The last two original Police Accountability Board members resigned in protest, saying the board’ work has been ignored. Credit: Zac Farber/Berkeleyside
The two most senior members of Berkeley’s Police Accountability Board have resigned in protest of what they described as an obstructionist city administration and a police department bent on undoing hard-won reforms by the civilian oversight agency’s predecessor.
The departures of Kitty Calavita and Julie Leftwich, which they announced Friday in a joint letter, leaves the PAB with just four members and follows months of growing tension between the city’s oversight apparatus and its police department and administration.
The PAB is meant to have nine regular members, one appointed by each City Council member and the mayor, as well as an alternate.
Berkeley residents voted by a wide margin in 2020 to create the PAB and an administrative counterpart, the Office of the Director of Police Accountability, intending to strengthen civilian oversight of the police department. But Calavita and Leftwich, who were the last two original members of the board, wrote that they “have seen firsthand that the PAB has not been permitted to exercise its expanded oversight authority and is even less empowered than its predecessor,” the Police Review Commission, on which they also sat.
“For more than half a century, Berkeley was a model for other cities seeking meaningful police oversight. No more,” they wrote. “Over 84% of Berkeley voters established and empowered the Police Accountability Board, but their will has been ignored and the advances they envisioned have often been subverted.”
Spokespeople for the City Manager’s Office and BPD did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday afternoon.
Calavita and Leftwich specifically called out BPD’s recent decision to rewrite its use-of-force policy, the months-long stonewalling before the PAB could access records related to racist texts between members of a BPD bike unit and reversals of PAB findings of misconduct. The board has had to resort to subpoenas several times in the last year to compel BPD to turn over records.
In December, Director of Police Accountability Hansel Aguilar sued police Chief Jen Louis, alleging that even after a subpoena, she had failed to provide records to which his office was entitled, an allegation she has denied. The lawsuit came just a few months after Aguilar took a public scolding from the City Council after forcing two items onto its agenda.
Calavita and Leftwich also wrote that the city administration has dragged its feet as the PAB has tried to hammer out its own operating rules, and refused to budge on “two essential, common-sense regulations” the PAB had wanted. They wrote that they were not permitted to openly discuss what those proposed regulations were.
Another original PAB member, Cheryl Owens, resigned suddenly in 2023, citing similar concerns.
“I’ve come to sense that there’s no collaboration on any front in this city, nor do I believe there’s a commitment to civilian oversight by the city manager, the city attorney or the chief of police,” Owens said at the time.
In a joint statement, Aguilar and PAB Chair Josh Cayetano thanked Calavita and Leftwich for their years of work.
Aguilar said their departures were a warning.
“Nationally, we are witnessing a troubling trend: oversight structures are created with great promise, only to be constrained when they begin to function as intended,” Aguilar wrote.
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