OAKLAND — The Oakland Police Department is investigating whether one of its officers began pursuing a car shortly before it barreled into a pole early Monday morning off International Boulevard.
Oakland police Chief Floyd Mitchell on Tuesday said the crash happened within “a matter of seconds” after one of his officers turned on their patrol cruiser’s lights while behind the car. He said it’s still unclear whether the officer had started pursuing the vehicle prior to the crash, and whether that pursuit would have followed the department’s strict policies on chases.
“I want everyone in this room and in our community to rest assured that the Oakland Police Department will conduct a complete and thorough investigation into this incident,” Mitchell said at a press conference Tuesday evening. “All the proper levers were pulled by our on scene supervisors and command staff to ensure that a complete and transparent investigation will be conducted in accordance with department policy.”
The crash happened at about 4 a.m. Monday in East Oakland, after an officer spotted a motorist going west on International Boulevard near Seminary Avenue at an “extremely high rate of speed,” Mitchell said. The officer, who was in the eastbound lanes of International, made a U-turn and flipped on the vehicle’s lights just before the speeding motorist crashed into a pole at 54th Avenue, the chief said. Images of the wreck showed the vehicle wrapped around the pole.
The department’s on-duty watch commander “initiated the required investigative call outs” by both the OPD’s Criminal Investigations Division and its Internal Affairs Bureau, Mitchell said, “in accordance with established departmental policies and procedures.”
“We want to err on the side of caution to make sure we are looking at everything from a factual basis,” Mitchell said.
The officer who was tailing the motorist remains on duty, the chief said.
The driver was taken to a hospital in critical condition, and remained “stable” on Tuesday evening, Mitchell said. Little is known about that person, Mitchell said, including why they were traveling so fast.
OPD’s pursuit policy is stricter than most Bay Area police agencies, with officers only allowed to chase a motorist if there’s reasonable suspicion they have committed a violent crime.
The policy has become a topic of heated debate, with Gov. Gavin Newsom recently calling the protocol an “extreme outlier,” while campaigning for the city to loosen its rules. Failure to do so, he said in December, could spell the end of a “surge” of California Highway Patrol officers that he ordered to patrol the region in early 2024 to combat retail theft, vehicle theft and sideshows.
“We’re at that point in time that we need to see some commiserate support and changes as it relates to policing here in Oakland in order to consider extending that state-subsidized partnership,” Newsom said at a December press conference, while flanked by CHP officers, a bishop and the head of the city’s chamber of commerce.
One notable pursuit in 2022 left 28-year-old Lolomanaia Soakai, of Hayward, dead after he was hit by a vehicle fleeing Oakland police in an unauthorized pursuit. His death led his family to file a lawsuit against the city claiming two officers left the scene without alerting emergency medical services or documenting the “ghost chase,” which is a term for unauthorized chases where police do not activate a patrol car’s sirens or lights, in order to avoid scrutiny.
Reporters Nate Gartrell and Shomik Mukherjee contributed to this report.
