And about 10 to 15 minutes.

Good evening and welcome to the public safety committee meeting for today, November 18th, 2025.

The time is now six, six oh five p.m.

and this meeting has come to order.

Before taking roll up, provide instructions on how to submit a speaker's card for items on this agenda.

If you are here with us in chambers and you would like to submit a speaker's card, please fill one out and turn it to a clerk representative.

Your right, my left, before the item is read into record.

Online speaker requests were due 24 hours prior to this meeting.

The meeting came to order at 6 05 p.m.

Speaker cards would no longer be accepted 10 minutes after that meeting after the meeting has begun, making that time 6 15 p.m.

With that, we will now proceed to take roll.

Councilmember Brown.

Present.

Thank you, Councilmember Five.

Thank you, Councilmember Houston.

Give me one second.

Councilmember Houston, please unmute yourself.

He's excused.

And Chair Wong.

Here.

We have three members presence.

One excuse Houston.

Before we begin, Chair, do you have any announcements?

Yes, I do have some announcements.

Um this has been a really really difficult week, especially last week for the city of Oakland.

We had two campus shootings.

Um we lost um the great John Beam, and uh he was someone who was just who gave back so much to this community and had could have gone to coach to professional NFL teams, uh, really, but he actually chose to stay here local uh teaching football at Skyline at Laney College, a really uplifting disadvantaged youth, black and brown youth to give them an opportunity.

Um and so um this this is part of our charge as public safety is to really look at the the gun violence issues um that have plagued our city for the last week.

Um beyond that, I also just want to recognize that we have some pretty contentious items on the agenda later tonight.

Um, I want to just make sure that the dialogue is respectful on both sides.

I do not want anybody in the audience jeering each other, none of that.

Um, and uh please just um I will, if I must use my authority as the chair of this meeting to ask people to be removed.

You will be given three warnings, and after that, I will ask security to remove remove you if you cannot uh uh maintain a respectful um dialogue.

And this goes again for both sides of those of you on the debate since I know there are very strong feelings on either either side.

Um, and uh with and yes, the other thing I want to just uh make clear is uh public comment will be limited to one minute.

I know that will be disappointing, but we legally need to get through all of the public comments, all the public commenters that come have come forward.

Clerk, how many do we have?

At least 200, right?

And so in order for this meeting to proceed in a way where um my fellow council members and myself and staff can actually have a dialogue also with the the staff, we're going to limit it to one minute.

So please do modify your planned comments uh thus.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And now we're proceeded to item one.

There are no minutes to be approved as this is a special meeting.

Item two, determination schedule outstanding committee items, also known as your pending list, and you do have four speakers for this item.

Okay, let's go back to announcements.

It has been requested for the chair to go back to council announcements and councilmember.

Yes, I will also be revising the order of the um of the items.

I just want to recognize again staff's time, including staff from the auditor's office and the Department of Violence Prevention, who do not need to stay through the entirety of the of tonight's debate.

That incurs overtime costs and other costs to the city that we do not want to have happen.

So I'm going to revise the order of the agenda to start with the performance audit of Oakland's item number five, the audit.

Then we'll go with number six, the report on the domestic violence activities.

We'll go to four, and then we'll go to clock.

Number three.

Yeah.

Thank you, Chair Wong.

Noting that we will take item five first.

We would then take item six, item three, item four, excuse me, and then item three.

Moving to item two, once again, the terminate schedule the termination of schedule outstanding committee items, also known as your pending list.

Okay, let's move to public comment.

When I call your name, please approach the podium.

State your name for the record.

You do have one minute.

If you're participating via Zoom, please raise your hand so you're easily identified.

We will take in-person speakers.

If you are in overflow and you hear your name, please make your way to the chambers.

Abu Baker, Nancy Saddam, Paul Allen, and Jennifer Finley.

Jennifer Finley, you may unmute yourself and begin your one-minute comment.

Good evening.

Um, two items that I would like to uh bring to the agenda.

Um, one is my special question of what are you doing right now?

We know that police staffing has been trending down, and we don't have any uh sign of that changing.

What are you doing to prepare to do more with less staffing?

That's the reality, and I'd like you to keep that in mind as you're going on with the rest of the conversation tonight.

Also, um I've asked about OPD protocol with regard to ICE, and I've been told that OPD is there to keep the keep the peace if I are um keep the peace and keep things orderly with ice.

And I'd like to know if their orders are to do that if I'm the ones instigating the disorder and the aggression.

Thank you.

Have a good meeting.

Thank you, Jennifer.

Moving to our next public speaker, Blair Beekman.

Please unmute yourself and begin your one-minute comment.

Hi, Blair Beekman.

I'm gonna pass on this item tonight.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Beekman.

And that concludes your public comment for item two.

Okay, we do need a motion from this body to allow council member Houston to parse it participate remotely.

Uh what's the uh AB 2449?

Uh Councilmember Brown.

Excellent.

I'll make the motion.

Thank you.

Second.

We have a motion made by Councilmember Brown, seconded by Councilmember Five to accept Councilmember Houston's virtual for participation pursuant AB 2449 in emergency circumstances.

On roll council member Councilmember Brown.

Aye.

Councilmember five.

Aye.

Councilmember Houston.

And Chair Wong.

Aye.

The motion passes with four eyes to accept his AB 2449.

Thank you.

I'll also make a motion to move the current item.

So we have a motion made by Councilmember Brown, seconded by Council Member Five to accept the termination scheduled outstanding committee items as is on roll.

Council Member Brown.

Aye.

Councilmember 5.

Aye.

Councilmember Houston.

Aye.

And Chair Wong?

Aye.

The motion passes with four ayes to accept the termination scheduled outstanding committee items as is.

Moving to your next item, which is item five.

Receive information report from the city auditor on the performance audit of the Oakland's Police Emergency Response Time.

And you do have two speakers for item five.

Great.

City Auditor Houston, the floor is yours.

Thank you, committee members.

Good evening, city staff and members of the public.

Michael C.

Houston, City Auditor.

Here to talk about the police emergency response times audit.

So through this presentation, I will introduce the audit team, identify the audit objective and scope, provide background, provide outline, well, outline the audit findings and recommendations.

And I will be here for any questions if we have time.

I'm grateful to the audit team for its comprehensive and meticulous analysis during this important audit.

Assistant City Auditor Eduardo Luna, and who's not here, but Performance Audit Manager Stephanie Noble and Senior Performance Auditor Marisa Lynn, who are here.

The audit objective was to assess the timeliness of the police department in responding to calls for emergency services as a compliment to the Office of the Inspector General's police staffing study, which was presented in June 2025.

The audit scope or the time period covered by the audit was 2019 through 2024.

The police department's emergency communications center is where call takers answer emergency calls and dispatch sworn officers to respond.

The emergency communication center handles all emergency calls or service in Oakland and transfers calls about fire and medical emergencies to the fire department's emergency communication to the emergency communications center.

Exhibit one in the audit report shows the placement of police emergency communication of the police community emergency communications center within the police department.

The exhibit also shows the staffing of the communication center, which are shown in a dark blue rectangles.

In total, the emergency communications center had an authorized 90 full-time staff to serve as dispatchers, senior dispatchers, communications operators, supervisors, and one communications manager.

In 2024, the police emergency communications center received over 352,000 calls on its 911 line and over 101,000 calls on its 10-digit emergency line.

In 2022, 40% of incoming calls resulted in a dispatched police response.

We used the most recent complete and reliable data throughout the report, as with as did the inspector general's office during its staffing study.

So we used 2022 numbers for data describing units dispatched as there appear to be missing data starting in 2023.

The police department's new computer aided dispatch CAD system implemented in mid-2024 appears to have resolved this issue.

Exhibit four here shows how incoming call volume has increased since 2020.

Dispatchers assign a priority level to each reported incident, which they enter into the police department's CAD system.

In 2024, the police department recorded over 291,000 priority one through priority four incidents, slightly higher than the number of priority one through four calls back in 2019.

The first of the three findings is that insufficient staffing and outdated minimum staffing standards at the police emergency communications center led to the city missing state targets for 911 call answering speeds.

The California Governor's Office of Emergency Services, Cal OES, requires local 911 centers to answer 90% of 9-1-1 calls within 15 seconds.

But in 2024, Oakland answered only 54% of calls within 15 seconds.

The police department did not meet state targets for answering 911 calls in 10 of the past 11 years, as shown in exhibit 8.

Cal OES also requires agencies to answer 95% of 9191 calls within 20 seconds.

Oakland had not met this standard either.

We collected and analyzed data from Cal OES for Oakland and Pure Cities for 2023, the most recent complete year of data.

Pure cities had similar populations, crime rates, and were located within our labor market and were selected with input from the police department.

The peer cities were Anaheim, Bakersfield, Sacramento, San Jose, San Francisco, Long Beach, and Fresno.

As exhibit nine in the audit report shows, we found Oakland answered fewer of its calls within the 15-second standard and underperformed all of its peer cities.

Oakland also underperformed its peers by having the highest proportion of 911 calls that waited more than 60 seconds before being answered.

Nearly a third of calls took longer than a minute to answer in 2023.

On average, the total time Oakland callers spent on 9-1-1 calls to the police department lasted half a minute or more than callers of peer cities in 2023.

The delays were driven by call wait times.

Oakland's 55-second call wait times was a longer call wait time than those of the seven other peer agencies.

The various components of 9-1-1 calls are shown in exhibit 11, which shows that long wait times resulting in longer overall call duration in Oakland.

Longer wait times are associated with a higher rate of calls disconnected by the caller.

These are classified as abandoned calls.

Exhibit 13 here shows eight separate line charts.

Oakland is in the upper left corner compared to the other seven peer cities.

The vertical axis for each of these charts shows the percentage of calls answered within 15 seconds.

The higher the line, the higher the percentage of calls answered within 15 seconds.

The horizontal access shows each hour of the day starting at the midnight hour and ending at the 11 o'clock hour, 11 p.m.

The exhibit shows how Oakland's percent of 911 calls answered within 15 seconds drops dramatically and fluctuates throughout the day and more than other jurisdictions.

This exhibit also shows the proportion of 911 calls the police department answered within 15 seconds decreased after 5 a.m.

In 2023, during the 5 a.m.

hour, the department answered an average of 74% of 9-1-1 calls within 15 seconds, decreasing to 35% at 8 a.m.

And this drop has occurred consistently since 2015.

Since 2020, vacancy rates in the police communications division have remained consistently over 10%, hitting a high of 24% in 2021.

Filling vacancies by improving hiring and retention efforts in the police communications center is an outstanding audit recommendation our office made in an audit issued back in 2017 and has been an ongoing concern in Oakland.

Vacancies mean fewer dispatchers available to meet the minimum staffing standards, increased reliance on overtime, and higher risk of burnout.

Since 2020 or January 2020, the police emergency communications center was not able to consistently meet its minimum staffing standards.

Current minimum staffing standards, which guide allocation of dispatch staff throughout the day, do not reflect current call volume.

Highest call taker staffing levels are not aligned with an average day's peak call volume.

This leads to inconsistent performance.

More specifically, minimum staffing does not increase with higher call volume during commute hours, leading to a drop in 911 call answering speed.

Average calls per hour increased from 6,000 to over 12,000 from 5 a.m.

to 8 a.m.

while minimum staffing remained constant.

Assigned staffing should match demand for service.

Not adjusting minimum staffing standards for workload contributes to uneven performance.

There are tools available to assist the police department in updating its minimum staffing standards for call volume, including a feature in the state's emergency call tracking system, ECATS.

The state's model uses an agency's historical 911 call volume to estimate staffing levels needed to maintain call answering speeds within state standards and is provided free of charge to California agencies.

The Sacramento and San Jose Police Departments use this model to help determine appropriate call taker staffing.

The ECATS recommended staffing levels are shown in the gray bars in exhibit 21, and more closely follows the number of emergency calls represented by the red line, compared to the TO bars, which shows Oakland Police Department's minimum staffing at each hour of the day.

The exhibit shows that OPD's minimum staffing does not align with the call volume.

We recommend that the police department use a staffing model that considers call volume, such as the one provided by the state's ECATS.

We found that the police department's deviations from the state's ECAT staffing model predicted less timely handling of 911 calls.

Dispatchers are trained to de-escalate and obtain essential information to assess situations, but we observed callers becoming upset when they did not know when police would arrive.

Talk time increases when callers become agitated, which delays responses and ability to answer other 911 calls.

Oakland's dispatchers do not consistently inform callers when their calls have been sent to dispatch.

We made two recommendations to address outdated minimum staffing standards and improve call answering speeds.

The first recommendation was to the police communications division to adjust minimum staffing to reflect call volume using the staff staffing recommendations from ECATS as guidance.

And this would include revisiting the current shift structure and adjust as needed to ensure that schedules reflect call volume and staffing needs.

The second recommendation was that the police communications division establish a practice of letting callers know when their incident has been referred to dispatch.

Both these recommendations are in the context of the police department's continual efforts to fill vacancies in emergency communications center.

The second finding was that limited English speakers encounter service delays due to a limited number of bilingual 911 call takers.

The U.S.

census indicates 10% of Oakland households did not have an English proficient individual in 2023.

The most common languages among limited English speaking households are Spanish and Asian or Pacific Island languages, based on U.S.

Census data for 2023.

Just as for other city services, language could pose a barrier to obtaining assistance.

The time-sensitive and life-threatening nature of emergencies make language access especially important.

The city has recognized the importance of language access in its service delivery.

The equal access to services ordinance requires the city to provide the same level of service for limited English speakers of languages spoken by at least 10,000 residents.

In Oakland, these languages are Spanish and Chinese.

And Chinese comprises Mandarin and Cantonese speakers.

To process calls from limited English speakers to police department uses bilingual dispatchers or third-party interpreters contracted through the state.

For fiscal year 2324, the communications division reported having two Cantonese speaking dispatchers, 15 Spanish speaking dispatchers, and one Laotian speaking dispatcher.

There have not been enough bilingual staff to process calls from limited English speakers, and the number of interpreter requests for 911 calls have increased since 2019, as shown in exhibit 24.

In 2024, the police emergency communication center used interpreters to handle more than 17,000 calls in 41 languages.

Most of these requests, 89%, were for Spanish, 5% were for Cantonese, and 2% were for Mandarin.

