Janani Ramachandran Oakland District 4 Public Safety Updates

Oakland (Special to OaklandNewsOnline.com) – Oakland District 4 City Councilmember Janani Ramachandran said in her newsletter, the following: Every Oaklander deserves to feel safe. Safe in our local shopping corridors, safe on our neighborhood streets, and safe in our homes. The crime wave that we are experiencing is undeniably impacting the Town’s energy – and I believe that we deserve better. My team and I are laser-focused on identifying solutions to our public safety crisis. We are collaborating every day with city departments and local organizations to ensure that all of us can feel safe and take pride in the vibrant and resilient Oakland that we are. 

Here are a few updates on actions that we are taking to address public safety: 

Janani Ramachandran On Advocacy for State and Federal Funds: Over the past two months, Councilmember Ramachandran has met several times with our county, state and federal representatives to advocate for financial support to improve public safety. This includes funding for improved OPD technology tools, community safety ambassadors, Ceasefire, and infrastructure to prevent retail theft. Councilmember Ramachandran will continue to partner with our state and federal contacts and OPD to ensure that we are pro-actively applying for relevant grants. She will also be renewing her budget request – that previously failed with her Council colleagues last year – to fund a dedicated OPD grant writer to assist with capturing these state and federal funds. 

A recent audit presented to City Council earlier this month discussed ways in which the City can revitalize this program. Based on this audit, OPD and the Department of Violence Prevention have decided to make several structural departmental changes. These changes include fully staffing the Ceasefire Division within OPD, disbanding the Violent Crime Operations Center and instead assigning Crime Reduction Teams to target areas across each police beat, and re-focusing DVP staff to target preventative services to those identified by OPD’s Ceasefire Division as most at-risk for committing violent crime.

For more information, you can see the written updates from the City Administrator’s Office and audit presentation in these reports presented to Council earlier this month. You can also view Oaklandside’s summary of the Ceasefire program here. 

Real Time Crime Center: Last year, City Council authored a directive to the City Administration and Inspector General to present a recommendation for the creation of a Real Time Crime Center within OPD. Councilmember Ramachandran has discussed this with Chief Allison, who has been liaising with police departments across the country to identify effective technologies and best practices that would improve police investigations and data management. 

Partnerships with State and Federal Law Enforcement: OPD is ramping up its existing partnership with the FBI to investigate violent crimes, advocating for more FBI support to process evidence and solve cold cases. California Highway Patrol’s Operation Safe Streets launched its Oakland initiative in September 2023, and continues to assist OPD with traffic enforcement and preventing criminal activity involving vehicle theft and highway violence. 

Gun Buybacks: Over the past few years, OPD has been collaborating with community organizations to recover privately made firearms, or “ghost guns,” through the Oakland Guns to Gardens gun buyback program. The program has led to the recovery of hundreds of guns in the past year. OPD also utilizes federal partnerships with the ATF to support investigations of firearms trafficking and possession.

MACRO: Mobile Assistance Community Responders of Oakland (known as MACRO) is a program housed under Oakland’s Fire Department that re-directs non-violent 911 calls to trained mental health professionals and EMTs. The MACRO team recently presented a report highlighting the program’s success since launching in April 2022, which includes freeing up capacity of OPD to respond to emergencies, pro-actively assisting hundreds of unhoused residents in medical or mental health crises, and supporting neighborhood groups’ calls for assistance.

MACRO: Mobile Assistance Community Responders of Oakland (known as MACRO) is a program housed under Oakland’s Fire Department that re-directs non-violent 911 calls to trained mental health professionals and EMTs. The MACRO team recently presented a report highlighting the program’s success since launching in April 2022, which includes freeing up capacity of OPD to respond to emergencies, pro-actively assisting hundreds of unhoused residents in medical or mental health crises, and supporting neighborhood groups’ calls for assistance.

