Public Comment

Letters about the Berkeley Police Chief

Tuesday March 13, 2012 - 09:07:00 PM

Chief Must Go; "doing a pretty good job overall"? Police Chief 

Chief Must Go 

I had just asked for the chief's resignation at last week's city council for the cover up (lying twice) about the mishandling of the eventual murder of a Berkeley resident while trying to blame Occupy Oakland. And now this, intimidating a journalist, or at the very least asking favors; this just cements my feeling that the chief must go, along with the mayor. 

Zachary Running Wolf Brown, mayoral candidate 


"doing a pretty good job overall"? 

Really? This is the same police chief who refused, at a Police Review Commission meeting about a year and a half ago, to allow short trainings by the tobacco control officer for the Berkeley police department, which had freely admitted that most of its officers had no idea there was a smokefree commercial districts law by claiming there were just too many laws to keep track of. 

Sending an officer in the middle of the night to demand changes to a story doesn't just chill one reporter, who to his own discredit swiftly made changes to his story. It chills everybody, whether they are reporters or not, who wishes to weigh in on police department policy. 

Intimidating and controlling the press obviously, and sadly, had a much higher priority than investigating a prowler. 

Carol Denney 


Police Chief 

Berkeley's police chief not only stepped over the line in the Doug Oakley incident, he obliterated it. Can he continue to serve Berkeley with the full confidence of the community? 

Alan Goldfarb