The process of requesting an interpreter takes multiple steps, including identifying the language, requesting interpretation, and waiting for the interpreter to get on the line.

By definition, interpretation requires information being spoken twice, once in English and once another in another language.

Interpreted calls are an average five minutes or on average five minutes longer than the average 911 call, with some languages taking longer to secure an interpreter than others.

During our audits, staff reported that interpreters do not always provide quality interpretation, and delays are compounded for callers with fire or medical emergencies, as interpreters are not consistently transferred with the caller to the fire department.

Exhibit 27 here shows how callers needing interpretation services in Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin, and Vietnamese resulted in longer talk times for 9-1-1 calls.

The disparity in call duration between interpreted calls and staff handled calls is significant when every second of delay could increase the risk of life-threatening and life-altering outcomes.

Administrative instruction 145 requires the police and fire departments to conduct regular assessments to determine the department's ability to provide the same level of service to limited English speakers.

Using bilingual dispatchers to take calls eliminates delays from interpretation and risk of reduced interpretation quality.

The police department's target of one full-time employee for Spanish and Chinese each are not enough to ensure availability of bilingual dispatchers limited for limited English speakers all day and every day.

In addition, the police department's language access policy does not describe how dispatchers should handle 911 calls from limited English speakers.

Finally, officers are not always aware when a caller is a limited English speaker, which could lead to further delays when they arrive on the scene.

In addition to ensuring language access on emergency lines, it is also important for the non-emergency line to be accessible for limited English speakers.

In February 2024, the police department implemented an automated phone tree on its non-emergency line.

Exhibit 29 shows how the police department's non-emergency phone tree successfully decreased call volume and caller abandonment rates.

But the initial greeting that informs callers that the phone tree is available in Spanish, Cantonese, and Mandarin, is only in English and is not spoken in Spanish, Cantonese, or Mandarin.

The city's equal access ordinance requires departments to maintain recorded telephonic messages in threshold languages and notes that these messages should provide basic information, including the availability of language assistance.

Lastly, we recommended that the well, not recommendation six is that the police department analyze and report its progress towards the city's policy goal of providing the same level of service for limited English speaking populations to an appropriate oversight body, such as the City Council's Public Safety Committee.

We also recommended that the communications division translate the initial greeting of the department's non-emergency phone tree into threshold languages as defined by the equal access to service ordinance.

And the final finding is that a lack of response time targets and outdated beat boundaries reinforced disparities in overall response times.

And this finding includes overall response times, not just the handling of emergency calls, which the first two findings focused on.

The police department does not currently have response time targets or regularly report on response times performance.

Lack of targets prevents the department from setting expectations on reasonable response times.

Setting measurable performance targets enable an organization to assess its progress towards achieving its objectives.

San Jose and San Francisco set targets for police response times.

Key elements to response times include call processing, call cueing, and driving to the scene.

Oakland is divided into East and West Boroughs, respectively, Bureau of Field Operations 1 and Borough Field Operations 2.

There are 35 geographic beats, 19 in the West Borough, 16 in the East Borough.

Approximately one officer is assigned per beat per shift.

This exhibit provides a heat map of calls for service within each of the police beats in 2022.

You can see a wide variance in calls for service per police beat, with some beats like 13Y and 13x receiving fewer than 2,400 per year, while other beats have more than four times that number.

Priority one calls are emergencies that pose immediate threats to life.

Priority two calls include in progress situations with the potential for violence or damage to property, as well as incidents that have just occurred.

We found that priority two call response times are longer in the East Borough than in the West Borough.

In 2022, the median priority two response times in the East Borough were two hours longer than in the West Borough.

Data issues precluded us from making authoritative comparisons for 2023 and 2024 data, but the disparity in median response times to priority two calls in East and West Boroughs have grown.

Exhibit 39 here is a heat map of the response times for priority two calls within each of the police beats in 2022.

You can see that none of the beats in the East Borough had median response times less than one and a half hour, but some in the West Borough did.

You can also see that there are 10 beats with median response times greater than four hours.

All of those were in the East Borough.

Longer priority two response times are driven by longer officer dispatch times.

Dispatch times are largely determined by when an officer becomes available to respond to a call.

Priority two calls are dispatched by patrol area, which consists of multiple beats, not citywide, meaning that a number of that the number of responding officers are limited to within the East and West boroughs.

Fewer officers in the East Borough resulted in longer officer dispatch times for priority two calls compared to the West Borough.

Notably, as shown in exhibit 32, the travel times to priority two calls are similar within each of the boroughs.

Despite similar call volume across east and west boroughs, the East Borough has more priority one calls and calls involving violence.

Because the department strives to assign one officer per beat and there are fewer beats in the East Borough, the East Borough generally has fewer officers responding to more priority one and violence related calls.

According to staff, priority one and calls involving violence or involved longer on-scene times.

In 2022, we calculated the Eastborough had 8.9 hours of priority one call workload per week per officer.

We estimated an additional 60 hours of officer time per week is spent to address violence related calls in the East Borough.

And exhibit 37 here shows how the East Borough had more violence related calls than the West Borough, which suggests that the East Borough needs more resources in order to receive the same level of service than the West that the West Borough receives.

As I mentioned earlier, priority one priority one calls are emergencies that pose immediate threats to life.

Unlike priority two calls, officers are dispatched citywide to respond to priority one calls.

Since 2021, the overall median response time to priority one calls citywide has been nine minutes.

However, beat 31Z in Deep East Oakland on the San Leandro border and beats in the Hills 13Y 13Z 22Y 25Y and 35Y have longer median response times.

Exhibit 39A provides a heat map of the response times for priority one calls within each of the police beats in 2022.

Given the high priority nature of these calls, it is important for the city to use existing technology available to minimize response times to these calls.

The police department has installed GPS in its patrol cars but has not activated that technology.

According to policy, the police department dispatches priority one calls to the officer assigned to the particular beat, but that is not necessarily the closest unit.

Use of GPS in patrol cars is subject to meet and confer.

So we made three recommendations to address overall response times.

That the police department adopt targets for each stage of its response time, set a process to revisit these targets as needed and regularly report on its performance.

The police department should update beat boundaries considering factors such as call volume, call types, and priorities, and officer and supervisory capacity.

We recommended that the police department activate the GPS in its patrol cars to enable dispatchers to dispatch the nearest officer to an incident to minimize travel times.

And this is this recommendation again, may be subject to meet and confer.

The police department responded to all ten of our recommendations, and those responses as well as their implementation targets are attached to the back of the audit report.

So the audit benefited from the cooperation of many departments.

We thank the Office of the Inspector General, the fire department, the Department of Race and Equity Office of the City Attorney, and the Information Technology Department for their support during the audit.

We especially appreciate the city administration and the staff at the Oakland Police Department for their accessibility cooperation and insight during the audit process.

And that concludes our prepared presentation.

The QR code there takes you to a contact tree through which you can connect with us in various ways.

And in addition, um to be uh to being posted in the agenda packet, the audit report and the responses posted on our website, Oaklandauditor.com.

Um we hope to have this audit referred to the full city council, and we are here to entertain any questions.

And I also see that there's members of the city administration in the police department here.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Houston, for your uh your work on this.

This is so comprehensive, and you have uplifted such important issues, and what I see is honestly an abject failure of government.

Um communities have a right to public safety.

Uh, and to be clear, these 911 calls not only route police response times but also fire and medical response.

And this is showing such clear inequities in the city of Oakland.

Um it's upsetting, but I think it's um it's we should all be upset when we see this report.

So thank you.

Um, I just want to just take care of a logistical thing.

Um councilmember Houston, do you have somebody uh in the room next to you who's over the age in the room?

Present in the room who's um over 18.

Can you disclose that?

I think it's not.

Oh no, yes, I do.

It's my mother.

Okay.

Can you state the name?

Her name is Jodine Houston.

That's it.

Okay, thank you so much, Councilmember Houston.

And and that's in that city auditor, Houston, that council member Houston.

We we that's what you called them.

I was referring to you, Councilmember Houston, but yes, noted.

We've got two Houstons in the room.

Yes, yes.

Um, I did want to start with um a few questions.

Uh one to uh city administrator uh Joe DeVree, um because it's really important that we actually act upon the recommendations.

Thank you so much for outlining some very actionable things for us to do uh with the 12 recommendations on page 61 of the report.

Um can we come back to this body in three months to see what is the the update on the implementation of these recommendations?

Absolutely, we'd want to schedule it at rules, uh, but for sure.

Okay.

Um and I just want to note too that one of the communities that was highlighted in this report is the non-English speaking community.

Some of the worst 911 response times are the Vietnamese and Mandarin and Chinese speaking communities that I represent in District 2.

And um it is uh I I had noted in the report that city staff are struggling with doing outreach to those communities in order to recruit those 9 1 dispatchers.

My office, I have those connections.

I want to help um to ensure that we have those bilingual dispatchers in our um dispatch call center.

Okay, um colleagues.

Any questions?

Uh I'll go with Council Member Fife.

Thank you, Chair Wong.

Um, through the chair to um Auditor Houston, thank you for this comprehensive audit.

I know it's a lot of work that you have to undertake, um, with also limited staffing.

So um I appreciate this information, but I do have to uh articulate for members of the public that the city council has no jurisdiction on determining what of the audit requirements that the Oakland Police Department can do, right?

Um because of our charter, Charter Rule 218, we cannot direct them to make any changes to how they engage.

Our uh authorization is only budgetary.

So, how then are you working with or I I should say the city administrator's office working with the police department to ensure that these audit recommendations are um actuated?

Well, thank you.

Um councilmember Fife.

Well, I'm encouraged that um there has been a commitment to implementing the recommendations as reading the management response provided by the police department um as part of the response and attached to the back of the report, so um there's some level of agreement, which is the first step, right?

Um we're glad to have been able to work collaboratively with the police department, so and we're proud that we made recommendations that didn't that really um I think reflect the reality that the city is in.

We don't have a bunch of money to throw out this, but there are things that can be done right now with existing resources to implement those recommendations.

Um we follow up on all the the audit recommendations until they're implemented.

So we have our semi-annual audit recommendation follow-up process, um which we yeah, we publicly report.

In fact, we're gonna have one on December 2nd before the city council.

Um we're going to be following up on all the recommendations, and that one is for the period through June 30th, 2025.

But we will be hounding the administration until they're implemented, and although there is a like a non interference clause uh whereby the city council cannot direct um you know staff to do anything, we really do rely on the city council to provide a strong oversight of all the departments, including the police department and um doing things like requesting uh demanding updates on the progress that's totally within the purview of the city council and this committee in particular.

Can uh somebody thank you.

Thank you.

Uh so when is the when would be the update for uh your the next audit that you would be coming to council with?

Because I I did hear Chair Wong ask for this to come back in three months, but if you have a regularly scheduled audit where this would be coming back anyway, when would that be?

So the December 2nd follow-up, our follow-up or status report on the audit recommendations, um, reflects a period through June 30th.

So it takes a while, right?

That's six months after.

So we don't know yet when this when we're going to be completing it in-house, like behind the scenes, a follow-up process where we're reaching out to all the different departments on outstanding audit recommendations, getting the status and verifying the status of the audit recommendations.

That's going to commence real soon because the next one is for the period through December 31st, 2025.

I don't know yet, though, when we're gonna be done with the report and then when we're going to be able to present it publicly to the city council, but um I will keep you posted on that.

Um, also, if there is uh if if this committee wanted to have more uh regular updates and they wanted to bring this item to discuss, um, I'd be happy to come at any time.

Thank you for your responses.

Thank you.

Councilmember Brown.

Oh I want so the person who manages our audit recommendation follow-up process is um for farmers audit manager Stephanie Noble, she can tell you more details about the timing of our audit recommendation follow-up.

Yeah, uh council member, thank you for the question.

So we would anticipate following up on this report for the as of December 31st, as uh auditor heast mentioned.

Typically, we aim to have that out uh three months after the date, so we would expect to publish in March and then follow that up with a presentation in the spring.

Thank you.

Councilmember Brown.

Perfect.

Um, well, thank you so much, um, Auditor Houston.

Um, and just for members of the public, you can go on to the the website, and there's actually been um uh uh so many um audits that um Otter Houston and the team have performed that have been very insightful um and really working to keep us up to date.

I appreciate our monthly check-ins, um, just kind of on some of the work.

Um, you know, I guess I am curious if this is the kind of appropriate um avenue at this time, I guess, through the chair to the administration and or OPD.

I I feel like those recommendations were quite quite clear around um minimum patrol and dispatch standards, hiring bilingual uh call takers, establishing um response time targets, updating beat boundaries as well as activating the GPS um patrol in vehicles, and so just was curious if there was like an official kind of response to those recommendations and and a timeline for implementation.

And to the chair, there is on page 85 of the report or 86.

It uh is the city administration's response, and for each of the recommendations, there is a target date for completion.

Uh some of them are a little bit further out, the ones that are more elaborate, such as redrawing all of the beat boundaries, whereas others are are have a target date to be implemented next month, you know, such as item two uh uh that the police communications division should establish a practice of letting callers know when their incident has been referred to dispatch.

You know, OPD is projecting that to be done again next month.

Um others, you know, are December 26th, uh June of 26.

So there each recommendation has a projected timeline based on the department's capabilities.

Excellent.

Uh thank you, administrator de Reese.

And um, for the specific timeline around activating the GPS and patrol vehicles, um, the timeline on that one.

As I understand it, uh, in order to activate that, there's actually a use policy that has to be approved by this body.

Uh, and it went to the PAC in summer of 2024.

Um, so both for the fire and for police, they they need to have a use policy that you adopt because it is considered surveillance technology, even though it's surveilling our own staff.

Um, my understanding is that the fire and police have drafted those policies.

They they well, I was there when they took them to the PAC, and then they've they've redrafted and are and are engaged in a meet and confer uh with our labor partners, and when that meet and confer process is done, then they can bring it forward to this committee for approval, and then they can turn the system on.

Okay, excellent.

Thank you.

So sorry, can you just expand on that?

So it's already been presented to the privacy advisory committee.

We're where are they in that deliberation?

That's correct.

The Privacy Advisory Commission made a recommendation on both the fire department and police department's use policies uh a little over a year ago.

Uh at that point, we were about to launch the CAD, as you may recall, it was the brand new computer aided dispatch system.

