Is police accountability in Berkeley under threat?

Police Accountability Board staff and members in attendance during a Feb. 11, 2026 meeting include (L-R) Jose Murillo, Joshua Buswell-Charkow, Leah Wilson, Joshua Cayetano, and Randy Wells. Credit: Kelly Sullivan for Berkeleyside

Police oversight officials have struck a defiant tone after the sudden firing of Director of Police Accountability Hansel Aguilar. The ousting came just 10 days after the sudden resignations of two veteran Police Accountability Board members, who said they were fed up with what they saw as obstruction from the city and resistance to reform from police.

Aguilar’s dismissal came after months of escalating tension between his office and the Police Accountability Board on the one side, and the City Council, Berkeley Police Department leadership and other city administrative agencies on the other. Most recently, in December, Aguilar sued BPD Chief Jen Louis in an attempt to get records related to a complaint against the police. This week, a judge denied Aguilar’s petition, saying Aguilar had not had the authority to file it in the first place.

But for years, the Berkeley Police Association, which comprises the department’s rank and file and many supervisors, has been accusing the PAB and Aguilar of violating their employment rights.

The council has not provided any specific reason for why they fired Aguilar, but the conditions of his hire allowed them to fire him “without cause,” provided they give him one month’s notice and pay him up to a year’s salary in severance.

Chair Joshua Cayetano speaks at the Berkeley Police Accountability Board meeting on Feb. 11, 2026. Credit: Kelly Sullivan for Berkeleyside

PAB Chair Joshua Cayetano said he was “surprised and disappointed” at Aguilar’s firing.

“It is difficult to comment on the exact nature of his departure, as neither myself nor the Police Accountability Board were consulted by the City Council prior to his dismissal,” Cayetano wrote in a prepared statement Monday that he also read aloud at the PAB’s meeting Wednesday. “Berkeley as a city faces systemic issues preventing effective independent civilian oversight of law enforcement that will not go away simply because of Former Director Aguilar’s dismissal.”

Leah Wilson, the board’s vice-chair, said she’d been getting calls asking for recommendations about who should fill the board’s vacancies. The board is down to just four members; it is supposed to have nine regular ones and an alternate.

“One of the challenges that I have is, this is a really difficult assignment, because we are so systematically disrespected and disregarded,” Wilson said Wednesday. “I think that you’ve heard a lot of that in the resignations. You saw it in the summary dismissal of the director without any formal input from this board.”

BPD often prevails over PAB objections

While BPD’s civilian oversight system has been gutted, the police agency has time and again prevailed in its own requests, Wilson said. BPD has set up a network of automated license plate readers it hopes to supplement with fixed surveillance cameras. The PAB urged the city not to buy the ALPRs in the first place, arguing that there wasn’t enough evidence that they were effective to offset privacy concerns, and more recently has urged the city to consider tighter data restrictions if BPD does get its new cameras.

Over the PAB’s objections, BPD is looking to bring back tear gas, which the city banned in 2020, and to loosen restrictions on pepper spray and air and canine support requests.

“What we’re seeing right now is, one after another, successful proposals to increase the use of expensive military and surveillance equipment and to expand the reach of the department in a city that is very undeniably relatively safe, if you look at our actual crime statistics,” Wilson said Wednesday.

Vice-Chair Leah Wilson speaks at the Berkeley Police Accountability Board meeting on Feb. 11, 2026. Credit: Kelly Sullivan for Berkeleyside

At the same Wednesday meeting, the PAB heard a presentation on BPD’s request for drones, which both police and firefighters are hoping will decrease response times and keep personnel safer, but which have irked privacy advocates.

“This is what is happening while there’s this distraction underway of firing staff, not filling our board,” said Wilson.

Wilson urged her colleagues to keep their focus, to “hold the City Council accountable” and to not get “distracted by the piecemeal breakdown that is happening sort of under our eyes.”

She said she had “disagreed with our director many times, and he’ll be the first to tell you that, but he was so committed to this work, and I’m really sad to see the way that he has left the role. I don’t think he deserved it.”

Aguilar’s office budget doubled during his tenure
Berkeley’s first permanent director of police accountability, Hansel Aguilar, was dismissed after a City Council vote Feb. 9, 2026. Courtesy: Hansel Aguilar

During Aguilar’s tenure his agency’s budget more than doubled, from $808,594 in 2022 — from before Aguilar was hired — to a projected $1,698,417 for 2026, according to city budget documents.

