"There's one group that won't be shedding any tears if Oakland's charismatic police chief, Anthony Batts, heads elsewhere - the cops themselves.
'Showboat,' 'overrated' and 'in it just for himself' are among the more common descriptions you hear when you talk with beat cops about Batts.
The general feeling among the rank and file is that for all his crowd-pleasing rhetoric about being committed to the city and wanting to "heal" the department, Batts has viewed Oakland as a stepping-stone.
'There never was a real plan, but what he was good at was throwing out sound bites like, "We're going to fight guns, gangs and drugs," ' said one patrol sergeant, who like all the beat cops we spoke to asked not to be named for fear of retribution."
Things are going to be really interesting:
- Is anyone at OPD going to listen to Anthony anymore? After all, he did just alienate his staff. Are they going to go out of their way to help the guy out? Or is Batts basically going to get the cold shoulder from his subordinates?
- And, what about the City Council? Are they going to have their feelings hurt because he almost left their great dysfunctional creation? Or will everyone just kiss and make-up and pretend like nothing happened?
- San Francisco doesn't have a chief of police, so is Edwin Lee going to recruit Batts to run SFPD?
[San Jose doesn't hire Oakland Chief Anthony Batts]
[If Anthony Batts leaves Oakland, cops won't cry]

0 comments:
Post a Comment