If you can catch a rebroadcast of OPD Chief James Beere’s acceptance speech, which aired on KTOP, do. There’s something refreshingly honest, candid and likeable about him.
That’s not to say that the ten men and women who preceded him since 2016 weren’t honest and likeable. I thought they were, which made their departures all the more distasteful. We can never discern the real reason why an Oakland mayor fires a police chief, but we know enough about the grift and corruption that infect City Hall to hazard an educated guess: the fired police chiefs all ran afoul of the mafia that runs Oakland, starting with Jim Chanin and John Burris, the sleazebags in charge of the Negotiated Settlement Agreement. If they don’t like whoever’s Chief, that person is history. All it takes it a quiet meeting with whoever’s mayor, and the old Chief is history.
Not all of these Chiefs were fired, to be exact: the two who were—Kirkpatrick and Armstrong—were axed on pretextual reasons. Two were forced to quit—Whent and Mitchell. Four held interim positions—Fairow, Manheimer, Allison and Beere, before his appointment as permanent Chief. So unprecedented has been Oakland’s revolving door of police chiefs that the Seattle Times reported that “No other major U.S. city has experienced a higher rate of police chief turnover than Oakland.”
I don’t expect most Oaklanders will know or care about that. But it’s worth noting, once again, how abnormal Oakland is. This city is so aberrant in so many ways (the highest taxed city in California, with the most crime, and the harshest, more vengeful system of police oversight) that nobody should be surprised when everything goes wrong. However, there are reasons why Beere may succeed in holding onto his job, unlike his predecessors. For one, he seems to have a cordial relationship with Barbara Lee. He’s also liked by the OPD rank and file, with whom he’s worked for 29 years. If, as is widely expected, OPD is able to be released this fall from the crooked oversight that has plagued it for two decades (and made ambulance chasers like Chanin and Burris rich), that will only burnish Beere’s popularity. Declining crime in Oakland also works for Beere’s longevity.
But this is Oakland. All it takes is one mishap — one incorrectly-filled out form — one exaggerated scandal — and the anti-police squad will be all fired up, the local newspapers will demand “accountability,” the local T.V. news talking heads will issue dire warnings, the usual leftwing radicals will resume their call for “constitutional policing,” and we’ll find ourselves welcoming our eleventh police chief in ten years. Consider, for example, the ever-conspiring Cat Brooks, who is so crazy she actually criticized Beere’s 29 years with OPD because he never filed a whistleblower complaint about the department!
However, for the time being, all is well. We have a new Chief. A good one. A strong, honest, fair-minded man. We should keep him, if we can. At this very moment, the anti-police squad is plotting ways to undermine him. It’s what they do: cause chaos and disunity. So let’s clap our hands for Beere, but at the same time let’s not take a victory lap.