OPENPUBLICA · PUBLIC MEETING RECORD
Record of Proceedings

Berkeley City Council Receives 2025 Police Department Annual Report – March 25, 2026

City Council — Wednesday, March 25, 2026
BodyBerkeley, California
SessionCity Council
DateWednesday, March 25, 2026
StatusFILED
Video Record
0:00 / 1:58:02

Transcript — Verbatim
3:14

How about now?

3:16

Is that any better?

3:17

I know, but I'm also uh it might be a little bit give us a minute.

3:23

I just want to make sure folks can hear you.

3:25

Thank you.

3:50

How is that?

3:50

Is that better?

3:52

I don't know.

3:53

I'm I'm having other people tell me.

3:55

It's not working.

3:55

I can't, I can hear you fine.

3:59

Okay.

4:01

Awesome.

4:02

Very good.

4:02

Thank you.

4:03

Okay, so speaking to uh the COVID time, what we learned from that period is that we can't pause or slow our hiring efforts and expect to recover from that pause quickly.

4:23

Ultimately, full staffing across Warren dispatch and CSO positions is critical.

4:29

It ensures that we can maintain service levels, uh, support employee wellness and job satisfaction, and also better control our overtime costs.

4:37

So looking at our calls for service, uh, we responded to just over sixty thousand calls for service last year, which is a slight decrease of about two percent from the year before.

4:48

And the most important number here is the nine one one calls.

4:52

Sixteen thousand two hundred and fifty-five, which is up six percent and the highest in several years.

5:00

These are our most urgent calls, the ones that demand immediate response.

5:02

And that increase combined with our staffing pictures, why efficiency and smart deployment matter so much.

5:08

Non-emergency calls dropped about 5%, and officer initiated contacts were down slightly as well.

5:15

But the upward trend in emergency calls is something that we're watching closely.

5:20

And then looking at our workload per officer, this is one of the more encouraging data points in the report for the first time in several years.

5:29

The average call per officer per shift is trending downward.

5:34

It was a peak of 6.3 in 2023 and just uh 6% in 2025.

5:42

And that didn't happen by accident.

5:44

The there are three programs driving the improvement.

5:47

First is the patrol CSO program.

5:50

And this program embeds non-sworn community service officers into our patrol teams, and they handle nonviolent emergency calls for service.

5:59

And those calls previously pulled our sworn officers away from their higher priority work.

6:04

A second is in our bike unit, which maintained response response coverage in district four, and that's where we see our highest call volume area, and they that work supported uh not pulling officers from other beats.

6:19

And then third, our flex team, which conducted targeted data-driven operations.

6:23

Uh they proactively addressed repeat offenders and patterns of crime, and we're reducing the number of calls that cycle back to patrol with them.

6:32

And here's why this matters when calls per officer go down, it means that officers have more time to respond thoughtfully and effectively to each incident.

6:41

It reduces the fatigue that they feel, uh, improves decision making and allows for better problem solving instead of just going to call to call reactively.

6:49

It also directly supports officer wellness and sustainability while improving the quality of service the community receives.

6:57

So I also want to note that our priority one median response time was seven minutes, and that meets our or exceeds regional benchmarks, even with our current staffing constraints, we're getting to emergencies relatively quickly.

7:14

The communication center has operated below strength for years, as many of you know, and at the start of 2025, nearly half of our dispatch positions were vacant.

7:24

And this uh closing the gap remains a top priority both for the police and fire departments.

7:29

We hired nine new dispatchers in 2025, and after accounting for attrition, that resulted in a net gain of just three.

7:37

So, this is a reminder that recruiting alone isn't enough.

7:40

Retention and successful onboarding are equally critical.

7:44

On the recruiting side, we hosted quarterly virtual recruiting events, and those reach nearly 12,000 or 12 uh hundred candidates.

7:53

So, our partnership with All-Star Recruiting continues to expand and diversify our applicant pool.

7:59

We've also made structural improvements.

8:01

Uh, Critical is a pre-pre-employment assessment tool that evaluates core skills required for dispatch work, and the addition of a call taker position provides recruits a more manageable starting point.

8:14

Uh, and early results show higher training completion rates.

8:19

In 2026, we anticipate leveraging new technology in the communication center, including protocol-based dish dispatch tools to standardize call handling and exploring an AI-powered virtual agent to triage non-emergency calls.

8:33

And both efforts are designed to improve efficiency and reduce stress on our dispatcher personnel.

8:38

Beyond staffing, the communication center is in critical need of facilities and equipment upgrades to meet the demands of modern dispatching, and these improvements will ensure our team has the tools and environmental and environment necessity necessary to perform at their best.

8:55

And so all of this work is being done in close partnership with the fire department through an ongoing work group focused on building a sustainable communication center for the long term.

9:08

All right, good afternoon.

9:09

I'm Arla Malmberg, strategic planning and accountability manager with the PD.

