ANNE KIRKPATRICK NAMED OAKLAND’S FIRST FEMALE CHIEF OF POLICE
Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf has selected Anne Kirkpatrick, who spent six years as chief of police in Spokane, WA, to step in as the scandal-ridden Oakland Police Department’s next chief. Schaaf announced the appointment on Wednesday.
Kirkpatrick has served 34 years in law enforcement, and is currently Chief of Bureau of Organizational Development for the Chicago Police Department. In the aftermath of the fatal officer-involved shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald in 2014, Kirkpatrick lost a bid to replace Chicago’s ousted police chief, Garry McCarthy, and was instead given the position and the task of overseeing major department reforms spurred by McDonald’s death.
“Anne Kirkpatrick is the reform-minded leader Oakland’s been looking for,” Schaaf said. “She is a nationally respected Police Chief and master instructor in leadership development, procedural justice and implicit bias.”
Oakland has gone more than six months without a police chief in the wake of a major sex scandal and department shake-up.
In June, a young woman, known then as Celeste Guap (a pseudonym), told a television station that she had sex with a number of Bay Area cops, including more than a dozen OPD officers, at least three of whom she reportedly had sex with while she was 17—in 2014. (Read more about the wild story: here and here.)
After the news broke about the OPD passing around a minor for sex, then-chief Sean Whent resigned. Six days later, Schaaf sacked the interim chief. A few days after that, sacked the second interim chief. Fed up, the Mayor placed City Administrator Sabrina Landreth in charge of the OPD, vowing to weed out “toxic, macho culture.”
Oakland’s first female chief of police will take the helm of the OPD on February 27.
“In Chief Kirkpatrick Oakland is getting a leader prepared to bring greater accountability, justice and safety to our city,” Schaaf said.
Out of the frying pan and into the fire. Chicago which leads the nation in murders and shootings to Oakland with its own historical issues of gang violence. Hopefully she can do a better job in Oakland than she did in Chicago. Let’s all pray for a quick recovery for the mentally challenged young man in Chicago who was brutally beat and tortured by a group of racists thugs. Thank you President Obama for all you have done during the last eight years to devide the country and inflame racial tension…..your words and deeds will be felt long after you are gone….