Oakland Police Chief Wayne Tucker, whose department has been rocked by controversy, said Tuesday that he will resign next month and blasted the City Council for paying "lip service to their commitment to public safety." Tucker, 65, said at a news conference at Oakland City Hall that he will step down Feb. 28 after serving more than four years as chief. He stressed that he has not been fired - nor has he been asked to resign - but that he is leaving because that is what is best for the city and that "quite frankly, I've lost faith in this council."
"I think when the council and the chief of police, regardless of who's making the decision, are finding themselves with irreconcilable differences, that it's time for one of them to go, and I've chosen myself to be the one to go," Tucker said.
He made the announcement hours before four City Council members prepared to discuss their plans to hold a vote of no confidence in Tucker, citing spiraling violent crime, a below-average rate of crimes solved and a stream of negative publicity. Tucker described the council's criticism of him as "for the most part inaccurate."
The leaders of the proposal, Council President Jane Brunner and members Larry Reid, Desley Brooks and Pat Kernighan, called off their news conference after Tucker's announcement.
The chief, whose salary is $205,000, serves at the pleasure of Mayor Ron Dellums. The mayor said he accepted Tucker's resignation with regret and that an interim police chief will run the department after Tucker leaves. Dellums did not say who that will be or how the chief will be selected.
Dellums praised Tucker's work in overseeing changes in the department in the wake of the "Riders" scandal. In that case, several officers were acquitted of criminal charges that they had planted evidence and beat suspects in West Oakland in 2000, but the city paid a $10.5 million civil settlement and agreed to implement reforms under the supervision of a federal judge.
"If history is recorded correctly, Chief Tucker has been an instrument of change moving forward, has been committed to reforms in the Oakland Police Department, has been respectful of the role of the courts in moving that mandate forward. Many of the changes that now have taken place have moved Oakland well forward in a very dramatic way," Dellums said.