Third Oakland police chief out amid sex and race scandals

June 19, 2016

Amid sex and race scandals, Oakland’s third chief of police was fired or resigned in just eight days as an investigation into officer misdeeds leads to more revelations.

Last year, Oakland police officer Brendan O’Brien committed suicide and left a note naming law enforcement personnel involved with the now 18-year-old daughter of one of the department’s dispatchers. O’Brien and two other officers allegedly had sex with the woman, who goes by Celeste Guap, before she turned 18.

At least 14 Oakland police officers allegedly had sex with Guap, who was working as a prostitute.

On June 9, former Chief Sean Whent resigned before the revelations were made public. Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf replaced Whent with Benson Fairow, whom she fired five days later after new information surfaced about Fairow.

So Schaaf made former Captain Paul Figueroa the new chief. Then after just two days on the job, the mayor said Figueroa resigned. It is suspected that information about a decades old affair surfaced after Figueroa was made chief.

In addition to the sex scandal, investigators have uncovered racist emails that include discussions of the KKK and referring to black people by contemptuous terms.

Since 2003, the police department has been operating under federal oversight because of past misdeeds that included planting evidence and robbing residents.

“As a mayor of Oakland, I am here to run a police department, not a frat house,” Schaaf said during a press conference.

Instead of replacing the chief with a law enforcement officer, Schaaf announced City Administrator Sabrina Landreth will temporarily head the police department.