Posted on 03/14/2006 4:45:01 PM PST by Amerigomag
The city of Oakland on Tuesday delayed a vote on whether to declare a state of emergency to allow the police chief to deploy more officers at all hours despite an ongoing labor dispute with a police union. Negotiations collapsed between the union and the police department over Mayor Jerry Brown's plan to redeploy some desk duty officers to the streets and create a late night tactical unit to combat a rising murder rate.
The emergency declaration proposal would allow Oakland Police Chief Wayne Tucker to assign officers to the 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. shift despite objections from the Oakland Police Officers Association. The union is pushing for the 38 swing shift patrol officers to keep hours between 2 p.m. and midnight.
"I'm going to do what is reasonably required to assure the safety of the citizens of Oakland," Chief Tucker said. Bob Valladon, union's president, said declaring a state of emergency would be ridiculous. "I hope the mayor, chief and other city officials won't use this serious public safety crisis to play politics and leverage public opinion,"
The city council will consider the proposal again in a week.
(Excerpt) Read more at pe.com ...
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