{"id":3553,"date":"2025-10-14T09:18:19","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T09:18:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/3553\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T09:18:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T09:18:19","slug":"what-does-police-chief-floyd-mitchells-exit-mean-for-oakland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/3553\/","title":{"rendered":"What does Police Chief Floyd Mitchell\u2019s exit mean for Oakland?"},"content":{"rendered":"

OPD Chief Floyd Mitchell surprised many when he and the city announced today that he is resigning effective Dec. 5<\/a>.<\/p>\n

His exit comes as Oakland is seeing a major sustained drop in crime, continued debates around the city\u2019s public safety policies, a budget crisis that has hamstrung OPD and other city departments, a police staffing crisis, questions about whether the department can complete its court-ordered reform program \u2014 and a big turnover in leadership posts at the city\u2019s highest levels, including a new mayor.<\/p>\n

The Oaklandside\u2019s editor-in-chief, Tasneem Raja, sat down with public safety reporter Roselyn Romero and news editor Darwin BondGraham for this week\u2019s episode of Oaklandside 510<\/a> to discuss what Mitchell\u2019s departure could mean for Oakland.<\/p>\n

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.<\/p>\n

Tasneem Raja: Can you explain what a police chief does?<\/p>\n

Darwin BondGraham: Being a police chief in a major city in the United States today is half political and half administrative. They set the policies of the department. They coordinate with the city administration, the mayor, the council, and other elected officials. They pick leadership, like the deputy chiefs and the captains. And they manage big picture stuff, like the budget, personnel, and rules.<\/p>\n

A key part of what a police chief does is ensure the disciplinary process has integrity. And in Oakland, the chief has the extra responsibility of ensuring compliance with the Negotiated Settlement Agreement.<\/p>\n

The Oakland police chief also has three bosses who can fire them: the Police Commission, the mayor \u2014 and the federal monitor. The chief has other bosses who make big demands on them, including the City Council and the public. To sum it up, it\u2019s a super hard job.<\/p>\n

Tasneem: Tell us about Floyd Mitchell. Who is he? Where did he come from? What was his experience before he landed in Oakland?<\/p>\n

Roselyn Romero: Chief Mitchell had over 30 years of experience in law enforcement before coming to Oakland. He started his career as a patrol officer in Kansas City, Missouri. He was there for 25 years. After that, he became the chief of the police department in Temple, Texas. He stayed in Texas and became the chief of police in Lubbock, Texas, from 2019 to 2023.<\/p>\n

Last year, he was appointed by former Mayor Sheng Thao to lead the Oakland Police Department. He\u2019s also a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, and he has bachelor\u2019s and master\u2019s degrees in business administration.<\/p>\n

Tasneem: Can you tell us about the circumstances that brought Chief Mitchell to Oakland? Why was there an opening for a police chief?<\/p>\n

Darwin: It\u2019s a bit of a convoluted story, but the gist of it was that there was an investigation<\/a> within the Oakland Police Department that found Chief LeRonne Armstrong was not upholding the disciplinary process in the department. That led to the newly elected Mayor Sheng Thao firing<\/a> him.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It was a very controversial move. That created the opening, and the Police Commission and Mayor Thao then searched for and hired<\/a> Mitchell.<\/p>\n

Tasneem: What do we know about why Mitchell is resigning?<\/p>\n

Roselyn: Mitchell hasn\u2019t shared his reasons, but I\u2019ve interviewed several people in and out of City Hall who are familiar with the matter. They all told me he\u2019s leaving on his own accord.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But there had been some internal rumblings over the past month or so that he wasn\u2019t going to stick around for much longer, and that he was unhappy with the role.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Part of it could have been the nature of the job. As Darwin mentioned earlier, the chief has to report to the mayor, the Police Commission, the federal monitor, and other leaders in a way that he might not have had to do at other police departments.<\/p>\n

And Oakland has a robust civilian oversight system of the police department. During many Police Commission meetings, I\u2019ve heard the chief say that the disciplinary process made it harder for officers to do their jobs.<\/p>\n

Tasneem: Mitchell was here for just 17 months as police chief. In that short time, what was he focused on? What were his accomplishments?<\/p>\n

