Mayor Sheng Thao announced Friday in a video message posted to X (formerly Twitter) that she has selected Floyd Mitchell to lead the Oakland Police Department.
The announcement follows a tumultuous year in which the Police Commission and mayor were sometimes at odds over who should run OPD, complicating the search process for the next chief.
Thao said she will introduce Mitchell next week to the city. She also thanked interim-OPD Chief Darren Allison, who has led the department for more than a year.
Mitchell was most recently the chief of Lubbock, Texas where he served for five years before retiring in 2023. In 2022, Lubbock experienced a decline in 911 calls compared to the previous year, while officer-initiated events rose to their highest levels in five years. The number of reported crimes in Lubbock fluctuated during Mitchell’s time as chief, dropping from 20,150 in 2019 to 18,131 in 2021. During his last full year as chief in 2022, the number of reported crimes increased to 19,403, according to the Lubbock Police Department’s annual reports.
Mitchell began his career in law enforcement working for 23 years as a patrol officer in Kansas City, Missouri. In 2015 he became the police chief of Temple, Texas. Overall crime in Temple decreased under Mitchell’s tenure, and the police department improved its response time to calls concerning serious crimes.
Mitchell is expected to start as chief in late April or May.
“As Oakland’s police chief I look forward to working together with our residents, business owners, city leadership, and members of the police commission to build a stronger and safer Oakland,” Mitchell said in a statement. “I am excited about the opportunity to meet the members of the police department, interact with all the people who call this beautiful city home, and become an integral part of this special place.”
In her six-minute video announcement announcing the new chief, Thao laid out her view of Oakland’s public safety problems, saying that after years of progress in reducing violent crime, the city slipped starting in 2019 and saw an unraveling of successful programs like Ceasefire. “As a city, we lost our way and stopped focusing on the proven violence prevention strategies we know worked,” she said.
Mitchell was one of four applicants interviewed by the Oakland Police Commission last month. Under the city charter, it’s the commission’s job to send the mayor a short list of finalists for the police chief role.
“We are proud of the Commission’s efforts to bring only the most qualified candidates to the Mayor’s attention,” Commission Chair Marsha Peterson said in a statement. “We look forward to working closely with Chief Mitchell to achieve the constitutional policing and reforms required to ensure fairness and justice for all the residents of Oakland.”
Mitchell said he grew up in a city that like Oakland had a troubled history of policing issues within Black and brown communities. Mitchell laid out a plan for his first 100 days in office and said he intends to foster a more nurturing culture in OPD. He also described his experience working with civilian oversight bodies.
Oakland has been without a permanent police chief since last February, when Thao fired LeRonne Armstrong for criticizing OPD’s federal monitor while he was on administrative leave. Armstrong applied for his old job and the former leadership of the police commission decided to consider him as a finalist. This contributed to a growing schism on the commission, and three commissioners boycotted meetings for weeks until the chair and vice chair termed out. Under new leadership, the commission sent Armstrong as one of three finalists to the mayor. Thao rejected these candidates last December. Armstrong is pursuing a lawsuit against the city and the mayor for wrongful termination. Critics of the mayor launched a recall campaign against Thao earlier this year, citing her handling of Armstrong and the police chief search process.
As previously reported, Oakland has a long and messy history when it comes to hiring and firing police chiefs.
