Public-Safety Town Hall Meeting Set Tonight In Oakland

OAKLAND, CA – Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf and police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick will hold a public-safety town hall meeting this evening to talk about rebuilding trust between the community and police.

The meeting is scheduled to be held at the Laney College Theater at 900 Fallon St. between 6 and 8 p.m.

Schaaf said the findings of Stanford University professor Jennifer Eberhardt will be discussed at the meeting.

The mayor said Eberhardt and her team have been analyzing police stop data since 2014 as part of the Oakland Police Department's ongoing effort to modernize procedures and improve community-police relations by using data-driven analysis.

Schaaf said in a statement that the analysis is "the nation's most transparent effort to analyze racial-profiling stop data and then use the data to create new policies and training procedures to correct our racial bias."

However, the Oakland City Council's Public Safety Committee voted on Tuesday night not to extend Eberhardt's contract.

Schaaf said the vote "hurts all Oaklanders, and particularly African-American residents."

She said, "Dr. Eberhardt is a MacArthur Genius Award recipient and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2016. Her intensive work with our police department is critical if we want to build community-police trust and make Oakland an equitable city for all residents."

Schaaf said, "I will work to reinstate Dr. Eberhardt's critical analysis and build a path toward an Oakland that treats all residents with respect, dignity, and fairness."

Acting Assistant Police Chief Leronne Armstrong and Brooklyn Williams of the Youth Leadership Council are also scheduled to speak at the meeting tonight.

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--Bay City News/Image via Shutterstock/charnchai_saeheng