Safety Ambassadors: We are continuing to advocate for greater funding for community safety ambassadors in our commercial corridors. Councilmember Ramachandran has been sharing the near-daily reports of break-ins impacting small businesses across District 4 to her fellow Council colleagues and City Administration – stressing the urgency of tools to improve safety in our commercial corridors. Over the holidays, the Laurel and Montclair ambassador programs proved successful in largely deterring property crime – and Councilmember Ramachandran is utilizing these success stories to advocate for greater funding with our state and federal partners. 

Safety Ambassadors: We are continuing to advocate for greater funding for community safety ambassadors in our commercial corridors. Councilmember Ramachandran has been sharing the near-daily reports of break-ins impacting small businesses across District 4 to her fellow Council colleagues and City Administration – stressing the urgency of tools to improve safety in our commercial corridors. Over the holidays, the Laurel and Montclair ambassador programs proved successful in largely deterring property crime – and Councilmember Ramachandran is utilizing these success stories to advocate for greater funding with our state and federal partners. 

Safety Ambassadors: We are continuing to advocate for greater funding for community safety ambassadors in our commercial corridors. Councilmember Ramachandran has been sharing the near-daily reports of break-ins impacting small businesses across District 4 to her fellow Council colleagues and City Administration – stressing the urgency of tools to improve safety in our commercial corridors. Over the holidays, the Laurel and Montclair ambassador programs proved successful in largely deterring property crime – and Councilmember Ramachandran is utilizing these success stories to advocate for greater funding with our state and federal partners. 

Meet Your New District 4 Walking Beat Officers! 

Last year our team was able to successfully advocate for OPD walking officers in District 4. We now have full-time patrol assignments in the Dimond and Laurel neighborhoods, and part-time assignments in Lincoln Square, Glenview, and Montclair business corridors.  

This week, our team had the chance to sit down with Office Ocampo, who recently began to patrol the Laurel commercial corridor, and Officer Cornejo-Valdivia who recently began to patrol the Dimond business corridor. We learned about their role, their plans for community engagement this year, and how they fit into the City’s goal of improving community-driven policing. Check out our full interview with the officers here. 

911 Dispatcher Hiring Updates and Continued Advocacy

Last December, in response to critically lagging 911 response times and a grand jury investigation that revealed serious gaps, Councilmember Ramachandran conducted a Deep Dive into our City’s hiring practices for 911 dispatchers. This investigation revealed that over 1,000 applications for dispatcher jobs had not been processed between April 2022 and April 2023. In response, the City Administrator worked with HR and OPD to implement a series of changes to swiftly hire dispatchers and streamline hiring processes for this role. On the morning that HR staff presented the report, they announced that they began to contact the 1,000 applicants whose applications they had missed. Earlier this month, OPD reported that there are now only 4 remaining vacancies for 911 dispatchers remaining as a result of these changes! We are grateful for the community’s support in calling for corrective action and more efficient hiring procedures – which is now beginning to show success. 

However, there are several other civilian roles within OPD that are severely understaffed. At the last City Council meeting when discussing OPD Staffing, Councilmember Ramachandran questioned why there were over 67 civilian (unsworn, non-officer positions) vacancies, yet there were only 2 of these vacancies posted on the City’s HR website. She learned that several of these positions were not being prioritized for hire by HR, including roles critical to public safety investigations such as Criminalists, Crime Analysts, Police Service Technicians, Records Analysts, and more.  

Councilmember Ramachandran has requested a supplemental report to understand more about HR’s hiring practices for critical civilian public safety positions – and call for further changes to HR hiring practices. This report will be heard at the next Public Safety Committee meeting next month. If you agree that hiring and staffing for all public safety roles deserves to be prioritized, please make public comment at the upcoming Public Safety Committee meeting on February 13th at 6:00 pm. You can also attend the next full City Council Meeting on Tuesday, February 6th starting at 3:30 pm, and make comment in person or on Zoom on other agenda items. 

n community,

Councilmember Janani Ramachandran and the District 4 Team

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