Um the uh we felt that launching CAD uh immediately was was important, and so we we delayed implementing the tracking system so that the rest of the CAD could be implemented, which which took place after that.

Um the departments needed to engage with their labor partners, and I believe for OPD that's taken some time just because the competing priorities.

Uh, but I I do know that they have a policy that uh we we have a PAC recommendation.

I think the big point of contention during that conversation was the data retention period, how long we would hold on to that data.

Uh and I think that um both departments have different, I don't recall the exact uh retention periods that they're proposing, but all of that will be presented to you uh to take to the full council when they're done with that meet and confer process.

Can I ask follow up?

So um but so this is data that is surveilling our own employees, like an OPD.

This and that is the entirety of the CAD system.

There's no surveillance of members of the public in the CAD system, and it's helped being held up.

Not for this particular tracking system.

This is a tracking device that is in every vehicle, and the idea is to then allow dispatch to know which vehicles closest to be to be deployed.

Okay.

Um and so um it is technically surveillance technology and then has to go through that process, and that that was started due to the potential for discipline for an employee.

That is why it becomes a meet and confer issue, which is why it then becomes a conversation between management and labor.

Okay.

I have noted in my own ride-alongs with OPD that they could benefit from this technology.

Um sorry, Councilmember Brown.

Okay, Councilmember Houston.

I you have a question.

Go ahead.

Yes, mine is more of a statement.

Thank you, Auditor Houston.

Um, the audit was very disturbing to me when it comes to um Oakland, East Oakland.

When you said, when you broke up boroughs and you said East Borough, is that five, six, seven?

How does that has that borough broken up, Auditor Houston?

Yes, um council member.

Thank you for that question.

We have an appendix.

I I kind of don't want to um I don't know from the top of my head how the council districts fit, but we have a geographic, we have a map on appendix B, page 68, and also on um, I don't know if it neatly lines with the council district is what I'm trying to say.

And you could also see them in exhibit 35 on page 53 in exhibits um 39a on um page 57, but I think you the entirety of district seven is in the eastern borough.

Much of district six, I think maybe even all of District Six might also be not Eastboro, and then I'm kind of reluctant to guess what five and four might also be in the Eastboro.

Could I leave the chair?

It it's a Bureau of Field Operations, and the BFO one and uh is the west all the way to about 23rd Avenue and BFO two is from 23rd Avenue to the San Landrew border.

So police areas one, two, and three are in BFO one, and areas four, five, and six are in BFO two.

Yeah, thank you.

Yeah, I and I know those beats.

Yeah, I I think the hubs, right?

Yeah, the EastMont for the East, and then the main building here on project.

A B, correct.

Yes, um, but but that's very disturbing to hear that our response time in East is is the lowest, and our tax base is the highest, um, especially with the auto dealerships and the businesses on the curr corridor.

Um, it should be equal across the city on response time.

I mean, our our my district and and Noelle's and Kevin's district president should be treated just across the board like everyone else.

It's very disturbing of the audit to me.

Um that what my constituents um response time is very disturbing, but uh it has nothing to do with your audit.

I appreciate the audit, I appreciate the details.

I'm gonna I'm gonna go through it thoroughly, but I just wanted to make a comment that um is very disturbing to see that our response time is lower than everyone else's.

So thank you.

Yeah, I completely agree.

It it's totally just that's a racial inequity right there.

Big time.

Yeah.

Um I also wanted to you wanted something else, Councilmember Houston.

I was telling my mother was whacked.

Uh because she's she she she dedicated her life to East Oakland.

Um there, she's 89.

I'm with her now, and she's been in that house all her life, and she should have the same response time as everyone else.

But yeah, I was talking to my mom.

I'll go on mute.

I'm sorry.

Um, I also wanted to note um actually for the public's education.

What is how do you define a priority one phone call?

Okay, Auditor Houston.

Yes.

So we have um those definitions outlined in the report.

Um, excuse me as I just kind of make my way to it.

There's a box.

Um so priority one calls involve immediate threat to life, involving violence and/or weapons.

Any officer in Oakland can respond to a priority one call.

Officers may be pulled from lower priority calls to respond to those priority one incidents.

Uh priority two calls involve in-progress situations with the potential for violence or damage to property, as well as incidents that have just occurred.

Common priority two calls include 911 hangups, disturbing the peace, alarms, and stolen vehicles.

Okay.

The national standard, I believe, for a priority one phone call is five minutes, and we are nearly double that is for nine minutes.

Um, I think well, anyways, any other comments?

Otherwise, oh, that's right.

Thank you.

How many public comments?

Okay, we'll go to public comment.

Thank you.

Want to call your name, please approach the podium.

State your name for the record, you do have one minute.

Please note that if you're participating via Zoom, raise your hands here, easily identified.

We will take in-person public speakers before uh zoom.

Rajni Mandal and Blair Beekman.

Moving to our online speakers, Rajni Mandal, please unmute yourself and begin your one minute comment.

Rajni Mandel District 4.

I wanted to uh comment on the auditor's findings about the police speat map.

I agree that we need to reassess how we distribute patrol and draw out the boundaries of police beats.

My current beat 13 has zero to one officers on patrol for a geographic size larger than the city of Piedmont.

But it's not just geographical size, it's also the prevalence of crime and equity that needs to be heated.

I don't think the beat maps have been reassessed for over 50 years.

So I hope that the results of this audit stem an effort to reassess our beat maps and more efficiently distribute patrols.

Thank you.

Thank you, moving to our next public speaker, Blair Beekman.

Please unmute yourself and begin your one-minute comment.

Hi, we're beakman.

I started hacking away at uh better tech accountability for local Bay Area communities back in 2014.

Um CAD things are really an important way to uh get accountability practices and accessibility for uh the everyday public.

Is that still uh the CAD process still accessible to the public as it used to be?

Just to ask, and very much of a thank you.

Uh that you're talking about how to develop uh different languages uh within the city government.

Uh I've been trying for years in Oakland to ask about how we can have more languages within the city council meeting process.

San Jose, where I used to live, uh has done some amazing good work to bridge that gap.

And you know, we came from an era of the 80s in Reagan where you know English only was the standard, and all other languages were illegal.

We haven't got out of that mind frame.

We're trying to get out of that.

So good luck what you're building at this time with this issue.

It sounds like really important good work.

Let's hope we can work with city council.

That concludes your public speakers for item five.

With that, I'll entertain a motion.

Or council member five.

Uh can you uh I'll move to receive and file this in uh this reporting.

Does this need to go to full city council through the chair to the parliamentarian?

Uh so it you can either receive it here or you can move it to uh city council uh for consideration.

So it's up to you how you want to handle it.

I do believe Mr.

Houston suggested recommending it go to city council, but it's up to the body how they want to handle it.

Um so through the chair to Auditor Houston.

Do you want to make another full presentation at the full city council?

Is that what you're requesting?

I would.

Yes, thank you, Council.

Okay.

Let's honor the man's request.

All right, I'll make that motion.

Second.

We have a motion made by council member five, seconded by councilmember Brown to receive and forward this item to the December 2nd 2025 City Council agenda on consent on role.

Council member five councilmember Brown.

Aye.

Councilmember five.

Aye.

Thank you.

Councilmember Houston.

Aye.

And Chair Wong.

Aye.

This motion passes with four ayes to receive and forward this item to the December 2nd.

City Council agenda on consent.

Moving to check item six.

Receive information and report on the city programs responding to domestic violence, and you do have two speakers for this item.

Thank you.

And who from staff?

And and just uh some I want to make some remarks before we turn it over to staff, but um I did uh last month, the month of October was actually uh domestic violence month.

Um I'm actually um a survivor, unfortunately, both as a child and as an adult uh in of domestic violence, and what I had noted is the last time that we had received a report on domestic violence was more than a decade ago.

Uh so I thought it was uh due time that we got an update on what's uh what's been happening across OPD uh and as well as our Department of Violence Prevention in terms of what is happening uh with our response to domestic violence.

So uh thank you so much.

So I'll turn it over to uh who I see Lieutenant Campos and uh Dr.

Joshi to present uh their reports.

Uh good evening everyone, Marcos Campos with Oakland Police Department.

Uh just a report back on the requests from Council Member Wong on domestic violence.

Um the special victim section at OPD, uh responsible for investigating domestic violence, human trafficking, and sexual assaults.

Right now we currently have one sergeant and six officers assigned to the domestic violence unit.

The domestic violence unit investigates and focuses on intimate partner violence, child abuse, physical elder abuse, stalking, and intervention services and long-term case management.

Um our response times we're expecting for in progress calls are five to seven minutes.

Uh for priority two calls when the suspect has already been gone.

Is expected the officers respond in 10 to 15 minute calls.

Um there's immediate intervention and safety uh by arresting the suspect, obtaining criminal protection orders, emergency protection orders.

Uh the domestic violence unit is responsible for the long-term follow-up.

Uh they primarily focus on repeat domestic violence victim and high risk victims.

The case management system for the domestic violence year to date.

Right now they have 3200 cases in their queue.

That means every investigator averages about 620 cases at this time.

The new facet that we are using right now is called the Gun Violence Restraining Order.

The department has obtained a liaison to obtain the gun violence restraining order, working with six subject matter experts right now in the field to try to issue and enforce a good violence restraining order.

With that coming into place through recent legislation, isn't it's more than just a police officer that can obtain a GVRO?

It could be the person's employer, it could be a family member, it can be employee at a school.

So it opens up to intervention pro the intervention process other than just law enforcement.

OPD domestic violence training, I will be uh DVP chief uh Joshi will be speaking about our partnership with the Department of Violence Prevention, but officers do receive yearly training through advocates and professional training on a year-bound basis.

Officers often use a co-response method, specifically at Highland Hospital or at the Family Justice Center.

And then I'll turn it over to the domestic violence chief.

Sorry, the Department of Violence Prevention, Chief Joshi.

Good evening.

We have a couple of slides.

I am Holly Joshi, Chief of the Department of Violence Prevention.

I want to start by thanking this body for requesting this report.

So often I'm here presenting about gun violence, ceasefire focused deterrence, and not so often do we have a chance to present on the other side of our work, which unfortunately in more recent times, domestic violence and sex trafficking have increasingly intersected with gun violence as women and girls increasingly become victims of gun violence related to domestic violence in this city.

So thank you for the opportunity to present on our piece of the city's holistic response to domestic violence.

So just as a bit of background, again, the Department of Violence Prevention, we are one of the city's youngest departments being around since 2017, implemented through a city charter.

We're charged with reducing gun violence, domestic violence, and commercial sexual exploitation in Oakland.

And to do this, we invest in immediate crisis response services and near-term interventions that focus on stabilizing victims and providing additional supports.

We also invest in longer-term intensive support services for individuals caught in cycles of violence.

And in order to do this work, we perform three primary functions with essentially two teams.

The first team that we supervise is a direct practice team made up of city employees.

Those city employees perform intensive life coaching violence intervention work with individuals at the highest risk of imminent group and gender-based violence.

And then additionally, we have an administrative and contracts team that works directly with 21 different community-based organizations to deliver a range of community violence intervention services, including domestic violence and sex trafficking prevention and intervention.

Additionally, we work to build capacity among the ecosystem of community violence intervention workers.

We always say that we want to be more than a funder in the city of Oakland.

We want to provide trainings, capacity building, thought partnership supports to strengthen the ecosystem and ultimately provide referral pathways that create wraparound supports for survivors.

I am going to introduce you to and turn it over to Sarah Sarenchrist, who is our gender-based violence specialist and program planner to go through the theory of change and the specific strategies that we're funding this uh grant year.

Thank you, Chief Yoshi, and thank you to the public safety committee.

My name is Sarah Saren Christ, and I'm the gender-based violence program planner with the Department of Violence Prevention.

Um before we kind of go into the services that we're currently funding in this grant year, I wanted to just go over the theory of change of the department uses when thinking about domestic violence.

So we understand domestic violence is a learned behavior rooted in misogyny, historical violence, and prior trauma.

Many survivors of DB remain in unsafe situations due to fears associated with leaving financial situations and involvement of children.

We know that survivors often need immediate stabilization services and longer term intensive support services for themselves and their families.

We fund services that help individuals change their circumstances, mindsets, and support systems to avoid future violence.

In doing this, we seek to reduce incidents of domestic violence, experiences of trauma, and the footprint of the criminal justice system in our communities.

We also want to note that this report was we were asked to kind of focus on domestic violence, but in our department, we recognize the intersections of domestic violence with commercial sexual exploitation that happen here in Oakland every day, as well as gun violence, as Chief Yoshi pointed out.

So we just want to note that a lot of the agencies that we fund that you see in the report, and that I'll be talking about the services that I'll be talking about momentarily also support services of support survivors of commercial sexual exploitation.

So in this current grant year, the DBP funds core services and support services for those impacted by domestic violence.

For our core services, we fund crisis navigation.

So crisis responders connect survivors to services, including emergency shelter and legal services, and use flexible funds to pay for basic needs.

They also make referrals to life coaching and longer term support services.

Our life coaching services, our life coaches have daily communication with their clients, use flexible funds to pay for basic needs, and refer clients to support services funded by the DVP.

And our final core service that we fund, our hotlines.

For domestic violence, we fund the Family Violence Law Center to provide a 24-hour hotline for victims in crisis.

Hotline staff can provide safety planning, immediate referrals, and other support services for victims in crisis.

And then we have a group of support services.

Housing is being one of the biggest needs that we see obviously here in the Bay Area.

So we have a range of housing support services for victims and survivors, including emergency housing that could be shelter beds, hotel vouchers, or hotel stays.

We also have money that we can use for relocation and rental assistance, relocation for a survivor who might need to immediately leave their circumstance and get to safety, and rental assistance for a survivor who may have the person who has caused harm already be removed from the situation, but now doesn't have the financial ability to pay for the rent and stay in their home with their family.

We also have transitional housing, which is six to twelve months of safe temporary housing with a link to permanent housing at the end of that time.

Other support services include healing support, which can be individual therapy as well as group or peer support.

Groups are tailored to meet the needs of specific populations, impacted by domestic violence, both linguistically and culturally, and then, of course, legal assistance being a huge one for this population.

We have a range of legal support services, including just advice and counseling, preparation of paperwork, filing of orders of protection, family law orders, immigration-related services, and full representation in court.

