Deanne Liu, Oakland Political Coordinator of APEN Action, George Galvis, Executive Director of CURYJ, and Davey D, Professor and Journalist joined us to talk about about Building Accountability with Oakland Police Department. Learn more about Mayor Thao’s decision to part ways with Police Chief Leronne Armstrong, years of corruption at OPD, how we all can hold OPD accountable us, and more!
Here are some of our favorite parts of the conversation:
“There’s been a rise of violence against our community, in the Asian community. We all just want to come together because we need accountability from OPD and anybody thats supposedly supposed to do their jobs.” -Deanne Liu
“I feel like Leronne fired himself. I don’t think there was any other decision that could be made… When he was interviewed regarding the two different misconduct investigations related to sergeant Chung, he basically said the he didn’t know the particulars of the inquiries. Which demonstrates if you’re the chief, one of two things. Either he’s incompetent in his position as chief, or he’s dishonest. Either way he has to go.” -George Galvis
“I absolutely applaud, I celebrate, the bold decision by our newly elected Mayor, Mayor Sheng Thao, for making that decision. It was the right decision and she needs to be fully supported by our community for making it. It was not personal, it was in the best interest of the City of Oakland.” -George Galvis
“What stood out to me in the report above even beyond Leronne Armstrong, is how much resources were devoted to really unearthing the facts behind an officer who crashed a car and left the scene… A whole lot of time was spent on something that really could’ve really saved us time money, and arguably, for people say our city is short on cops, maybe their time could’ve been better spent doing the work that we think they need to do. Instead they were trying to track down the facts behind the nefarious activities of an officer who is supposed to have a higher standard of conducting oneself who just refused to report that he hit a car.”- Davey D