Mayor Wants to Hire 21 Civilian Police Employees

Mayor Jean Quan wants to hire 21 new civilian employees for the Oakland Police Department at an annual cost of nearly $1.7 million. The civilian employees would assume a range of tasks, including responding to reports of auto burglaries and patrolling assigned beats. The goal is to give sworn police officers the time to deal with Oakland’s more serious crime issues.

In recent years, the department’s civilian workforce has been cut by a third, and the ranks of sworn officers have diminished by a quarter. In addition to hiring 20 police service technicians with an annual salary of $70,000, the proposal calls for recruiting a technician tasked with examining fingerprints found at crime scenes.

City officials are also considering paying the Alameda County Sheriff to have deputies temporarily patrol Oakland streets. Last year, Gov. Jerry Brown authorized the California Highway Patrol to help OPD. Quan also wants to hire William Bratton to devise a crime-fighting plan for the city. 

The cost of recruiting and hiring the employees is expected to reach $1.5 million.

The proposal will be discussed by the city council’s Finance and Management Committee on Jan. 15. Here are more duties that may be assigned to the police service technicians: 

• Answering questions and responding to complaints, service requests or referrals from public, agencies, or City departments; 

• Patrolling assigned area;

• Issuing citations and/or warnings for parking, standing or stopping violations;

• Responding to non-hazardous criminal complaints such as vandalism, petty theft, locked auto burglary;

• Writing crime reports and reviewing incident reports for completeness and accuracy;

• Obtaining statements, documents, and other evidentiary material from witnesses/victims; collecting, preserving and transporting physical evidence; transporting victims, witnesses and juveniles; 

• Retrieving and disposing of found, lost or stolen property;

• Photographing vehicles, crime and accident scenes, juvenile and adult suspects and victims, employees, and applicants.

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