And then we finally want to touch upon the services that we provide currently through our school violence intervention and prevention program.

In that team, we have gender-based violence specialists as well as violence interrupters and life coaches.

And the gender-based violence specialists use a life coaching model to support youth impacted by domestic violence or unhealthy relationships that incorporates motivational interviewing, cognitive behavioral therapy techniques, and coordination of critical services to support youth in changing their mindsets, behaviors, support systems, and environments to increase safety and create pathways to opportunities.

So those are course services, and we've kind of outlined them more in the reports for you to see the funding and the estimates numbered served.

And that's our presentation.

So we're happy to take questions.

Yeah, um, I have some questions.

So I did a comparison of the 2013 report that was generated versus the one that we just received.

Um, and one thing that I was I thought was really noteworthy is that in 2012, actually through 2009 to 2012, the number of cases that came before OPD was hovered around 7,000 to 8,000.

Whereas the most recent report, that number is down to 3,000.

Uh let me I I can pull up the exact number, but um, is that reduction?

Why is it is that a good thing, or is it because we're not getting the data?

I would love to know why we're seeing such a drastic trend.

And then, furthermore, the number of assignments that we're getting.

It used to be 5,000 in 2012, 3,000 the year before that, and now we're down to 1,000.

I'll definitely let OPD answer, but I just to speak from a survivor's perspective, I can also say that I we think domestic violence is one of the most underreported types of violence because of many, many barriers, including immigration status and just shame and fear, and then often that person someone who may be causing harm might be in a position of power, and then the person who is being harmed does not feel able to come forward and speak to it.

So, just take the numbers with that caveat.

Yeah, so I do think it's a combination of factors, one being under reporting, uh, other we're targeting uh the repeat offenders, and then just due to the underreporting, we're not getting all the cases to the investigative unit until maybe sometimes uh years after.

Um, so you'll see sometimes our years will fluctuate because sometimes uh victims will often report cases years after uh when they've got the appropriate support system to make such report.

But do you perceive there to be unmet need right now?

We have six investigators in the department, or is it merely just uh we're getting lower numbers?

The reports themselves are the reports that are being taken by the patrol officers responding to 911 calls.

So it it um although the caseload is high for investigators, it it would have to be a patrol officer responding to those calls first.

Okay, I do want a follow-up on how we're using like the number of gun restraining uh orders we're actually issuing, especially in light of what happened this last year, actually 68% of mass shootings.

There is a well-documented study.

We're actually tied to individuals who had a history of domestic violence, and I want to make sure that we are using that tool to the fullest extent that we can here in the city of Oakland, especially given what happened this last week.

Um, and so um that's that's something that uh I didn't see it in this report, but um I will request just an informational report on how we're using that um gun restraining uh order here in the city of Oakland.

So we do use the emergency protection order that allows us to confiscate uh firearms from a suspect's residence right now, so we've had that um for several years.

The gun violence restraining order being the new tool that law enforcement may use in the state.

Uh it being fairly new and it's still going through the training stages, um, is still being used.

So we are still teaching all of the patrol officers how to utilize it.

And it's also a tool that the public can use as well.

So maybe there may be some uh some use of it uh as far as through awareness.

That's great.

It sounds like we could do some training of the public.

Uh is somebody uh somebody else from OPD wants to give remarks or make a comment here.

Yes.

Uh first names Omar Dazikiros.

I'm the acting captain of our criminal investigation division.

And I think, yeah, just to answer your question, council member, I think we are extremely short-staffed right now.

I think our operating strength is in the 500 number, and not to distance ourselves from domestic violence, but just looking across the board, and if we look at criminal investigation division as a whole, and we look at the robbery division, there's only five investigators for the entire city.

And year to date, we're at 1,530.

And then for uh felony assault investigators, there's only five investigators.

We only have 10 investigators for homicide, and we have just shut down our close uh cold case unit, and we have only one investigator there that's now loaned back, and I believe since 2023, they have solved over 25 cold case homicides.

For burglary division, there's only four for the entire division.

I'm sorry, for the entire department.

Uh we have no stolen vehicle investigator.

Um for general crimes division, that's for investigating all assaults within the department that are not firearms related.

Uh, there's only three investigators, and they're also looking at all online reports.

So just to go back to uh domestic violence, there we are extremely short staffed.

There are too many cases to be handled for uh these investigators and for the officers, and I think it's unjust for the victims and for the community of Oakland, and that's where it comes down to where many investigators are working long, long hours.

They're coming in on their weekends and they're having to stay overtime just to try to make those cases and to try to work and reach out to those victims, identify critical victims, and also obtain any type of evidence so it doesn't go lost, such as video surveillance and etc.

Yeah, noted.

I noted also the difference in the cases per investigator in the most recent report versus the one that we had in 2013.

So it's a marked difference.

Okay.

Um, any questions from colleagues?

Councilmember Brown.

Okay, so first question.

Um, Councilmember uh Chairwong, uh, from that report that you were looking at from 2013.

Can you highlight how many um investigators it reflects?

I'm just curious.

I think it was six, it looks like six as well.

Okay, so it seems like yeah, maybe you could speak to it that consistently, maybe there's just six um investigators um assigned.

Um, but I did have a couple questions about maybe first off, um, kind of as what uh council member Wong uh mentioned around um just you know I guess I'm curious what what is the actual year-over-year trends with some of the information that was provided.

So maybe perhaps we can have this uh as a report back, just so that we can see the information a little bit um with more frequency, because I think it's it's not good to assume kind of what's going on in the situation.

Um, I do agree that more than likely folks are maybe not responding.

Um, I do want to highlight that a lot of the partners that are currently um helping to assist community members, um, all you know, really good partners, especially Love Never Fails, and some of the work that they are doing.

So, really want to thank them for their work and the DVP.

Um, but specifically, um, I guess one question that I had based on the report, it says officers are expected to arrive within five to seven minutes for uh uh domestic violence calls.

Um, how does that target compare with uh some of the actual observed response times?

That would be my first question.

So I didn't check uh the response times are like per CAD, um, but this is just our expectation that uh we have through the domestic violence unit, especially for an in-progress crime where there we believe a great bodily injury is occurring to the victim.

I see.

I think that would be something we would want to add so that we're actually getting uh the information around the response times for that.

Um and then what are the current requirements for um mandatory arrests for DV calls?

Uh so we do follow state law, which uh they say the appropriate response to an arrest, you should make an arrest.

Uh, but Oakland Police Department policy actually takes it a step further and says you shall make a mandatory arrest.

Uh, when they do their investigation, they try to discover the dominant aggressor, and that's when they make an arrest.

I see.

Okay, um, yeah, I think kind of upon reflection, really grateful for the the report, um, and bringing this forward.

I would be uh interested in seeing this kind of as a year over year, just so that we can actually compare the information.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Councilmember five.

Thank you, Chair Wong.

I just wanted to state in um response to what Officer Dasakiro said, um, it's it's concerning about the numbers that were listed in terms of officers and where they're stationed.

I think it's important to review the potential of um moving officers that don't require um a badge and a gun to do that work to move them out of those spaces where uh non-sworn officers can do um do the jobs that current sworn officers are in.

There was a report that came um earlier this year, I believe.

I think it's maybe come before the council a couple times that said there's at least 38 officers that can be reassigned to different places.

Uh I think we should seriously explore whether that can happen even if it's not 3840 officers.

We should consider if or I would love OPD to consider whether those individuals can be moved to do the work that would address sex trafficking and um DV and other issues that are prevalent in community.

Um thank you, Councilmember uh Chair Wong for talking about mass shooters and that the percent there's a high percentage over 50 percent, 68 I believe.

That um have past experience with domestic violence.

So, knowing that these numbers are what they are, I think it's uh it it behooves this body to look at where we can move folks that are sworn to do police work to get them to do that work to help with these cases around domestic violence, uh sex trafficking, um, to to do that work, right?

So I I just want us to consider that as the public safety committee coming up sometime in the near future.

This is critical, and thank you for bringing this forward.

And I'm I'm deeply sorry that you experience the scars that you've experienced as a result of the domestic violence, but I'm sure it's given you the experience to come and do this work.

I am speaking on behalf of everybody else who's experienced it.

Thank you.

Okay, well, I'll entertain a motion, or excuse me.

I always forget public speaker.

Public speakers.

Moving to our public speakers.

When you call your name, please approach the podium.

If you're participating via Zoom, please raise your hands.

You're easily identified.

Blair Beekman and Jennifer Finley.

Moving to our Zoom speakers, Blair Beekman.

You may unmute yourself and begin your one minute comment.

Hi, thank you, Blair Beekman.

Um, I lived in the Bay Area from 2014, well, previous 2014 to about 2022.

I moved to San Diego in 2022.

I'm back in the Bay Area for the next few months, so here I am.

Hi, everyone.

Um I wanted to comment uh quickly that um in San Diego at this time, they're working on the uh rape kit issues and how those can be completed easier uh more efficiently at this time, and it's a sensitive issue and um good luck that uh conversations needed to be in have about rape kits.

Uh I don't know how you're working on it in Oakland, but they're they're having those better conversations now that have been difficult to have.

Uh so good luck how you can address the future of rape kits and and uh what it means the backlog, how to work on the backlog issues, and uh thank you for your time.

Thank you for your comment, Mr.

Public Speakers for item six.

Okay, colleagues all entertain a motion.

Uh council councilmember Brown.

Excellent.

I'll I'll make a motion to move this item uh to the next city council or a receive and file.

Receive and file.

Receive and file in committee.

Second, thank you.

We have a motion made by council member Brown.

Seconded by council member five to receive and file this in a public safety committee on roll, Councilmember Brown.

Aye.

Council member five.

Aye.

Councilmember Houston.

Aye.

And Chair Wong.

Aye.

This motion passes with four eyes to receive the file this in a public safety committee.

Moving to item four.

Receive an informational report on the Oakland police department on crime, crime trends, and crime reduction activities in the city of Oakland.

And you do have three speakers for this item.

Good evening.

I am Deputy Chief Anthony Tedesco.

I oversee the Bureau of Field Operations One, that's West Oakland.

I'm here with my counterpart from BFO2, Deputy Chief Casey Johnson.

And we are going to provide a report on the crime data and strategies for each of the different areas.

Given the number of items, I will try to move expeditiously and answer questions as we go.

Starting with citywide data, there is mostly good news to report.

We have reductions in nearly all categories.

If you look across these crime categories, we're down in homicides, rape, robbery, aggravated assault.

Really, despite all of the staffing challenges that you heard about, a combination of collaboration technology have really come through for the city, and we are trending in the right direction.

I'm gonna keep just moving through.

We would expect in the summer months.

This is showing the data from April to September.

We would expect in the summer of the warmer months some of these points to begin to spike, but with the exception of aggravated assault, we are trending in the right direction.

So robbery, I think, most tremendously down thousands of robberies.

We are experiencing an incredible downward trend in robbery in the city continues to head in a positive direction.

To put that in context, year to date, we have less than half of the robberies that we had in 2023, uh down more than a thousand robberies from 2024.

Those are really incredible reductions.

The police department continues to work with DVP and other partners.

This is a key area, and again, we would expect uh based on historical trend that in the warmer summer months that we would see more aggravated assaults.

Uh but the good news is that we are still significantly down year to date in this category.

I'm going to move into the area presentations into for the interest of time.

I oversee area ones, two, and three.

Captain Steve Derribio oversees area one.

And looking at area one, we're seeing trends in a very positive direction.

So looking at aggravated assaults, I can happily report that we are seeing a deceleration there year to date.

So the strategies that Captain Toribio is enacting, working with our bids in the downtown, working with Acorn Town Center and businesses along 7th Street, working with many of the different businesses in the downtown area to bring safety to that space is proving effective.

I think that the collaboration in those spaces has been critical to our success, and I am very happy to be able to work with Captain Tribio.

I think that his uh ability to foster community partnerships has been critical to the success in area one.

Moving to area two, uh, I think I can move through all of the areas, or I can pause at each of the areas for any questions, depending on what uh you would like.

I'll keep going.

Area two, I want to highlight that we have seen a pretty significant shift from commercial and residential burglaries.

An important point to highlight.

This is Captain Smith has been very focused on this.

We saw a very large rash of commercial burglaries through 2023 and 2024 in area two.

Many of our businesses were being targeted.

Captain Smith has focused on this area with high visibility patrol and with our crime reduction teams, and we've seen a reversal in this trend.

But consequently, we have seen an increase in residential burglaries in a few neighborhoods.

Golden Gate, Rockridge, Temascal, and so Captain Smith has worked very closely with our criminal investigators with our crime analysis to resolve this issue, and it is trending now in a positive direction.

60 percent decrease in robberies in area two in this reporting period.

Again, I would want to highlight, I think that really the robbery trends are really pretty remarkable.

Area three, a heavy focus in area three on human trafficking and illegal casinos, illegal gambling shacks.

We've seen a fair amount of violence and homicides related to these two issues, particularly along the international corridor.

We've been doing operations every week related to these issues, and we've seen a pretty tremendous reduction, and again, you see that in all categories in area three.

Captain U, experienced Captain, a lot of different issues in area three.

Everything from the issues around Lakeshore, uh Avenue to the International Corridor, uh, to all of their different residential sections of area three.

Uh, I think that Captain Yu's strategy and his focus has really uh the the data speaks for itself.

If there aren't any questions for me, I will turn it over to my counterpart to go over the east end areas.

Well, hello everyone.

Deputy Chief Casey Johnson, Chief Tedesco's counterpart in East Oakland, areas four, five, and six.

Uh, much like Chief Tedesco, I'll keep it brief and go over the numbers here, but overall in BFO2 East Oakland, we have seen a downward trend in crimes.

Uh pretty significant downward trend.

I know our captains have been working extremely hard to reduce crime throughout East Oakland.

Uh when looking at Area 4, Area 4 is uh run by Captain Rojas.

Unfortunately, we did see an increase in homicides this time versus last time last year by one homicide, so up 20%.

But there was a really big push to reduce the burglaries and robberies in area four, which you saw was a 44% reduction in robberies and a 62% reduction in commercial burglaries throughout Area 4.

Captain Rojas has implemented many strategies.

When you see his overall part one crime numbers are down 31% year to date, but he has worked closely with our SRS and ceasefire teams to continue to focus on individuals who are driving the violence.