9:13

Um, take you through just some of the uh the crime stats highlights.

9:17

Um overall, uh I'll start with group A offenses.

9:21

Group A offenses are uh the most serious crime categories tracked under the the federal reporting system uh NIBERS, uh which we adopted in 2024.

9:30

And they cover violent crimes like assault and robbery and and uh property crimes uh like burglary and theft uh and crimes against society like uh drug and weapon violations.

Discussion Breakdown — Share of Meeting
Public Safety█████████████████████████████████████████████66%
Surveillance Technology████████████17%
Transportation Safety███4%
Community Engagement██3%
Personnel Matters██3%
Racial Equity██3%
Active Transportation█2%
Technology and Innovation█1%
Data and Transparency█1%
Summary of Proceedings

Berkeley City Council Receives 2025 Police Department Annual Report – March 25, 2026

On March 25, 2026, the Berkeley City Council heard a presentation from the Berkeley Police Department (BPD) on the 2025 Annual Report. The report covered crime statistics, use of force, accountability, clearance rates, technology deployments (ALPRs, drones, RTIC), and key programs (CSOs, FLEX team, GVIPP). Council members asked questions and expressed both praise and concern, particularly around hate crimes, sexual assaults, and racial disparities in stops. Public comment highlighted concerns over ALPRs, racial profiling, hate crime data, and sanctuary city policies. No formal vote was taken; the report was received and discussed.

Public Comments & Testimony

  • Speaker (name not given) requested more specific hate crime data by race, religion, sexual orientation, disability, and including homelessness, citing a prior council recommendation and an incident where a homeless man was stabbed.
  • Kit Saganor noted that unfilled officer positions do not cost the city real dollars, and questioned the future funding of the Live Free gun violence intervention program, which may be running out of funding.
  • Speaker (Tariq Shaw) provided statistics from the Human Rights Data Analysis Group showing racial disparities in stops: Black people were 6 times more likely than white people to be stopped while driving (per capita), 9 times more likely on foot, 11 times more for equipment violations, and 10 times more for seatbelt violations in 2025. The speaker argued these should be part of the report and criticized the notion that CSOs represent reimagining policing.
  • Kelly Hammergren asked about pepper spray reporting (following the March 10 meeting), whether the hate crime definition changed, and about auto theft solved cases.
  • Yick (student, Cal ACLU) opposed ALPRs, citing a study in Piedmont where less than 0.3% of hits led to useful investigative leads.
  • Alana Auerbach reiterated racial disparity statistics from the BPD open data portal, noting they were worse than 2018 findings, and that BPD was supposed to eliminate low-level stops per a 2021 Council directive but still conducted 489 equipment violations and 45 seatbelt violations in 2025.
  • Angeline opposed Flock cameras, arguing they create a loophole for federal immigration enforcement and compromise safety for undocumented residents and students.
  • Leslie opposed any Flock expansion, citing other jurisdictions canceling contracts, and argued surveillance is not in line with sanctuary city values.
  • Wendy Alfson referenced a July 2025 Flock access to BPD data incident not in the public report and expressed concern about immigration-related misuse.

Discussion Items

  • Presentation by Chief Lewis, Captain Durbin, and Arla Malmberg:
    • Call Volume & Staffing: BPD responded to just over 60,000 calls in 2025 (down 2%), but 911 calls increased 6% to 16,255, the highest in years. Non-emergency calls dropped 5%. Calls per officer per shift declined from a peak of 6.3 in 2023 to 6.0 in 2025, attributed to the CSO program, bike unit, and FLEX team. Priority one median response time was 7 minutes. The communication center remains understaffed; 9 dispatchers hired, net gain of 3. Planning for AI-powered triage for non-emergency calls and scripted dispatch.
    • Crime Statistics (Group A offenses): 9,800 offenses in 2025, down 11%. Motor vehicle theft down 48% (vs. 27% nationally), commercial burglary down 31%, shootings down 40% with zero fatal/injury shootings. Aggravated assaults up 16%, sexual assaults up 20%, hate crimes reached 50 (five-year high).
    • Clearance Rates: Improved across categories, exceeding California state averages. Homicide clearance 100% for 5 years. Robbery clearance jumped from 34% to 49%, attributed to ALPR-supported investigations.
    • Use of Force: 0.46% of calls involved any force, 93% at lowest levels (1/2). Only 45 incidents (0.07%) at level 3/4. Multiple bias tests showed no systemic bias.
    • Technology: ALPRs resulted in 58 arrests, 387 vehicles recovered, and 121 cases supported. Fixed cameras proposed for high pedestrian intersections. Drone as first responder program outlined with 2-minute response target.
    • Programs: CSOs handled over 1,500 non-emergency calls, freeing sworn officers. FLEX team conducted 23 retail theft operations, 141 arrests, 72% with additional charges. Gun violence prevention (GVROs, GVIPP) partnerships with Live Free credited with reducing shootings.
  • Council Questions and Responses:
    • Hate crimes: Chief noted many offenders are in mental health crisis; composition stable; expressed openness to community ideas.
    • ALPR impact: Chief stated difficult to prove causation but strong evidence of tool effectiveness, e.g., clearance rate improvements without adding detectives.
    • DUI checkpoints: Described as educational; scooters/e-scooters emerging as DUI injury factor.
    • Transparency hub feedback: Users find navigation non-intuitive; improvements planned.
    • Drug equipment violations: Increase partly due to new NIBERS reporting and secondary charges from other enforcement; BPD will research and report back.
    • Recruitment: Partnership with All-Star Recruiting successful; virtual events reach ~1,200 candidates.
    • Early Intervention System: Now being piloted with new vendor; more details in future reports.

