After severing its relationship with the currently defunct Oakland Crime Stoppers organization, the Oakland Police Department confirmed it is no longer offering cash rewards aimed at coaxing witnesses to come forward in certain serious cases.

A 2024 NBC Bay Area investigation found Oakland police offered reward money in at least a half-dozen separate criminal cases after its non-profit partner lost access to the cash it relied on to pay tipsters. The department, along with an Oakland Crime Stoppers board member, said the organization was locked out of its bank account in late 2022 after two members of its board passed away.

In September of last year, one such tipster told NBC Bay Area the department never paid up on a promised reward of up to $10,000 after he said his information led to the arrest of a suspect in a high-profile murder case where a flower delivery driver was gunned down in broad daylight. Court documents from the ongoing criminal case, along with text messages between the tipster and an OPD sergeant, confirm the man’s tip helped lead to the arrest of Eric Loc Eliva, who was charged with murder and has since pleaded not guilty.

More than a year after NBC Bay Area’s original story and two years since the homicide, the tipster said he’s still waiting to be paid – or even get an explanation from the department about what happened.

“Even if you do mess up, you could just be like, ‘Hey, I apologize,’” said the tipster, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he’s a witness in a homicide case.

The tipster said he’s tried contacting the department to get answers, but to no avail, and his text messages to the OPD sergeant he once communicated with about the case no longer go through.

“The basic stonewall, right?” he said.

In response to questions from NBC Bay Area last year, the Oakland Police Department said in a statement the agency never intended to mislead the public and planned “to work with the [Oakland Crime Stoppers] board to get things back up and running.”

Those attempts were apparently unsuccessful. Oakland police said the department is no longer partnering with Oakland Crime Stoppers – which is not affiliated with the national Crimes Stoppers USA organization – and has stopped offering cash rewards altogether.                                                               

When asked about the tipster’s allegation that he still hasn’t been paid, Oakland police directed NBC Bay Area to inquire with Oakland Crime Stoppers. 

Last year, two former board members who spoke to NBC Bay Area said the partnership was mostly run through the Oakland Police Department, and that the organization hadn’t met in person since January 2021 and last voted to pay out an award in December 2020.

When reached by phone this month, one of those same board members said that hasn’t changed, and that she didn’t have any information on the tipster’s case.

The tipster said he fears the reward money woes could have wider implications.

“Now they can’t even ask for a hot tip or things like that because the credibility of the program has been completely washed,” he said.

He’s not the only one concerned the city could be losing a potential crime-fighting tool.

Katie Miller, whose husband Will Schwerma was shot to death in Oakland last year, said she used to hope a cash reward might help bring the killer to justice. 

“His family misses him, his son misses him,” Miller said. “There’s no reason that he should have died. He was such a friendly person. He didn’t have an enemy in the world.”

Now, the hope a cash reward might convince a witness to come forward has dried up, she said, along with any new information from police about the case.

“I really kind of felt like Oakland failed and bailed on me,” Miller said. “Crime Stoppers, I feel like, is another tool in the arsenal of the police and the public to solve these crimes.”

She said she hopes the department will resuscitate its reward program, even if it’s not through Oakland Crime Stoppers. In the meantime, she’s pleading with anyone who might have information about her husband’s murder to come forward.

“Somebody out there knows something,” Miller said. “I really believe that. We will suffer and not have peace until [the killer] is caught.”