Stories you shouldn’t miss:
1. The Oakland Police Department has altered its community policing structure, assigning more officers to high-crime areas and reducing the number of cops serving low-crime neighborhoods, the Trib reports. Under the old community policing model funded by Measure Y, each of the city’s 57 police beats received its own problem solving officer. But that set-up frustrated police brass, who contended that high-crime areas in West and East Oakland needed more help. Now, with the size of the police force reduced substantially because of budget cuts, along with the November passage of Measure BB, the department has changed community policing so that high-crime areas get more cops. The move, however, is angering neighborhood leaders in wealthy low-crime areas, such as Rockridge and Montclair, because they still want their own community policing officers.
