Veteran officer James Beere will be the permanent chief of the Oakland Police Department, city officials announced at a news conference at Oakland City Hall Thursday.<\/p>\n
Beere, who currently serves as the interim chief of OPD<\/a>, will be formally introduced to the City Council on July 17, followed by a swearing-in ceremony.<\/p>\n Before joining OPD in 1997, Beere served in the Marine Corps. He is a graduate of Golden Gate University and the FBI National Academy.<\/p>\n \u201cHe understands accountability and the requirement to strengthen public confidence,\u201d said Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee at Thursday\u2019s news conference. \u201cAs an Oakland resident and public servant, he brings professional experience and a personal commitment to the city\u2019s future.\u201d<\/p>\n Lee added that Beere\u2019s appointment follows an exhaustive selection process in which multiple candidates were assessed on their ability to recruit more officers to the force, reduce violent crime and decrease response times, among other things.<\/p>\n Beere took over as the interim chief in November 2025 following the resignation of former chief Floyd Mitchell<\/a>. The department has been a revolving door for leadership in recent years, with more than 10 people serving as chief or interim chief since 2013.<\/p>\n \u201cOakland has experienced too much turnover in police leadership over the years,\u201d said Lee. \u201cEveryone deserves stability.\u201d<\/p>\n The Oakland Police Officers Association also welcomed Beere\u2019s selection.<\/p>\n \u201cChief Beere has served Oakland with distinction for nearly three decades,\u201d said OPOA President Huy Nguyen in a news release Thursday. \u201cHe understands the challenges our officers face on the streets, the expectations of the community, and the need for a police department that is both effective and accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018A lot more work to do\u2019<\/p>\n The OPD has been under federal receivership since 2003 as part of a court settlement following the so-called \u201cOakland Riders\u201d scandal, during which police officers routinely falsified police reports, planted evidence, beat suspects and generally abused Oaklanders\u2019 civil rights.<\/p>\n But in May, Robert Warshaw, the federal monitor overseeing the OPD, wrote in a court filing that the department had reached compliance with all 51 court-ordered reforms, hinting that the federal receivership could end soon.<\/p>\n Beere\u2019s appointment comes months after the OPD announced a decline in crime rates in the city in April.<\/p>\n In a statement issued in April, the agency said crimes such as homicide, aggravated assault, rape, robbery and burglary dropped 29%<\/a> from Jan. 1 through March 31 compared with the same period in 2025.<\/p>\n \u201cThrough the hard work of the women and men of the Oakland Police Department, we\u2019re seeing historic lows,\u201d Beere said. \u201cWe have a lot more work to do, and I\u2019m ready for that.\u201d<\/p>\n The post Oakland names James Beere permanent police chief after years of turnover<\/a> appeared first on Local News Matters<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Veteran officer James Beere will be the permanent chief of the Oakland Police Department, city officials announced at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":393327,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144],"class_list":["post-393326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}