Uh when it comes to robberies and assaults, they've prioritized the ceasefire strategies, and they've really strengthened the collaboration with our city leaders and law enforcement partners to include CHP, Alameda County Sheriffs, and BART PD.

They've also engaged with partners with Dignity uh Project Dignity of Public Works to really try and reduce the blight and increase community quality of life in area four.

When looking at area five, area five is commanded by Captain Febble.

Captain Felville has seen a reduction in homicides by 33%, as well as in uh residential burglaries by 46% and robberies by 7%.

Again, Area 5 has been focusing to reduce all part one violent crimes, which are down by 24% in area five.

When looking at some of Captain February's strategies, again, he too focuses on ceasefire uh strategy.

Also with intelligence briefings to ensure that our patrol officers have the most up-to-date intelligence when it comes to escalating violence within our gang of groups throughout uh area five.

Uh Captain Febble also collaborates with DVP to assist with outreach to involve parties to prevent future violence throughout Area 5.

And also has requested the assistance of CHP throughout Area 5 to help with our high injury network, as we know that some of our driving uh in East Oakland has become very erratic, and there have been uh many fatal accidents throughout area five.

Lastly, when we look at area six, area six is under the command of Captain Dorham.

Uh area six is Deep East Oakland.

Captain Dorham has done an uh outstanding job.

He leaves the city in reductions in homicides in his area.

Uh, 19 last year versus 10 this year, so an overall drop of 47 percent in homicides in deep East Oakland.

He's also reduced his auto burglaries by 60 percent.

Uh last year we saw a big push in the Hageburger corridor where there was a very large uh influx of auto burglaries in that area, and and throughout the diligent work with our community partners, the police department, and our stakeholders, we've really done able to we've really been able to drop that number of auto burglaries and really kind of make it feel much safer for our residents and businesses over there in the Hageburger corridor.

So I appreciate his efforts on that.

Uh some of Captain Doram's strategies, uh, when we look at he continues to uh push intelligence to all of our officers when it comes to groups and gangs in the area.

He also works closely with our SRS teams and our ceasefire teams.

He also coordinates uh weekly meetings with all stakeholders, law enforcement partners, and city leaders to identify priorities of of all of those partners to help our patrol officers reduce the crime in East Oakland.

Uh and then also continues to enforce through preliminary investigations while working closely with our criminal investigations division on any follow-up that's needed for them.

And that's it for uh the report out for BFO2.

If there's any questions, myself or Chief Tedesco can answer, questions, colleagues, Councilmember Houston.

We haven't heard from you in a bit.

Just checking in.

Yes, I like um and Tedesco and Johnson and are doing a great job, um, just doing a great job in Durham is is the captain in our area.

I just had a question for them both.

Which area Oakland never had the gang violence that it has now.

Back when I was growing up, it wasn't gang.

Um, homicides and things weren't gang related.

Which district or which um you call it area, which area has the most gang violence in it.

You're asking which area do we believe is has the most gang violence?

Yes, sir.

I mean, I think there's there's different gangs throughout the city.

Uh we focus equally on all of the different gangs that are involved in any type of violent crime, and we use our ceasefire strategy in our partnership with DVP to enforce all of those involved, any type of violence and or gang uh related activities.

So I couldn't really say that you know one area of the city has more of a gang problem than the other.

Um, there are gangs just kind of throughout the city and in different gangs in different neighborhoods.

They're not it's not more isolated in one one area, Captain.

I wouldn't say that it is it's isolated more in one area than others.

There are uh parts of the city that do see uh you know their share their fair share of of gang violence, but we do everything we can with all of our partners to ensure that we do address those gang problems.

Thank you.

Okay.

Um I know our oh, we'll go to public speakers.

When I call your name, please approach the podium.

Please state your name for the record.

You do have one minute.

If you're participating via Zoom, please raise your hand so you're easily identified.

Blair Beekman, Jennifer Finley, and Rajny Mandal.

Moving to our Zoom speakers.

Blair Beekman, please unmute yourself and begin your one minute comment.

All right, thank you, Blair Beekman.

A really interesting item.

Thank you.

Back in 2023, um, uh California cities were getting a lot of new funding from the Biden administration.

I think cities across the country, we're getting a lot new surveillance tech placement issues were going on, and that's what started the ALPR things.

They have been working apparently to a degree.

And so when Trump came in in 2025, he had all these new programs in place.

But but we've been already doing our good work and and add on top of that the work of uh macro systems.

Uh the work in Chinatown by Chinatown merchants.

Uh there's really important work going on in crime issues.

And uh I hope that's being respected at the federal level.

I think they are seeing that.

Now we're at the point I I think we have to learn.

Uh I really want to practice that minimal use of technology can accomplish the exact same goals as a plethora and a ton of additional tech.

We have to figure out that system.

I think it's an important thing to figure out.

Thank you for your comment, Blair Beekman.

Moving to our next public speaker.

Rajnee Mandal, please unmute yourself and begin your one-minute comment.

Uh Rajni Mandel, District 4.

I first want to thank OPD for all the work they're doing across the city, especially being so short staffed, it's only about 500 active officers.

I live in area two where the data shows a 20% increase in residential burglaries.

The night after Coach Beam was shot, we had over 10 car and home break-ins in our neighborhood.

We have a nighttime security guard who called OPD, but not surprisingly, given the citywide manhunt for Coach Bean's killer, nobody came.

My neighbors were really frustrated by the general lack of response from OPD.

And even though I told them to submit online OPD reports, the majority did not.

This just exemplifies a spiraling issue here in the city.

There's a loss of faith in response from law enforcement, being either showing up or solving crime.

And it's leading people to give up on reporting crimes, especially property crime.

And with the decrease in OPD staffing, it's just getting worse.

So, in no part due to the fault of OPD, but due to the entire system.

So even though crime is down, I'd be wary of believing the accuracy of the numbers of property crime.

Uh we desperately need to increase OPD staffing numbers because residents are just not reporting everything that's happening.

Thank you for your comment, Rajni.

Moving to our next Zoom speaker, Jennifer Finley.

Please unmute yourself and begin your one minute comment.

Jennifer Finley, please unmute yourself and begin your one-minute comment.

I can hear me now.

Yes, we can.

Yes, we can.

Oh, okay, great.

Um, I just wanted to add a little bit of context um for longevity because these data um looks great and it's only um covering a six-month period um year to date last year and this year.

I was looking back um because the stats were looking so good.

I was looking at the stats for the past um over the past decade, year to date, and everything is coming in at record closed at this point.

We are at the lowest um year to date in 10 years, the lowest rates for uh vehicle theft, burglary, robbery, rape, and homicides.

And homicides right now are um 48 last uh year to date that I saw with um that's less than half that it was um just two years ago.

I think that that's great.

I think that we need to keep moving in the right direction, give OPD credit where credit is due, and also like I said, for doing more with less because we're doing these numbers now with lower staffing that they've had in in long time.

It's been steadily.

Thank you for your comment.

That concludes your public speakers for item four.

Okay.

Um colleagues.

Any comments?

I know we have a lot of public comment waiting on the flock item.

So uh council member Fife.

Thank you.

I just won't, I should probably tell uh the people in the chambers.

Sometimes we have to wait until our mics are turned down.

We have a new audio system, so if you're ever wondering why the council has taken a little bit longer to speak, it's because we're waiting for microphones to be turned on.

That said, I want to um point out that we have had month after month when we have these crime reports come to the city council reports from OPD about how crime is trending down, and I'm impressed with the numbers that we see right now.

The issue that I have is that um no matter what is said, depending on who's sitting in these seats, that data will be reflected incorrectly through the media, and you have signs.

We we're seeing it right now.

They are telling you the people that these recallers are saying are responsible for crime.

You have the police department right here saying crime is trending down.

So I wonder what what facts and data people go by.

Is it facts or is it feelings?

Because feelings, I'm gonna just leave that there.

So um I hope that with this item we can really start looking at what the facts are.

I appreciate the information, especially in BFO1, because I know I'm talking to businesses, I'm talking to residents who are explaining and who are grateful for what has happened over the last little while.

And I will remind us that even uh a year ago, we went over a month with no homicides, and that does not mean that we are where we should be.

We are not.

We still have work to do, and people in Oakland are hurting for real, and we have to figure out real solutions to get us there.

But I just wanted to point out the fact that what I heard today is promising and that we need to keep those trends going.

And I'm happy to hear that report.

I will make a motion to receive and file this item in committee.

Councilmember Brown.

And I'll second it.

Great.

And also just uh thank you, by the way, for the comprehensiveness of this report uh to the OPD staff who create uh develop this.

Thank you.

We have a motion made by Councilmember Five.

Seconded by Council Member Brown to receive and file this in a public safety committee on the role.

Councilmember Brown.

Aye.

Councilmember five.

Aye.

Councilmember Houston.

And Chair Wong.

Yep.

Aye.

This motion passes with four eyes to receive and file this in a public safety committee.

Moving to our last agenda item, item three.

Adopt a resolution authorizing approval one approving the Okina Police Department Surveillance Use Policy DGO 132 I 32 1, Community Safety Camera System and the Acquisition of Security Cameras Related Technology to awarding the two-year agreement to flock safety of automated license plate reader and plan tilt zoom cameras operating system technology and related services that it costs not to exceed 2,252,500,000 dollars and three waiving the competitive multiple step solicitation process required afford the acquisition of information technology systems and local and small local business enterprise program requirements, and you do have a hundred and thirty-nine speakers for this item.

Oh good evening, uh my name is Lieutenant Gabriel Archiza.

I'm the commander of our real-time operations center that operates uh within the ceasefire section.

I'm here to present on the community safety camera systems, uh the policy itself, and then the contract related to Flock ALPR, uh, and then the integration of community safety cameras uh throughout the city.

Um just to go on some of the background.

So originally uh the policy was a standalone policy uh which was presented to the privacy commission.

Uh this was related to community safety cameras.

Uh the actual Flock ALPR system uh that's in place now or currently uh was originally provided uh by CHP uh back in 2024, about midway through 2024.

Uh those cameras uh began to be installed.

Uh currently, there should be around 290 uh cameras that are installed.

There's some that have been damaged uh or are waiting to be replaced.

So that the number, the uh top number for that would be I think 290.

Um as part of that, uh it went through kind of a unique process.

Generally, when we are acquiring technology, the department is acquiring it on its own behalf.

Uh in this situation, CHP was actually providing uh the devices themselves.

Uh but the Oakland Police Department was in an MOU with CHP, and the city still was the uh in ownership of the data that was captured by those devices.

The understanding of that agreement was in the second year, uh OPD would take over the contract or enter into a new contract with Flock, but we did have a three-year MOU with CHP related to the use of ALPR.

As these two items moved forward, essentially became in line.

Uh, as they're part of the same vendor, uh, they were put into this same contract.

Uh related specifically to that process, we had already had Flock ALPR.

We were looking for the ability to integrate uh additional camera systems, being that we already had that platform, that was the first one we looked at, but we did look at other uh vendors in this space and determined there was really one other vendor that could actually supply this technology at the scale that we were looking for.

Uh but in order to replace the existing systems that we would have, uh there would be significant uh funding that would be required to replace the current systems we have, install them, and then basically install a brand new service.

Uh so with that uh and looking at the both both of the different vendors, as one wasn't significantly or the other vendor wasn't significantly better than this vendor, uh we landed on this and then requested that we move forward with this vendor.

So while it is a new contract, this is not a new vendor that we've been working with.

Uh so I'll just start with the ALPRs uh themselves and kind of explain how they work.

Uh so the camera systems themselves are designed to take photos of the rear of the vehicle and capture the license plate of the vehicle.

They then use uh essentially machine learning to capture that plate and associate it to that vehicle.

So if the vehicle if that license plate is queried through the system, it will bring up a photo of that vehicle.

Uh the photo itself essentially captures a photo of that vehicle, the license plate, uh, the location that it was taken, uh, and then the time and date that the photo was taken.

Uh the data that's captured through the Flock ALPR system, uh, the cameras are owned by Flock, or and then we are essentially leasing those cameras.

But the data itself that's captured by any of these devices belongs to the city of Oakland.

Uh, and the city of Oakland has control over how that data is then used.

Uh data retained through the Flock safety system uh is retained for a period of 30 days.

Uh that's standard across both systems.

Uh but it uh the data is only returned or the data is only retained past that if it's related to an investigation, and then it's downloaded and retained as evidence through a separate system.

Uh like I said, data is only uh retained or saved if it's related to an investigation as an as evidence, uh, and then the um the sharing of this is also controlled through uh basically entering into a sharing agreement with different agencies that have to be California agencies throughout California.

Originally we were uh tasked with ensuring that was the case.

Uh Flock is since then insured uh basically silent off all of California from uh sharing or being uh data being shared with from out-of-state agencies uh in relation to SB 34, Senate Bill 34 and Senate Bill 54, the California Values Act.

Uh federal and out-of-state agencies again are prohibited from accessing OPD's data through Flock.

Like I said before, originally it was on us to make sure that that process was uh followed, but they've since siloed off uh the state of California and any agency that's within it, including if a federal agency is operating within the state of California.

They cannot see uh any of the state or state or local agencies' data.

Just as far as what ALPR doesn't do, uh so Flock ALPR is not designed to capture photos of people, uh, doesn't utilize racial uh facial, does not use utilize facial recognition technology on any of its platforms.

Uh the data is not searchable by a person's demographic data.

Uh the ALPR doesn't capture any personal identifying information.

When we talk about personal identifying information, we're talking about things like names, data births, social security numbers, driver's license numbers, information like that.

Flock ALPR does not capture any DMV data, so that's data that would be managed by the state, and it does not include any uh Oakland PD record management system data.

So it's not accessing or cross-referencing anything from our reports or from uh things like the stolen vehicle or from any of our managed systems.

So with that, I'll move on to the the actual elements of the community safety camera system before I continue.

Basically, the genesis of this was uh there is significant surveillance uh infrastructure within downtown Oakland, specifically uptown uh downtown bids, uh Jack London and Chinatown.

Originally they had these camera systems in place.

They had requested for OPD to come up with a way to access those systems and able in order to support uh those communities.

Uh when I became involved in the project, uh I did hear that from them, but I thought it was important to allow for other areas within the city to participate in this program, even if they didn't have the kind of significant infrastructure that areas of downtown did.

