn't need the commission's approval to change OPD pursuit policy, it appears as though he is seeking input from community members and stakeholders.
Police commissioners have three choices: Approve Mitchell's recommendations, keep the current policy, or propose their own changes. Commissioners will eventually submit their decision to the Oakland City Council at some point in the future.
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