Oakland police chief to resign

January 27, 2009 05:26 AM

Oakland Police Chief Wayne Tucker speaks during a news conference in Oakland, Calif. regarding former transit officer, Johannes Mehserle, 27, who has been charged with murder in the shooting death of an unarmed man, 22-year-old Oscar Grant. (AP Photo)

By Henry K. Lee
San Francisco Chronicle

OAKLAND, Calif. — Oakland Police Chief Wayne Tucker, whose department has been rocked by a series of scandals and embarrassments in recent months, said today that he will resign next month and blasted the City Council for giving “lip service” to a desire for tackling the city’s problems.

Tucker said at a news conference at Oakland City Hall that he will step down Feb. 28 after serving more than four years as chief. His announcement came several hours before four City Council members planned to declare their plans to hold a no-confidence vote in Tucker.

The chief serves at the pleasure of Mayor Ron Dellums, who said he accepted Tucker’s resignation with regret. The mayor said an interim police chief would run the department after Tucker leaves, but did not say who that person would be.

Tucker made no secret of his dissatisfaction with council members, saying he was leaving because of “irreconcilable differences” with the council over police funding and members’ “irrational look at what the city’s needs are.”

“I’ve lost faith in the City Council,” Tucker said as several members of his command staff and acting City Administrator Dan Lindheim looked on. “I doubt their sincerity in seeing that reforms are done.”

Tucker stressed that he had not been fired, nor had he been asked to resign. He said he was stepping down because that was what was best for the city.

Rumblings of dissatisfaction in Tucker had been growing stronger in recent months as a result of a spate of revelations that raised questions about the chief’s management of the department.

The latest surfaced last week when the head of police internal affairs, Capt. Ed Poulson, was put on leave while the FBI looks into whether he beat a drug suspect in 2000 who later died, and whether he ordered subordinate officers at the time to lie about it.

Earlier this month, the city said it planned to fire nine officers and two sergeants for allegedly lying to obtain search warrants in drug cases.

Tucker was also accused by a veteran police lieutenant, Lawrence Green, of promoting former police union President Bob Valladon to the rank of acting sergeant to sweeten his pension benefits.

In another black eye for the department, a female sergeant filed a sex harassment complaint against Deputy Chief Jeff Loman, who attended the chief’s news conference today.

The department has also weathered criticism for its handling of the investigation into the August 2007 slaying of journalist Chauncey Bailey in downtown Oakland.

Tucker acknowledged today, “We made mistakes in that case, and we continue to make mistakes on many of the investigations we do. That is going to continue until we’re able to have some rational funding stream and a rational look at how investigations are being done.”

At his annual State of the City speech Monday night, Dellums said cutting crime was his top priority. Today, the mayor brushed aside questions about Tucker’s replacement and declined to amplify on the chief’s criticism of the City Council.