Uh so with that, uh we wanted to make sure that there was a platform that would allow this for hap to happen so that any business uh that has a camera system that's can be uh integrated into the system had the opportunity to do so.

Uh so there's basically three elements to the actual community safety camera systems themselves.

There's a community or privately owned data uh owned and managed devices, there's department-owned managed devices, and then there's the actual integration platform itself, uh, what is the flock operating system?

So the community and private devices uh requires an affirmative opt-in to share access to historical or real-time video data that's from the actual business itself or whoever owns or manages that device.

The owner owner or manager retains ownership over that data, so the data is still stored within whatever video management system that they're using or VMS system, or say if they have a DVR system that's actually a physical DVR uh in-house.

Uh Flock operating system allows OPD to access that data related to investigations, so essentially it's providing a window into those systems related to a specific investigation.

Um participants do not have access to any of the OPD systems or any of the rest of uh Flock systems that the department is managing and don't have access to each other's systems.

So just because a business does share with us doesn't mean they can see any of the other cameras that are in the system outside of their own.

For the OPD managed uh devices, only OPD has direct access to the data captured by the devices.

Uh this data is retained for a period of 30 days unless it's determined to be part of an investigation, in which place it would be downloaded and stored through a separate system.

Uh what's very important to note about this, this data is not searchable by any other agency.

So OPD is the only one that would have access to this data or access to the system, and then they would be able to pull that system related to evidence, which is then stored in a different uh online storage capacity.

Uh these devices were intended to supplement existing camera systems or areas that don't have uh significant camera systems such as what we see in downtown, and to be in areas uh that could that commercial areas that essentially would benefit from having the assistance of these additional cameras, essentially where where camera systems or businesses may not have uh significant cameras.

The Flock operating system itself, uh it's just a technology platform that's allowing the CS camera system integration.

So this is the ability for OPD to have this the cameras that it's actually managing uh as alongside the camera systems that uh the community is providing.

And again, their data, their information is still contained within their VMS systems, it's not saved uh through the Flock operating system, only OPD's information is in there.

There is a potential of integrating additional existing systems in the Flock operating system.

Uh this is for a more comprehensive and cohesive approach to addressing specifically violent crime.

We were talking about call volume earlier.

One of the things that can be integrated is basically computer-aided dispatch where 911 calls are coming in to be able to prioritize or see visually on the map where those calls are coming in, and potentially moving our resources in order to address those calls in particular.

The other system that we haven't really looked at yet, but there's another 911 system where essentially, if there's keywords said during a call, that would automatically alert within the office, so that if it's something like a shooting before the calls even placed into the system and officers are dispatched, we are able to start pulling up information related to those cases.

Again, CS camera systems not searchable or accessible by any other agency that goes for OPD managed data as well as the privately owned cameras.

And then within the department itself, there's uh multiple tiers of access or two tiers of access.

One which will be uh highly restricted to uh particular officers within the department that will have actual the ability to pull up live camera data related to uh basically crimes in progress, and then tier two, which is uh kind of how we've done physical canvases in the past where they're looking at historical data related to a particular investigation, so essentially after a crime occurs.

Uh as part of this project, uh we did a significant amount of data analysis.

Uh, this wasn't just for this project, but for kind of a larger uh look into kind of our crime trends uh over the last uh six or seven years.

Uh so back in 2023, uh we've kind of mentioned it here there was kind of there was a huge spike uh not just in violent crime but crime across the city.

Uh we were looking at that point to understand what had changed from 2023 or basically 2020 to 2023, where we saw these huge increases specifically in violent crime uh to what was going on back in 2016 to 2019.

We were trying to understand what resources may have been reallocated, which we then could move back into uh positions where they could assist with specifically violent crime uh and areas where we could leverage technology maybe to make up that gap if those resources no longer existed.

Uh and then basically in 2024, uh at the same time that uh CHP was about to provide uh ALPR access to the city of Oakland.

Uh we stood up a pilot program for this office to essentially assist with managing the system itself to assist with training and then the rollout of the project itself and integrating it into field operations.

Essentially, at that point, we were trying to roll this out to patrol.

We took a very slow and methodical approach.

Uh, we started with just the admins uh back in July of 2024, and then eventually moved that to some of our field teams, uh, the CSR unit, our special resource section, uh, and then our CID unit.

Uh, patrol began to get the application in around January of 2025, and then we slowly rolled out that product to make sure that everyone got sufficient training and we didn't find any particular issues relating to auditing.

Uh big focus of the unit itself uh starting in 2023 was uh this focus on data and how it could uh drive us to target particular crimes that were affecting communities within the city of Oakland.

Uh part of that analysis was looking into specifically who was being affected by this violence and not just where.

So, as I said, this analysis started where we were looking at information from 2016.

Uh, this is the homicide numbers from 2017 to 2024.

Uh so what we saw in 2017 to 2019 where the numbers stayed essentially the same, uh 75 homicides in 17 and 18, and then 78 in 2019.

Uh 2020, we saw a large increase in homicides, specifically in the second half of that year.

Uh, and then that led to subsequent years where we saw uh significant increases in homicides from the previous four years.

Uh in 2024, it was the first time we saw a significant drop down, and you'll see that we were at 86 homicides.

And like I said, a big part of this project was trying to understand what we were doing back in 2017-2018 and 2019 and how we could refocus not just uh the use of technology but the use of the entire ceasefire section and the units that were supporting it.

One of the other uh target crimes related to the use of technology was specifically carjackings.

We'd see a huge increase in that uh specific crime type uh since 2018 and 2017.

If you can see in 2018, we had 101 carjackings in the year 2023, we had uh 513 carjackings.

This was also reflected in robbery data where 2023 had a significant increase from even the previous two years.

Um one of the things that we used to measure the success of the ALPR program was looking at the first half of 2024, where we did not have uh ALPR technology in place.

If you look at the first six months, the average of carjackings per month was 40 carjackings.

If you look at the subsequent six months following implementation of flock ALPR, that average dropped down to 24 carjackings per month, and then if you look at 2025's data, we're averaging 17 carjackings per month.

If we're looking at carjackings overall, uh between 2023 and 2025, you saw a 66% decrease.

That's 568 carjackings to 192 carjackings.

Uh, when we're talking about year-to-date data, this was uh compiled back in October.

Uh so you'll see that most of this data is trailing some of the current information.

2025 year date, there's also been a 41% decrease in robberies overall throughout the city of Oakland, with a 53% decrease from 2023 year to date to 2020 year to date.

So that's a difference of basically 1,500 uh robbery.

Uh also what we were looking at somewhat outward, uh, to kind of understand the specific issue with robberies within the city of Oakland.

Uh, we were comparing to some of the cities that were either uh relative size or also relative uh violent crime data.

And if you'll see Oakland had 654 robberies per 100,000.

Uh if you compare that some of the other eight or cities within not just the Bay Area but uh the greater U.S., uh we were sometimes more than twice, if not more than most of those cities.

San Francisco, you can see is at 254.

For Chicago, the number was 89, and uh especially cities like St.

Louis, where it's 221.

Uh so we understood that there is a significant issue surrounding uh robberies specifically within the city of Oakland.

Uh we tried to make sure that we're focusing on those specific robbery crimes and then trying to determine who was most affected by those crimes in order to allocate resources.

Um so one of the things we looked at was victim demographic data.

Uh, this is from 2025.

Uh so we looked at the robberies from this year of the total robberies that we had up until October.

Uh 55% of those total robberies in Oakland were targeting Latino members of the community.

Uh the second group, the second highest uh impacted group uh was black members of the community at 19% of the total robberies within Oakland.

We were seeing who was most affected by these crime types, and then if we could leverage technology to address those specific crimes, how we could benefit the community overall.

One of the other uh crime types that we were looking at were shootings.

So this is also information from 2025, where we saw that uh 158 of the shootings in 2012 up 2025 up until September uh had targeted black members of the community, and I believe it was 64% of the total number.

Uh, and then additional 62 Latino members of the community were targeted during shootings.

These are injury shootings, so somewhere where somebody was actually hit, uh which makes up uh approximately I believe 24% of the total number.

Uh one of the things that we were also looking at is the impact of homicides in particular neighborhoods or uh affecting particular communities.

So when we looked at 2023's information, out of the 125 homicides that occurred in 2023, 116 of those victims were people of color.

Approximately 93% of all homicides, uh, that trend tragically continued in 2024.

Uh, where of the 85 homicides, 75 of those victims were people of color, making up 80 per 88% of these homicides.

And then through the end of September 2025, there was 51 homicides with 49% of those victims being people color.

Approximately 96% of the total homicides.

One thing that we did see was a large impact on homicides, and like I said, I think it's that that holistic comprehensive approach.

As far as the fiscal impact for the system itself, so OPD intends to utilize 2,252,000 over two years to fund the flock safety program.

OPD has already allocated or had already allocated 1.5 million dollars per year over the next two years related to flock safety that was originally just the ALPR systems.

So we are not asking for any additional funding or related to the general purpose fund.

These were funds that were already allocated to the department.

And you can see the year one numbers are 1,155,000.

The reason it's different from year two is for the installation for the additional PTZ cameras.

I just want to note those PTZ cameras are not ALPR, those are it's live and historical videos, so a surveillance camera.

As part of the process of going through the privacy commission uh and in or getting feedback from the community from the privacy commission uh from council, uh we were looking at specific contract safeguards.

Um one of the opportunities that we have here is because originally we were through the MOU with CHP, uh there weren't stipulations that we had put in uh related specifically to uh protecting data within the city of Oakland.

Uh one of the concerns was the practice of uh flock uh collecting anonymized aggregated data for the purpose of machine learning uh from different cities.

Uh they have removed that uh section from the contract so they would not be collecting any of that information.

Um the other thing that's important to note is that if uh the if our data is shared without our consent, we are able to that would be considered a breach of contract, uh we would be able to terminate the contract.

Please order in the chamber.

Thank you.

Please proceed, Lieutenant.

Please have some of some of the other steps that were taken uh related to concerns, despite uh some of these cases being um extremely unlikely was in the case if the department or the city was assumed by the federal government in a manner where we weren't able to uh provide agency related to our own data, the terminate would uh the contract would be suspended and then terminated.

Uh the other section of that is if Flock enters into a contract with any federal agency that then compromises our ownership, uh sole ownership of that data, uh the contract would be uh terminated, we'd be able to seek litigation.

Um the additional safeguards of the city, the department continues to be aligned with the city and the community related to immigration enforcement.

Uh we saw this recently with uh the events at Coast Guard Island.

Um PD is not assisting with any immigration enforcement uh in direction in alignment with the department and city policy as well as state law.

Uh, the community safety camera system should be only accessed by members of the department who are trained and authorized to use it.

Uh no other access to the community safety camera system will be uh provided to any outside agency, uh whether it's state, local, or federal.

One of the other topics uh related to the use of technology was essentially the critical staffing situation.

Uh if we looked in January 2024, uh OPD staffing levels were at 711, that's 711,000 uh on paper, uh, which was 89 fewer than the last uh proposed staffing study guidelines.

Uh currently in October of 2025, uh OPD sworn levels were at 636 uh with an operational staffing level of 509 since the time of actually completing this report.

Uh those numbers have dropped.

The last number I heard was 633, and I believe that number may be lower uh since last I checked.

Um at these numbers, we've already seen uh critical units being disbanded in order to support patrol, which was at dangerous levels.

Um we are gonna see further cuts as we uh draw down in the number of sworn officers.

Um please order in the chamber, okay.

Um of the bigger concerns for OPD is how quickly progress has been reversed.

Uh, we saw that in 2020, uh, where we'd seen significant improvements in uh addressing violent crime between 2016 and 2019.

Uh in 2020 alone, if you looked at the first six months of that year, there was 37 homicides.

Uh in the second half of uh 2020, we saw a large spike uh with 72 homicides within that six month period.

We then saw that trend continue in 2021, 2022, and 2023.

Uh we also saw increases in shootings, uh robberies, carjackings, uh, and even things like stolen vehicles.

Uh in conclusion, we've seen significant uh effects on these particular crime types that are most affecting the community.

I believe that utilizing this technology in a responsible way, we'll continue to address these crimes, and if we do utilize or lose this technology, uh there's a potential for a crime to go back to the levels that we had seen before.

But like I said, this isn't just about OPD and our efforts, but it's also about the community partnerships that we have uh through the ceasefire strategy as well as uh this like I said, the separate but uh very relevant uh work of the DVP uh in this effort.

And with that, I will open it to question.

Thank you.

Okay, before we go to public comment, I just want to take a point of privilege to um introduce on the floor some amendments.

Um the point being just as we we've had a lot of um public comment even prior to this meeting that I wanted to address that as a city council what we're debating and is as we discuss, we're looking at a the OPD proposal, but with further safeguards from city council.

So I'm just going to quickly read in this amendment.

So uh further resolved uh that the city administrator is authorized to enter into a two-year contract with Flock safety for the period starting at the contract signing for one million one hundred fifty five thousand and five hundred dollars for the first year and one million seven hundred thousand per year two, with the total amount not to exceed two million two hundred and fifty two thousand five hundred dollars for purchase and access to the flock operating system.

Flock's safety products, uh two nine one flock safety falcon cameras, 40 flock safety corridors, PTZ cameras, and related services.

And here's the amendment.

And the city administrator shall include the following provisions to the contract with Flock safety.

I'm going to embed some of my commentary, but one of the things that was uh that was written in about was that the national lookup feature was used to provide backdoor access to entities such as ICE and NCHP or federal agencies.

So one Flock shall not enable a national lookup feature capability for the city to access, and number two uh commentary.

Knowing that Flock is a profit-seeking entity, uh include uh we are introducing or I am introducing uh a financial penalty.

So providing for liquidated damages in the event the contractor causes unauthorized sharing of data up to 200,000 dollars per incident measured by the cost of a data breach and estimated cost per records affected and based on the IBM cost of a data breach report from two thousand two thousand twenty-five.

Second amendment um is further resolved that attachment A, this is the community safety use policy that was previously discussed at the privacy advisory committee.

Um community safety camera system is approved with the following additional provisions that CS camera data shall not be shared with other agencies for purposes of criminalizing reproductive or gender-affirming health care, that CS camera data shall not be shared with local or state agencies for the purpose of federal immigration enforcement, and that the CS camera uh system may be used for environmental enforcement efforts to combat combat illegal dumping.

