By Shomik Mukherjee
Bay Area News Group
OAKLAND — James Beere, the city’s interim police chief, will serve permanently as the top cop, staying at the helm of a department that has historically faced considerable turnover in leadership as it reaches the cusp of exiting two decades of oversight by a federal court.
Mayor Barbara Lee announced Thursday she had hired Beere, a 29-year veteran of the Oakland Police Department who has served as the interim police chief since November, from a shortlist of four final candidates, capping a nearly eight-month search to replace the previous chief.
| RESOURCE: Choose the right real-time policing model for your agency
OPD has seen chiefs come and go in rapid succession over the past decade, including two separate times where the city cycled through three police chiefs in the span of a week. Ten people have led the department since 2015.
One of the first tests of Beere’s tenure as chief may center around whether Judge William Orrick decides to release OPD from his supervision later this year, a long-anticipated milestone that city officials and the court have signaled may finally be within reach.
“This is my duty,” Beere said at a news conference Thursday. “This is what God has called on me to do.”
Beere appears to have developed a strong relationship with Lee, regularly appearing alongside the mayor at news conferences and public events.
That public alignment is a departure from the more reserved approach of former Chief Floyd Mitchell , who resigned last October after clashing with the civilian Oakland Police Commission , a volunteer body that also oversees the department and its leadership.
“He brings both professional experience and a personal commitment to our city’s future,” Lee said of Beere at Thursday’s news conference.
That the department answers to Orrick, the commission and the mayor alike has led past police chiefs to publicly rail against having so many bosses.
Beere, however, has steered clear of political infighting, instead emphasizing in public statements and interviews his love for Oakland across three decades of living here. All three of his sons attended Oakland’s public schools.
“This is where I raised my kids,” he said, “and I want to make sure my neighbors, my friends, my own family members live the life that they deserve.”
Beere had applied for the job when it was last vacant, but failed to emerge as a finalist in the recruitment that led to Mitchell’s hiring in 2024.
He now leads a department that has faced a number of scandals, beginning with the infamous Riders brutality cases that first led the department to be placed under federal oversight in 2003.
Chief LeRonne Armstrong , who preceded Mitchell, was fired in 2023 amid alleged failures by internal affairs investigators to discipline an officer involved in a hit-and-run.
Armstrong unsuccessfully led a public campaign to be reinstated, saying his firing had been a ploy by federal officials who oversee OPD’s affairs to remain in power.
The next year, nearly all of OPD’s remaining command staff was fired by civilian investigators who determined that the department’s senior leadership had mishandled a probe into alleged misconduct by Detective Phong Tran , who now awaits a felony trial on charges that he bribed a murder witness.
While Armstrong and Mitchell criticized all the scrutiny they faced amid OPD’s various scandals, Beere has taken a more diplomatic approach. If it weren’t for mandatory reforms that rehabilitated the department’s culture, Beere said Thursday, he never would have become the chief.
Lee, after taking office, appointed high-ranking city official Michelle Phillips to an administrative role ensuring “constitutional policing” in Oakland. Beere accepted the fresh layer of bureaucratic oversight.
Orrick, in turn, has enthusiastically praised OPD’s newfound direction, signaling he could formally end the court’s oversight as soon as this fall.
Police staffing has dwindled in Oakland, with the officers’ union reporting just 618 sworn officers Thursday, down from well over 700 in 2023. Beere promised to shore up hiring and fill the city’s police academies, citing a revived police cadet program as a start.
Crime, however, has been on a steady decline since 2024, following a spike during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Police had investigated 26 homicides this year through July 6 , a 32% drop from the same date in 2025. Last year, as a whole, saw the fewest investigated homicides in six decades.
By the same year-to-date metric, robberies this year have fallen by 27% and burglaries by 32%. Beere and Lee both said they are aware that city residents still don’t always feel safe. But they also expressed optimism about Oakland’s broader direction.
“I can’t believe I’ve been given this opportunity to continue serving this great city,” Beere said Thursday. “This is truly the diamond in the Bay Area. And we need to make this diamond shine.”
Shomik Mukherjee is a reporter covering Oakland. Call or text him at 510-905-5495 or email him at shomik@bayareanewsgroup.com.
©2026 MediaNews Group, Inc. Visit at mercurynews.com.
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