As with most city agencies, the majority (roughly 75%) of the office’s expenditures goes to salaries and benefits. In 2024 Aguilar sought to expand the office further, asking for funds for a public affairs specialist and someone dedicated to staffing the PAB, which Aguilar himself did until his dismissal.

Also in 2024, the most recent year for which Aguilar filed an annual report, the PAB and Aguilar’s office fielded 53 personnel complaints and cleared 51 of them. The PAB received six policy complaints and began another two policy reviews on its own.

Berkeley Police Association says PAB, ODPA violated workplace rights

Union lawyers have sent at numerous letters to city officials demanding a halt to PAB work — in 2021 and 2022 over how the PAB conducted investigations, later in 2022 over whether an officer under investigation had access to pertinent records, and then in 2023 over whether Aguilar should be allowed access to internal affairs files. In most of those cases, union lawyers demanded the city enter into a “meet-and-confer” process before Aguilar or the PAB could resume their work.

At least one complaint rose to the level of a state labor investigation. The Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) opened an investigation following an unfair practice charge the BPA filed in 2022. According to that board’s records, the investigation is still active.

Berkeley Police Department Chief Jen Louis (left) and Director of Police Accountability Hansel Aguilar right) shake hands in this undated photo. Credit: City of Berkeley

The evolution of the former Police Review Commission to the PAB, following a 2020 ballot measure to amend the city charter, “has presented ongoing regulatory and procedural challenges, particularly as the City has worked to negotiate and finalize permanent regulations since 2021,” BPD Sgt. Neil Egbert, president of the police officers’ union, said in response to a Berkeleyside inquiry about the previous and current oversight bodies.

Nevertheless, the union did not lobby for Aguilar’s dismissal, Egbert said.

“Our role is to advocate for our members and to ensure that any oversight framework is implemented in compliance with labor law and with full respect for due process protections,” Egbert said. “We remain open to working collaboratively with city leadership and the future ODPA Director to finalize permanent regulations and build a respectful, professional working relationship that strengthens transparency, fairness, and public trust while also protecting the rights and working conditions of Berkeley police officers.”

There were echos in the union’s recent allegations of a 1977 lawsuit by the union against the PAB’s predecessor, the Police Review Commission, established in 1973. The union tried to prevent then-BPD Chief Wesley Pomeroy from cooperating with the PRC and supplying it with internal investigations into alleged officer misconduct. Then, too, the BPA demanded a meet-and-confer process, saying the city had unilaterally altered their working conditions — an argument a trial court, and then an appellate court, threw out. (That was at least the second lawsuit involving the PRC. Berkeleyan Robert Brown tried, unsuccessfully, to get the PRC disbanded in 1976, arguing that it conflicted with the City Charter.)

Despite the officers’ unsuccessful suit in 1977, invoking meet-and-confer appears to be a strategy that has stood the test of time beyond Berkeley’s boundaries. In December, Los Angeles County Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission Chair Hans Johnson told the PAB that agencies were using the same argument to forestall implementation of a new state law that explicitly grants civilian oversight bodies access to confidential personnel records of police officers.

“Meet-and-confer powers under state labor law have been routinely cited and, more recently, misused by deputies’ groups to try to obstruct and even to stall or even to sabotage civilian oversight of law enforcement,” Johnson told the PAB in December.

Berkeley council members say causes for firing are ‘confidential’
Policy Analyst Jose Murillo is leading the Office of the Director of Police Accountability on an acting basis after the firing of former director Hansel Aguilar. Credit: Kelly Sullivan for Berkeleyside

Jose Murillo, the office’s policy analyst, is serving as acting director until the City Council decides whether to appoint an interim one and, eventually, hire a permanent successor.

Melissa Male, a spokesperson for Mayor Adena Ishii, said that the council would meet “as soon as feasible to consider appropriate next steps.”

Since the director is appointed by the council, “the council will need to provide direction to staff concerning all matters relating to the appointment,” Male said. It is unclear whether the council might alter the requirements for applicants, or the pay and benefits for the position.

No council member provided their reasons for firing Aguilar. Some claimed it was a confidential personnel matter; others simply did not respond to Berkeleyside inquiries. Many nevertheless said they and the city were “committed” to civilian oversight, despite what is now a gutted office and a board at less -than -half its former strength.-strength board.

Spokespeople for Ishii and Downtown Councilmember Igor Tregub said the council was “actively” seeking Police Accountability Board member applicants. South Berkeley Councilmember Ben Bartlett said that “after some false starts, we have a strong candidate up for approval soon.”

Is police accountability in Berkeley under threat?

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