Okay.

All right.

And with that, um, we will turn to public comment.

I am going to request just uh, given that there are uh families and students in the audience that those with children, uh, or if you're um a child or a student yourself to please come forward first, that way you can go home.

Do the chair to the public speakers for all of the kids.

Can you please line up, state your name for the record, please?

If you are if you are you, please sign up.

Thank you.

I'm uh I'm a senior who has lived in Oakland my whole life, and I urge you to reject Flock's two point two five million dollar contract.

This isn't just a camera system, it's a mass surveillance network that will track every single one of us, making a searchable database that tracks our movements.

This data will be accessible to over 5,000 different agencies, including ICE.

We're a sanctuary city, but this camera system strips our city of exactly that protection.

Just last July, more than one federal agency illegally accessed Oakland's license place data.

Local police cannot stop federal access to our information, and the only way to protect our immigrant communities is to not build this database in the first place.

Even more than that, Flock is not trustworthy at all.

They have already been caught using 50 million stolen data points, lying to communities, and even reinstalling cameras in cities that fired them.

Flock cannot be trusted with our data or our money at all.

This 2.25 million dollars is a choice.

We can fund a surveillance system that criminalizes our community, or we can invest in what truly creates safety, mental health crisis response, violence prevention, and youth programs.

You shut okay, I'm sorry.

We have to keep comments to one minute at a maximum.

I'm gonna ask thank you so much.

And through the chair to our public speakers, your time can be seen at the top left.

Good evening.

My name is Edwin, I am a student, I'm a resident of Oakland.

Alongside with the Libya Center.

I'm here today to reject the proposal.

To the public speaker, can you please state your name for the record once again?

Uh, my name is Edwin.

I'm a student and resident of Locan alongside with the Alabaker Center.

I'm here today to reject the proposal of OPD's community safety camera system, safety system, and flock safety contract.

Oaken is a sanctuary city where our cameras are burnable.

Mass surveillance systems like ALPR and Flocks will collect data where the Trump administration can seize and also abuse.

Um, this resolution will be rejected because it ignores expert civilian civilian oversight by proceeding despite the privacy advisory commission's two to four vote recommending rejection.

Oaken creating the APAC specifically to evaluate surveillance.

We can't build a 2.25 million deportation machine and not surprise when they use it.

Another thing to add contracts with uh contracts within a trustee vendor that has admitted to using 50 million story daily points.

Partner with eyes despite sanctuary policies, and whose CEO has been documented lying to communities.

That's all for my time.

Thank you.

My name's Elijah Turner, and I've been in I've been in Oakland my whole life.

I work with the Ella Baker Center, and I'm here today to reject the proposal.

Oakland is a sanctuary city and has responsibility to stop building surveillance tools that federal agency will enable me to use against us.

The answer to reducing violence is not what the is not with more police or more surveillance.

We need to reimagine what safety is beyond the model that law enforcement has created.

This resolution to be rejected because it engraves private cameras to the government.

Surveillance networks and expand surveillance, transforming voluntary security systems into the mandatory law enforcement's tools.

It'll also expand the surveillance to beyond a LRPs to include pan-til zoom cameras that track individuals on foot, creating infrastructure for prevasive human monitoring.

I just asked you to reject this proposal.

If you're a student and you wish to speak, please approach the podium.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Bria Woodland.

I'm a constituent of district three.

Hi, Miss Five.

And I'm here to oppose the flock contract.

My safety should not come at the expense of my privacy.

Once again, safety does not come at the expense of privacy.

Surveillance has historically been used as a tool to criminalize and incarcerate black people and queer people of color.

We have been shown that OPD is unable to keep our data safe by the most recent link in July, as well as seeing that they can't meet the basic standards to be relieved of the 22-year-long FBI oversight.

So I cannot trust that they'll do what it takes to protect our data from ICE or any other fascist organization organization or agency seeking to exploit the people of Oakland.

Oakland has influenced the entire country on the basis of sustaining and retaining human rights.

People seeking sanctuary for any of their needs should not have to worry that their identity will be compromised.

You told us today that they haven't even updated the cat that would help the people of Oakland yesterday.

So there's no reason why we shouldn't be that we should be spending as much money as we are when they have not been accountable, and they there's no excuse for spending more money when they have failed to utilize resources we currently have.

Thank you.

My name is Rockin Naylor from the Urban Peace Movement.

Are you telling us OPD you rather invest in technology than in humanity?

Are you telling us OPD you rather watch us on surveillance screens like silly rabbits on CTV?

OPD.

Are you telling us you rather invest 2.5 million dollars into cameras than in these young people's educations?

OPD, are you telling us you rather invest into flock than community blocks watching us like bugs bunny?

Isn't preventing criminals from committing crimes?

It's popularizing it.

Are you telling us you rather watch us like looney tunes than invest in these young people's schools like you haven't been in these young people's shoes?

You should buy them a pair or two.

OPD, this is not to throw the shame on you.

This is just to wake you up to what you could really do.

Thank you for your comments.

I wish my brother could have dropped the mic.

Tanisha can, and all of us are none, and I stand before you today as a proud member.

And I want you to hear me clearly that these cameras will not stop crime.

They never have, and they never will.

They'll watch us, they'll track us, they'll target us.

And at the end, they'll profit off of our own pain.

2.2 million dollars, that's what they want to spend, right?

But based on what we just heard, officers aren't even able to respond now.

How are we adding more cameras to change that?

A camera can't fix a system that isn't responding to us in the first place.

I wonder how much hundreds of thousands dollars went into that paid report that said we need to hire more people who can communicate with the callers.

Uh, we need Spanish speaking in Cantonese when we know that that's our population.

This ain't about safety, this is about surveillance.

You're talking about pulling data from doorbell cameras and business cameras and funneling it into what systems we don't even know.

Oakland was just hacked last year.

Who's to say that this data will not be in the wrong hands tomorrow?

We know the narrative.

Crime is out of control.

But let's talk about facts.

What the good captain just told us that crime in Oakland is actually down.

Hi.

This is Athena.

Uh, history, and I am Emily Coogan.

Uh, I live in North Oakland near the Berkeley border.

Um, but we've got some Oakland cameras in my neighborhood as well.

Um, yeah, I'm here to say that uh this data is not being kept safe from ICE.

I know they said in the presentation something about a silo, but like people have brought a bunch of evidence that isn't there are out of state queries hidden California data, and it's one thing for people to have their private security cameras.

I'm not against people wanting to do that, but when we choose to aggregate it all together like this, we are serving it up on a plate to ice.

So if we if we want to be a sanctuary city, we need to say no to gathering this data.

Thank you.

Not a kid, but have a kid.

My name is Reem.

I am uh a resident of District 6 and a former privacy advisory commissioner myself.

Um, I just wanted to say that I have to be really honest, you know, as somebody who has spent time crafting these policies and writing these amendments.

You know, the city has a track record of writing really beautiful policies that only are ignored by OPD later.

And as many of you know, just earlier today, a very credible lawsuit was filed, alleging that OPD shared data with federal agents hundreds of times, and that breaks state and local laws, and so and and flock is no better.

We know for a fact, and not as a hypothetical, that this vendor has a track record of aiding in ICE raids uh and assisting in abortion investigations.

So, you know, we can't pretend if this goes forward and it gets abused that we didn't know.

We all have the information right before us, and I would just ask you.

I mean, OPD themselves has raised that they considered another vendor for your cost to our safety.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Sarah.

I live in district two, and I'm a special educator here in OUSD.

And I just kind of have a question for everybody.

What do we do to constant to deserve being constantly surveilled?

You can't convince me that my neighbors are the problem, but you guys can seem convinced that we are.

You're convinced that my neighbors and I are the problem when it's this 7.5 billion dollar company that's threatening Oakland's sanctuary district city status.

Despite the privacy advisory committee rejecting the motion, despite my neighbors organizing before you to reject the motion, you somehow feel it's necessary to push for this.

We reject any pathways that bear even the minute possibility of providing information to ICE.

We reject being made the problem, we reject the normalization of mass surveillance, and we categorically reject the continued attempts by you to sell Oakland out.

We need to keep Oakland police department accountable, and it's your responsibility as your elected representative.

Thank you for your comment.

My name is Lisa Hoffman, and I've lived in Oakland for 25 years.

I am a co-executive director of East Space Sanctuary Covenant, which provides legal and social services to immigrants, including free weekly clinics in the Fruitvale.

Every day we hear from people who are too afraid to leave their homes for fear they will be kidnapped and never see their families again.

We believe this Flock contract will put Oakland immigrant residents in grave danger.

Over the past months, Flock has violated contracts with other sanctuary cities by sharing their data with the federal government for immigration enforcement and lying about it.

As a result, many cities have terminated their contracts with Flock.

Why would Oakland choose to spend 2.25 million dollars building the very surveillance infrastructure that will be weaponized against our immigrant neighbors?

I want my friends and neighbors to feel safe going to school, work, and local businesses without fear that every security camera in Oakland could be used to deport them.

Please vote no.

Good evening.

My name is Abu Baker.

I live in work.

Do the chair to the public speaker.

What is your first name?

Abu ABU.

Thank you.

Baker.

I live and work in Oakland, third generation here.

Um I get tired of telling this story, but my son was killed three years ago in the front yard.

And there was some video capture from a neighbor, but there wasn't enough to track down whoever did.

So they're free, and we have no closure.

And flock technology could have been useful to help catch that person.

Who knows who they've gone on to hurt since then?

Um I just want to commend the Oakland fire police department for doing more with less.

Um numbers are down.

You're getting some help from CHP.

You're doing a lot with less, but I recognize that you need the technology to do the job effectively.

And so thank you for your consider that and vote yes on the I'm here to urge you to strongly approve.

Please state your name for the name is Twan No.

I'm here to urge you to strong strongly approve and fund public safety, and that includes the safety cameras that have been solving crime, including shootings and homicides, have been helping us recover stolen vehicles that have been stopping robberies.

And one of the reasons crime is down is because Flock has been in Oakland for over a year.

During that time, it has solved crimes.

We have data to back it up.

Flock has tracked down Rob robbers while they're robbing another victim.

Flock, during this time, over a year, has not caused anybody to deport to be deported.

Instead, it saved lives.

And I speak on behalf of my Latino friends.

See, thank you, amigos latinos, almost uh immigrantes, sabemos el impacto de agreement is all that the criminal.

And my, thank you for your comment.

To the public speaker, after this public speaker, we began to call the all began to call the names the increments of 20s.

Hi, my name is Luke Katz.

The merchants of Oakland are rightfully concerned about thefts and assaults in their area.

The Oakland Privacy Advisory Commission, of which I remember, worked with OPD, uh and structured a good use policy for the cameras.

It will give the illusion of safety while preserving privacy.

While the efficacy of cameras in reducing criminal activity is unclear, the cameras have been useful in aiding the apprehension of criminals as well as in trials.

Unfortunately, the system being proposed relies on a company called Flock Safety, whose business model has been shown to collect any and all data, combine them where possible, and sell it to public agencies, which will provide those agencies a workaround of the laws in the constitution, which restrict what data they may collect in the manner which can be collected.

Instead, we have a vendor whose business model is to sell data on the comings and goings of any of the Trump's regime.

I'm sorry, sir.

We have to ask you to step away from the microphone.

Thank you.

I do not want to live in a surveillance society.

I oppose this two-year contract, which some will want to refund in two more years for more money, and with the possible addition of OPD drones.

I am concerned that the issues brought up by the Privacy Advisory Committee have not been answered.

I'm concerned that there have been numerous data breaches in other cities, and it's clear that OPD can't or won't regulate the use of the use of the database outside by outside agencies such as ICE and CPB.

I'm concerned that the license plate readers from both Flock and privately owned cameras will have people's faces.

I am concerned that we are not sufficiently addressing the root causes of crime, predominantly poverty.

I do not want this data to be collected.

There is evidence that the code is vulnerable to hacking, which could override any effort to control the sharing and protect our data.

Flock has lied saying that they have no federal contracts.

Thank you for your comments.

Manuel de Paz.

Manuel de Paz.

And so tonight we are coming here to say to this commission, say no to this agreement, because we know what it is.

We know that FLOG has sold thousands of data collection to the different agencies as the people already said it here.

So we know that they are lying.

So we are not against camera surveillance.

What we're against the way that they are using this into profile us.

So we know that through civilian cameras, you know, immigration has access to our information.

So tonight, I'm here to ask you, please don't do this agreement.

Because with this agreement, that is not such Auckland sanctuary.

That is not such California as a sanctuary state, because we know that it is against immigrants and against people of color.

Thank you very much.

Thank you to the public speakers.

We will now begin to take names in-person speakers.

When I call your name, please approach the podium, state your name for the record.

In-person public speakers will go before Zoom.

If you're in hearing one, which is overload, please make your way to the chambers if you hear your name.

Emma Wetty, Laurel Paguette, Mr.

Stray Stewart, Ted Carlson, Alex M.

Isa Madrid, Madeline Baker, Terry Satterfeld, Ansel Smith, Heather Ann McLoyd, Remy Dalset Duce, pronounced Duce, thank you, Jody Barbin, LJ Jung, Matthew Linboom, and James Dontell.

If you heard your name, please approach the podium.

State your name for the record.

If you're participating via Zoom, please raise your hand.

We will take in-person speakers first and then Zoom speakers.

If you are in here one and you heard your name, please make your way to the chambers now.

Thank you.

Um excuse me to the public speakers.

Give us one second.

Yeah.

I do apologize to the public speakers.

We will see the public comment.

Okay.

Alright, then let's proceed.

Please proceed.

Okay.

My name is Emma Welty, district three resident.

Um I first would like to start by acknowledging the fact that Flock's primary financial uh backers, Andrees and Horowitz are closely tied to the Trump administration and have been repeatedly uh ill intended with their um financial investments.

Also, Oakland OPD says that this technology technology has contributed to the reduction in crime, but they have not produced any evidence showing the crime clearance rate where an arrest was made or a crime was committed and a arrest made specifically due to this technology.

Um if they had this, they would have put it in the report.

Um, and they didn't.

Um, in any case, uh I question OPD's real motives with regard to this.

To the public speaker, thank you for your comment.

And please state your name.

