Mac Muir, head of Oakland’s police commission's investigative arm, leaving
Mac Muir, the executive director of the Community Police Review Agency, the investigative arm of the Oakland Police Commission.
OAKLAND, Calif. - As Oakland is making budget cuts to departments citywide, Mac Muir, the head of the Oakland Police Commission’s investigative arm, is quitting his job.
"I hope my leaving would lead to salary savings that would allow the department to retain my staff," Muir told KTVU on Wednesday.
His departure comes as Oakland faces a $130-million shortfall.
His agency, called the Community Police Review Agency, or CPRA, was supposed to be operating on $8.2 million a year, but he estimates he's only operating on an annual budget of $4 million.
According to the city charter, CPRA must have no fewer than one investigator for every 100 police officers.
By this calculation, the agency should have at least seven investigators. Currently, there are five.
None of the investigators are licensed attorneys, and the law requires that at least one should be.
The Oaklandside first reported Muir's departure.
Q&A with head of Oakland's Community Police Review Agency
The CPRA has been blowing key deadlines to investigate police misconduct cases. Newly hired CPRA director Mac Muir lays out the problem and how to fix it.
Muir declined to say specifically why he is leaving or where he is going to.
He said he would say more at the Feb. 27 commission meeting.
It's not clear who will replace him.
Muir took over the CPRA after its former executive director, John Alden, was fired in 2022.
In 2023, Muir told the commission that civilian investigators had been blowing key deadlines to complete police misconduct cases, but he was able to triage the most important ones and fix the problem.
Last year, his agency sustained the first case of racial profiling in Oakland police history.
Mariano Contreras, a community activist, filed that racial profiling complaint.
"Mac Muir really moved things along," Contreras said. "He cleared some of the backlog and has also been really good at looking at complaints about race and racial profiling in a way that no other director has done."
CPRA is a civilian agency that investigates allegations of police misconduct and recommends discipline.
The agency operates under the police commission, which was established in 2016 by a ballot measure approved by Oakland voters.