OAKLAND — Citizens want to be policed by officers who look like them and live in their neighborhoods.
That’s the No. 1 complaint Councilwoman Desley Brooks hears from residents at community meetings, she said.
But while the city is about 30 percent black, only 18 percent of Oakland’s approximately 690 sworn officers are black, while more than 40 percent are white.
The department’s statistics show that while a good percentage of black residents are applying to become officers, many are failing the department’s written examinations or background investigations.
That points to a possible bias in the process, Brooks said.
“Something is wrong, and we need to figure out how we can correct this,” Brooks said at Tuesday’s public safety committee meeting.
Only 7 percent of the city’s officers actually live in Oakland, well below the percentage for officers in neighboring cities like San Francisco and San Jose.
The city is proposing solutions for both issues. Council President Lynette Gibson McElhaney, along with new Councilman Abel Guillen, is proposing a citizen working group to help the Police Department find better ways to recruit locals — and particularly local minorities.
Each council member would select one or two representatives from their community to evaluate potential gaps in the department’s recruitment strategies. The temporary group would issue a report to the council within six months.
The goal is to change the culture of policing in Oakland by making the process inclusive, Gibson McElhaney said.
“This change in culture is integral to the broader effort to increase safety in Oakland,” she said.
Not everyone in the city is convinced more committees are the answer.
Councilman Noel Gallo said the Public Safety Committee sufficiently provides the department direction on these issues.
“It creates extra work and extra time for the staff that’s already short in terms of trying to administer a department and provide the safety on the streets,” Gallo said.
But the Police Department already is on board with Gibson McElhaney’s plan for the advisory group. And police officials have been working hard on their own to make the city’s goals for agency diversity a reality, according to its brass.
Only 14 percent of the 354 new officers hired from 2012 to last year were black, police said. But of the 60 candidates attending the 172nd police academy next month, 28 percent are Oakland residents, and 25 percent are black.
In addition, police said 20 percent of the recruits in the new class are women. Women typically make up about 5 percent of an average academy class.
“These are the types of thresholds we’re trying to meet going forward,” acting Capt. John Lois, who oversees the department’s recruitment efforts, told the committee.
Officer Juan Sanchez, a police recruiter, said revitalized recruiting efforts are paying off, and not just in the black community. Oakland police officers are also recruiting more Latino and Asian officers through outreach efforts.
Sanchez recalled being intimidated when applying to the department 16 years ago.
“I thought maybe I’m not qualified,” he said.
He said the police conducts workshops with applicants to help them pass the written exams and the oral interviews, which are regulated by the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training, or POST.
“We made it a mentoring process,” Sanchez said. “The 172nd academy shows it’s working.”
The department also is working with schools, even sending recruiting letters in February to career centers at historically black universities.
Guillen said he’s researched the issue for months and has been unable to find a city with Oakland’s level of diversity that has a police department that reflects its population.
“If somebody knows of a case out there where they’ve done it, I’d like to hear it,” Guillen said.
He said the renewed recruitment efforts were a positive sign but not enough alone to repair decades of mistrust in the community.
The department is still under federal oversight from the 1999 Riders police brutality scandal, and many citizens don’t view the police as allies.
“I think we could spend twice as much money in efforts, but it may not yield the results,” Guillen said.
Contact Mike Blasky at 510-208-6429. Follow him at Twitter.com/blasky.