Roselyn: Crime has fallen in Oakland<\/a>. So far, we have seen a 25% drop in violent crime since last year. Of course, it\u2019s worth noting that crime was already going down in Oakland, and Oakland has been following the national trend in declining violence.\u00a0<\/p>\n

During Chief Mitchell\u2019s tenure, the 195th police academy started after some delays in funding. The academy began in July with 26 police officer trainees.<\/p>\n

Mitchell was also responsive to segments of the community who were demanding changes to the police department\u2019s policies meant to reduce crime. He successfully revised the police department\u2019s vehicle pursuit policy<\/a>, with input from the Police Commission, which a lot of people in Oakland were hoping for.<\/p>\n

Tasneem: You\u2019re touching on this aspect of community engagement. I remember when he first took the job, that was something he talked about a lot. What did you see from him, in terms of community engagement?<\/p>\n

Roselyn: One example that comes to mind right away is National Night Out<\/a>, which usually happens on the first Tuesday evening of August. I saw Chief Mitchell had attended at least six or seven National Night Out parties. He was in the community. Neighbors I spoke to said that they had invited him and were expecting him to stop by, even if it was just for a few minutes. So he has been on the ground trying to get to know the Oakland community.<\/p>\n

Tasneem: What do we know about how rank-and-file officers felt about Mitchell? Was he well-liked in the department?<\/p>\n

Roselyn: I don\u2019t have a good answer for that. At Police Commission meetings, he would vigorously defend his police officers when the topic of discipline would come up. But in general, I don\u2019t know much about how rank-and-file officers felt about him.<\/p>\n

Actually, ever since Chief Mitchell was sworn in last year, I\u2019ve been trying to get a sit-down interview with him. I have been hounding the police department over the past several months to try to get that interview, but the department has ignored my requests. So I haven\u2019t had that one-on-one conversation with the chief.<\/p>\n

Tasneem: Mitchell didn\u2019t seem to have any prior connections to Oakland before he came here to lead OPD. How important is it for the Oakland police chief to be \u201cof Oakland\u201d? Could his outsider status explain some of the challenges he faced?<\/p>\n

Darwin: When you talk to Oaklanders about this, their opinion is usually that it makes a world of difference that the chief is from Oakland and understands Oakland. But when you actually look at the history of police chiefs in Oakland, some of the police chiefs from Oakland have hit horrible headwinds, while some who aren\u2019t from Oakland have done a bit better.<\/p>\n

The advantages of being from Oakland are that you have pre-existing community relationships and community trust, and you\u2019re probably known within the Oakland Police Department, because usually, you came up through the ranks there. But that has some dark sides to it, because there might be people who don\u2019t like you within the police department, so you could run into internal sabotage, which we\u2019ve seen previously in OPD.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know that being from Oakland is an advantage. It\u2019s certainly not a disadvantage.<\/p>\n

Tasneem: Mitchell was vocal about officer morale and what he called \u201cthe weaponization of the disciplinary process.\u201d Can you say more about that?<\/p>\n

Roselyn: When there is a civilian complaint against a police officer, or if there\u2019s an investigation into how an officer complied with department policy, there are multiple layers of review. Those extra layers of \u201cbureaucracy,\u201d in Chief Mitchell\u2019s words, have made officers hesitant to do their jobs because they fear the long and arduous disciplinary process.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Right now, there are over 100 police officers on long-term leave, including administrative leave. Mitchell said the disciplinary process has reduced officer morale and made it harder for officers to enforce the law.<\/p>\n

Tasneem: What\u2019s the 101 on federal oversight of the Oakland Police Department? How did we get here?<\/p>\n

Darwin: Back in the year 2000, a group of officers rampaged through West Oakland for the summer, beat up a bunch of people, and planted drugs on them. It was a huge scandal called the \u201cRiders.\u201d The city and the police department were sued in federal court by 119 victims of the Riders.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Instead of going to trial \u2014 if that had gone to trial, the city could have gone bankrupt from the liability they were facing \u2014 the city agreed to reform the police department. That reform agreement, called the Negotiated Settlement Agreement, is still in effect today, because OPD has yet to complete all of the tasks in it<\/a>. A U.S. District Court judge oversees that agreement, and reporting to the judge is the federal monitor. The monitor helps oversee compliance with those tasks.<\/p>\n

