Oakland's police union warns of 'dangerously low staffing' at OPD

Police union warns of 'dangerously low staffing' at OPD

Oakland?s police union warned of dangerously low staffing after Oakland was ranked as the second most dangerous place to live in the US by US News and World Report.

OAKLAND, Calif. - The Oakland Police Officer’s Association is warning of dangerously low staffing and high turnover at the already troubled police department.

The warning came after Oakland was ranked as the second most dangerous place to live in the U.S. by US News and World Report, despite city leaders touting decreased crime rates for the first half of 2025.

The city of Oakland currently funds 678 sworn officers and 300 administrators at OPD, but the police union’s president, Huy Nguyen, said there are only 649 officers on payroll and only 515 officers actively working their beats.

Of those 515, Nguyen said 130 officers are on leave.

"This will be the least amount of active police officers on the street in my 25-year career as an Oakland police officer," said Nguyen.

He said OPD should have 877 officers for minimum safety standards, well below what the city funds, and the department loses about half a dozen officers each month to retirements and resignations.

Nguyen said more than half of those officers have left for other cities.

"We need to figure out a way to retain them. We need to make sure that we create an environment that they can stay and serve in this community," said Nguyen, who cited unfair disciplinary action and restrictions as some of the reasons that officers leave.

Nguyen also said the most recent police academy, which began in July, started with 26 recruits, but has already lost six candidates.

He predicts only 12 will make it through to the end, but they won’t be on patrol until next year.

"We can't continue to leave open beats every night because we're understaffed. We make a lot of promises and we can't deliver," he said.

It’s not the first such warning.

A 241-page report commissioned by the Oakland city council earlier this year said the department was operating on nearly 200 fewer officers than it needed to operate at baseline.

And for years, community-led oversight groups have said it’s not just the number of officers, but also what their assignments are.

In June, a report by the police commission stated that replacing desk-duty jobs with civilians would save the city between $100,000 and $180,000 per position, which could help balance the overtime expenses.

IFPTE Local 21 is the union for civilian workers in Oakland. It’s currently in negotiations with the city for a new contract.

"One of the positions is a fleet coordinator, so somebody who kind of services the vehicles and the different things that the police department uses. It's $95,000 cheaper a year by using a civilian to do that work," said IFPTE Local 21 Oakland Vice President Julian Ware.

Ware said right now the city’s budget has room for five new OPD roles that could be done by a civilian, potentially saving the department millions of dollars and putting more officers on the streets.

"More importantly, you're able to return officers you know back to the field where you know their work is really going to be valued and where a lot other community really wants to see that work being done," said Ware.

Nguyen argues this approach will drive more officers away.

"They're going to feel that people who are inexperienced to judge their decision making, when they are trained, they're out there on the databases facing the issues constantly," he said.

The OPD numbers reported do not include other agencies, including California Highway Patrol and the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office, who send officers on a fluctuating basis.

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