Key Outcomes

  • Council members unanimously commended BPD for the report and the department’s work, particularly noting high clearance rates, reduction in shootings, vehicle thefts, and burglaries, and the transparency/accountability measures.
  • Several council members expressed concern about rising hate crimes and sexual assaults, urging continued monitoring and partnerships.
  • Councilmember Bartlett highlighted the GVIPP program and indicated need to secure continued funding.
  • Vice Mayor Lunapara requested future reports include y-axis on workload chart, percent of arrests with use of force, and earlier complaint data (two-year lag).
  • Councilmember Blackaby suggested using a two-year window for complaint disposition data to capture all resolved cases.
  • BPD agreed to provide additional details on drug equipment violations, hate crime demographics, and early intervention system data.
  • No formal vote was taken; the meeting was adjourned after the presentation and discussion.

Meeting Transcript

How about now? Is that any better? I know, but I'm also uh it might be a little bit give us a minute. I just want to make sure folks can hear you. Thank you. How is that? Is that better? I don't know. I'm I'm having other people tell me. It's not working. I can't, I can hear you fine. Okay. Awesome. Very good. Thank you. Okay, so speaking to uh the COVID time, what we learned from that period is that we can't pause or slow our hiring efforts and expect to recover from that pause quickly. Ultimately, full staffing across Warren dispatch and CSO positions is critical. It ensures that we can maintain service levels, uh, support employee wellness and job satisfaction, and also better control our overtime costs. So looking at our calls for service, uh, we responded to just over sixty thousand calls for service last year, which is a slight decrease of about two percent from the year before. And the most important number here is the nine one one calls. Sixteen thousand two hundred and fifty-five, which is up six percent and the highest in several years. These are our most urgent calls, the ones that demand immediate response. And that increase combined with our staffing pictures, why efficiency and smart deployment matter so much. Non-emergency calls dropped about 5%, and officer initiated contacts were down slightly as well. But the upward trend in emergency calls is something that we're watching closely. And then looking at our workload per officer, this is one of the more encouraging data points in the report for the first time in several years. The average call per officer per shift is trending downward. It was a peak of 6.3 in 2023 and just uh 6% in 2025. And that didn't happen by accident. The there are three programs driving the improvement. First is the patrol CSO program. And this program embeds non-sworn community service officers into our patrol teams, and they handle nonviolent emergency calls for service. And those calls previously pulled our sworn officers away from their higher priority work. A second is in our bike unit, which maintained response response coverage in district four, and that's where we see our highest call volume area, and they that work supported uh not pulling officers from other beats. And then third, our flex team, which conducted targeted data-driven operations. Uh they proactively addressed repeat offenders and patterns of crime, and we're reducing the number of calls that cycle back to patrol with them. And here's why this matters when calls per officer go down, it means that officers have more time to respond thoughtfully and effectively to each incident. It reduces the fatigue that they feel, uh, improves decision making and allows for better problem solving instead of just going to call to call reactively. It also directly supports officer wellness and sustainability while improving the quality of service the community receives. So I also want to note that our priority one median response time was seven minutes, and that meets our or exceeds regional benchmarks, even with our current staffing constraints, we're getting to emergencies relatively quickly. The communication center has operated below strength for years, as many of you know, and at the start of 2025, nearly half of our dispatch positions were vacant. And this uh closing the gap remains a top priority both for the police and fire departments. We hired nine new dispatchers in 2025, and after accounting for attrition, that resulted in a net gain of just three. So, this is a reminder that recruiting alone isn't enough. Retention and successful onboarding are equally critical. On the recruiting side, we hosted quarterly virtual recruiting events, and those reach nearly 12,000 or 12 uh hundred candidates. So, our partnership with All-Star Recruiting continues to expand and diversify our applicant pool. We've also made structural improvements. Uh, Critical is a pre-pre-employment assessment tool that evaluates core skills required for dispatch work, and the addition of a call taker position provides recruits a more manageable starting point. Uh, and early results show higher training completion rates.

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