Oakland might be one of the only police departments<\/a> in the country under this system now, especially since the Trump administration has said it doesn\u2019t want to do any police reform agreements anymore.<\/p>\n

Tasneem: What do we know about how Mitchell has felt about federal oversight?<\/p>\n

Darwin: When he showed up to the court hearings, he mostly made excuses about why OPD is still not completing reforms. The department has backslidden in a few key areas that have to do with officer discipline and investigations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He\u2019s also talked a lot about the \u201cweaponization\u201d of police misconduct investigations and the disciplinary process. He\u2019s expressed skepticism that oversight is effective, and he\u2019s said it\u2019s harming police morale.<\/p>\n

Tasneem: There\u2019s quite a bit of civilian oversight in Oakland. Can you tell us more about that?<\/p>\n

Roselyn: Oakland has a Police Commission<\/a> made up entirely of civilian volunteers who oversee the police department. These police commissioners have disagreed outright with the characterization of oversight as a hindrance to policing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I spoke to the chair of the Police Commission earlier today, Ricardo Garcia-Acosta, and he told me he reminds the chief and police officers frequently that he\u2019s not the boogeyman, that he\u2019s there to help the police department succeed, and he wants to see them succeed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the tensions from that rhetoric probably escalated and may have contributed to Chief Mitchell\u2019s resignation.<\/p>\n

Tasneem: You guys have mostly focused on the Oakland Police Department, but what\u2019s your sense of how typical this stuff is in other departments? Or is the job of the Oakland police chief particularly gnarly?<\/p>\n

Darwin: In a way, being the Oakland police chief is on the same scale as being the Los Angeles or Chicago police chief, but in a smaller city. It\u2019s an interesting job, because you have to navigate a political and policy environment that is as complicated and high-stakes as other major cities. But you\u2019re in Oakland, and it\u2019s almost like the intimacy of the politics here, I imagine, in a lot of ways, makes it even more stressful to navigate as a police chief, or as any official in the city of Oakland.<\/p>\n

Roselyn: One thing I would add is that Oakland was home to the Black Panther Party and movements to empower and liberate Black communities. And with that legacy comes the demand to either reform<\/a> or completely dismantle<\/a> the system of policing<\/a>, which has harmed Black and brown communities since its inception. So with Oakland being an epicenter of that debate, the job of police chief is made even more difficult.<\/p>\n

Tasneem: Speaking of leadership transitions, let\u2019s remind ourselves that Barbara Lee is only five months into her tenure as Oakland mayor. She has brought up stability, unity, and good governance as things she\u2019s going to accomplish. What does this all mean for Mayor Lee?<\/p>\n

Roselyn: I think this will destabilize city leadership for quite some time. Chief Mitchell\u2019s last day is Dec. 5, but over the next few weeks, he is going to be working with Mayor Lee, City Administrator Jestin Johnson, and the Police Commission to identify the interim police chief.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot of uncertainty and instability right now that Mayor Lee is going to have to navigate just five months into her term.<\/p>\n

Tasneem: What else are you going to look out for?<\/p>\n

Roselyn: Over the next few weeks, we\u2019re going to report on reactions from the community. I\u2019m also going to follow the process of identifying the next police chief. I also want to try to get to the bottom of what exactly led up to Mitchell\u2019s resignation.<\/p>\n

Darwin: Zooming out a little bit, you mentioned that leadership and stability are important. So, we\u2019ll be looking into how this might affect the crime situation in Oakland. Arguably, city politics have been guided by this obsession \u2014 rightfully so \u2014 with reducing violent crimes. Does the police chief\u2019s leaving destabilize the department? Does that hinder their ability to respond to crime?\u00a0<\/p>\n

And secondly, the police chief is key in complying with the Negotiated Settlement Agreement. Is Mitchell leaving good or bad for that? That\u2019s an open question.<\/p>\n

Correction: In our conversation, we misstated who chose the federal monitor overseeing OPD. The Oakland Police Department helped choose the current federal monitor, Robert Warshaw, who works under the supervision of a U.S. District Court judge.<\/p>\n

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