What's your name, ma'am?

Ma'am, to the public speaker that just spoke.

What was your name?

Uh oh.

M L L.

Hi, my name is Ted Carlson, and I want to identify that the OPD representative who is speaking about Flock told a series of lies to you.

I'm a researcher who specializes in understanding Flock's impact.

He said that they keep data for 30 days.

That's not true.

CHP keeps it for 60.

He said that they are the only OPD is the only people with data access.

That is not true.

The DHS gave the FBI a backdoor to all flock data.

Additionally, a lawsuit in Seattle just determined that all Flock records are public records.

He said it doesn't collect personal info.

That is a lie.

Flock has a system called Nova that links with data brokers and uses dark web information to create data profiles for everyone that they surveil.

Data ownership.

Do you believe that the data that Flock possesses is the city's?

It's not true.

The stats, if you believe his statistics, it's like believing Enron when they give a profit and loss report.

Come on now.

Contract suspension, lies, ice assistance, lies.

He lied to you, top to bottom, top to bottom.

I can give you concrete data, statistics, lawsuits, facts.

They are lying to you to advance a particular agenda.

Thank you for your comment.

Yeah.

Um, excuse me, we are going to have to adjourn into a quick recess due to the fact that we have um one council member taking this remotely and one who just uh walked away very briefly.

Uh, she'll be back.

So uh bear with us, all right.

All right, we thank you.

We are back to having quorum and um if the public speaker can come up.

And uh order in the chamber we are now uh re we are continuing the meeting so if everyone can can quiet in the chamber.

I know everyone wants to chat you know talk to your fellow organizers but I need you to all you know just shut okay thank you.

Please state your name for the record to our public speakers.

I'm sorry we can't hear you if you can hi I'm Laurel Padet Seekins Oakland resident and pedestrian.

I don't consent to constant surveillance surveillance is not safety privacy makes us safer.

As a data analyst I just want to note the data presented tonight is not enough data to draw any conclusions about the effectiveness of cameras takes years of data to do that.

All if the data exists it will be misused we know as we've heard from many speakers that Flox is an untrustworthy company and their product is not secure the promises that we can get from them in a contract are not sufficient and clearly the police union knows this that is why they're negotiating so hard on the GPS on their cars.

Hi my name is Matt Linda Boom I've lived in West Oakland for ten years I've worked in technology for twenty uh you should not trust venture backed companies um I'd like to see OPD turn on their GPS units and see how that goes before we add a new surveillance technology.

And I'd love to see some of the money that we're proposing for the Flock systems to be used to fund the domestic unit violence unit instead or some other unit.

Thank you.

Hi, my name's Ansel.

I live in District One.

The Privacy advisory Commission is right that Flock is a company that cannot be trusted.

No company deserves to win a no-bid contract with so little transparency.

More fundamentally, Oakland simply doesn't need more surveillance.

We know that ICE and other federal agencies will break the law to access Oakland's Flock data.

And we know that they will use it to move the U.S.

closer and closer to fascism.

We also know other city programs which actually are working to make us safer and which could really use this 2.5 million dollars.

That money would go a long way towards expanding our mental health crisis response system.

Our safety ambassador program or our violence prevention efforts, since we have seen real documented results from them and other programs.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Madeline Baker.

I live in District One.

I had a friend visit recently from out of town, and she told me that she was really struck by how much the people of Oakland care about their city.

I think that's extremely true.

I think that can be seen today.

I think that has been seen in the past with uh the amount of rallies and protests that Oaklanders have held against surveillance and against ICE.

I feel how we can I fail to see how we can continue to call ourselves a sanctuary city when this kind of data is being collected, uh, especially when this kind of money could be put towards uh programs that we have already seen proven to be effective at uh at keeping our city safe.

Thank you.

My name is LJ Young.

Um Flock is a private company that has already lied to all of these sanctuary cities that it had contracts with, and there's no use for doing that here in Oakland.

No resident here deserves to live under the constant threat of any agency or government or police department knowing their exact movements, their face, their license plate number, the color of their skin, none of that needs to be linked in a centralized database that can be hacked and accessed by ICE.

We are a sanctuary city, we do not need to be doing this.

And this is a private corporation that will profit off of all of this data and sell it to third-party brokers and the federal government.

No use.

I urge you to vote no.

And it's a shame that it's being proposed in the first place.

Hi, I'm Remy Dusse, a resident of District 3.

I'm an engineer and I have deep concerns about the security of Flock systems.

I urge the committee to not only reject the expansion, but to end all contracts with Flock and recommend a complete removal of their systems.

Earlier this year, Flock mistakenly leaked their source code, exposing how their vehicle tracking system works.

This leak was searchable on Google.

This month, independent security researchers identified 51 different vulnerabilities across Flock hardware and software, including default passwords.

These vulnerabilities were confirmed by Flock itself and raised significant risk of a hack that could explose Flock's database and reveal extensive citizen tracking, which could enable stalking and abuse.

These risks are not hypothetical.

In Texas recently, the sheriff used Flock system to search more than 83,000 ALPRs nationwide to track a woman they claim self-administered an abortion, including in states like California, where abortion is legal.

This shows how Flock can be weaponized against individuals regardless of law.

I don't have remotely enough time to get to all the ways Flock is a security nightmare, but they have repeatedly demonstrated that they cannot be trusted with our data or privacy.

Okay.

Hello, uh, my name's Alex M.

Uh, I want to say three things.

The first is I want to read from Senator Wyden's uh uh letter about Flock.

In that letter, he says Flock does not require its law enforcement customers to use multi-factor authentication.

The base level of cybersecurity that this company requires of these police officers is less than you require to get into Google or your email or anything like that inside those cameras on the hardware, which is not secure, it has been shown through a video by Ben Jordan that they are storing data and images of people, faces, not cars, not license plates, photos of people all the way back to the factory where that flock camera was first made.

They have images in this video by Ben Jordan of the original processing facility.

Those aren't cars in that facility, those are people who are manufacturing them.

Last, the ability to disentangle once flock is deployed more extensively.

Thank you for your comment.

Okay, hi guys.

Um I'm gonna cut the line.

Forgive me, my store just got broken in again.

Some of you guys probably know me.

I do have a card, but I have to go because your name for the record.

Okay, so can I say my one minute?

Okay, your name for the record.

So it's I'm not order in the chamber.

Okay, guys.

Please stop the jeering.

Canita, can you state your name for the record?

Yes, my name is Kenita Matori.

As some of you guys know that I ran for counsel twice, one time at large and one for D2.

And the reason why I ran, not because I'm trying to be a politician, but our street is still not safe.

Okay, if you guys again, okay, okay.

That is okay.

I'm sorry, Kenita.

We're gonna pause the clock.

I I need quiet in the chamber.

We are pausing the clock until there's quiet in the chamber.

Pause.

Nobody should be jeering, and I will I will invoke my privilege to remove people if this continues.

She, please, she cannot.

Okay, order, order in the chamber.

So can we quiet down?

Okay, so first thing I want to say is that as each public speaker is speaking, we are honoring the time that they that they are allowed.

And so, what what this public peace speaker is saying is that she filled out a public comment card and that because her her store just got broken into and it's cops standing there.

So can we say your name for the record?

So, order in the chamber.

Say your name for the record.

Canita Matori.

Okay, and we're gonna let her speak for one minute.

Okay, and and let me be clear that no matter what side that she speaks to, or anyone who is speaking in the chamber tonight, we have to show respect for every single speaker.

So, can we do that?

Because because otherwise we're gonna we're gonna go on a recess and we're we're gonna continue to wait.

So we want everyone to have their voice heard.

So we need to respect every single speaker.

Okay, so we're gonna put set the time for one minute and then allow this public speaker to speak, and we're gonna keep going because everyone's voice will get to be heard this evening.

Okay.

Thank you, Councilmember Brown.

Thank you.

Shh.

Pete, please.

Thank you in the chamber.

Okay.

Please.

We're going to we're going to just wait here until there's quiet.

Okay, go ahead.

Thank you for hearing me out.

I am coming here with a lot of mixed feeling.

I am not for eyes.

I'm against all kinds of different things, but we need public safety.

The rest of all the other cities using all kinds of camera.

Privacy, we need to really question some other, you know, I don't know, Google's so many other things, right?

But Oakland needs public safety.

We have business that's all dying.

I invite you to take a walk down the street.

All small business.

I'll border it up and close.

And the reason why, because they are being robbed so many times.

Like myself, who've been here for 21 years.

We've been robbed so many times.

So what I'm going to spend the night doing, sweeping up glass.

Boarding up my store.

We do not have insurance.

We cannot provide job.

We cannot continue to contribute to tax dollars and everything else.

Because this city is still not safe.

There is two cars, almost collide into death.

I am gonna have to respect the time limit.

Okay.

So if y'all let people impacted by crime talk, I guess I'll talk.

Can you please state your name for the record?

My name is Chaney Turner.

I'm an Oakland native, uh, voter engagement director with Oakland Rising Ugarizer Action, and um I'm here to speak against Flock.

Um, a lot of what I was gonna say is just gone out the window by what just happened here, which was extremely disrespectful.

Uh, we had youth that was here, and you all skipped the item to go to items that's later on the agenda, which speaks levels.

Also, also, we're not accepting whatever amendments.

We know that there's amendments that's that's coming.

That's not going to be accepted.

I've had multiple car thefts within this year, right?

No security, OPD never stepped up.

Every excuse, we we don't have anybody that could come down at this moment.

This, this, that, and the other.

Security is prioritized for those who y'all want to prioritize security and safety for.

We walk down these streets every day.

We know what what the conditions are, right?

Take that 2.5 million and invest into healing and resources, all right.

That will be no, okay.

Thank you, China.

Okay, call it in the next set of public speakers.

If you signed up to speak, please go ahead and line up at the at the podiums.

Please state your name for the record.

You do get one minute.

All right, I'll see you up.

Once again, if you signed up this week, go ahead and line up.

Please state your name for the record.

You do have one minute and to our Zoom speakers.

We're gonna take our in-person speakers first, and then uh go to the Zoom speakers.

Cat Brooks, anti-police terror project.

I can't even get into what I want to get into.

You consistently demand respect from this body of people, citizens that elected some of us, some folks elected you, but you repeatedly disrespect us.

That was disrespectful.

I gotta be at work at six o'clock in the morning.

I got things to handle.

There were children here that came to testify, but because you did shenanigans with the agenda, most of them had to go home.

That is disrespectful, and that is why you don't get no respect from the community, including the fact that you ignore us when we're talking.

So I'm gonna try to say so.

Oh, I want to solve your mystery.

Where's my G that didn't understand the crime stats?

They went up because of COVID.

They went up because people lost their jobs and their housing and their health care.

That's why they went up, and the Black New Deal came in here and told City Council what was gonna happen, and then it happened, and you weren't able to police your way out of it, and crime has gone down.

Not because we've got more cops, but because finally social services are being reintroduced into the community.

There's your mystery.

Flock is funded by the following: uh co-founder and billionaire venture capitalist Peter Teal.

That would be Palantir.

Thank you.

That's one.

You got it.

So how many?

Okay.

Okay.

Gary Tan from Y Combinator and Initialized Capital Tan has fueled disinformation that drug dealers are actually being protected by sanctuary city laws.

Mark Anderson, an advisor to Donald Trump who claimed that universities will pay the price for diversity and immigration, and venture capitalist Ilya Sukar, founder of Revitalized Ispea PAC, which promotes conservative city candidates.

That's who funds Flock.

So that's who gets Flock's data.

Now, I'm just gonna assume that the people on this body understand who Peter Teal and Palantir are.

Councilmember Fife rightly asked facts or feelings.

And what I can tell you is that the opposition is running on feelings and not facts.

Here's facts.

Mass surveillance has never worked out well for black communities ever.

Fact, the privacy commission, the actual experts said this is a bad idea.

Fact, there's an active lawsuit against Oakland by Secure Justice, alleging that OPD illegally willingly shared ALPR data with federal law enforcement, including ICE, the FBI, and the DEA.

There are signs here that Flock solves crime.

Well, the only report showing that Flock is a valid public safety strategy.

Is report done by wait for it?

Flock.

In fact, OPD had to admit that the Flock crime solved data of 11% was false and had to run that shit back.

There is no way OPD can keep this data safe.

We already talked about that.

They gave it away willingly in July, allegedly.

Where else am I at?

Oh, this they say that that Flock targets so-called criminals.

Flock targets women running to California to sink sanctuary for abortions.

It flock it targets people seeking gender affirming care.

It targets migrant communities currently being hunted by the federal government.

It targets political dissenters and folks that are already profiled by the state.

Like the black people that they pointed out are the primary, the black and brown people that are the primary victims of crime.

And if that is the case, then maybe black and brown people should be making the decisions about how we keep Oakland safe.

And we say no to mass surveillance in the town.

My name's Adam Wolf.

I see two problems with Flock for public safety.

First, there's no solid independent evidence that mass surveillance actually helps solve crimes.

Supporters say it's common sense, but criminologists haven't even been able to prove that more police officers solves crimes.

Second, Flock itself is a security risk.

Researchers showed that brief access to a camera, pressing a simple button sequence on the back, lets you take complete control of these cameras.

What's more, the cameras run in an operating system that's eight years old and has 1,500 security vulnerabilities itself.

This is two of 22 critical vulnerabilities that were flagged in the last week.

To someone with decades of software experience, I can tell you fixing this is not a quick fix.

It's a fundamentally broken design.

Honestly, it's amateur-ish.

It's a major skill issue.

So we're building a detailed map of everyone's movements, where we live, work, worship, on top of hackable tech, owned by an amateurish company that is clearly prioritizing its own growth over responsible.

My name's Jonathan.

I'm embarrassed to be represented by you, Charlene, and district number two.

I want to say they're building concentration camps and disappearing our neighbors, and some of our local politicians want to help.

They're building concentration camps, a lot like the ones we already have and call prisons, like the prisons that'll be privately owned by corporations like GEO Group.

They're building concentration champ camps and catching slaves to work them.

They want cameras that track our every move to help them catch their slaves.

They're hunting down brown people, people indigenous to this continent.

Like it's 1849 and they're getting paid by the scalp.

They're building concentration camps and they're shooting American citizens that dare to bear witness to their crimes against humanity.

Then they follow those people to the hospital before they disappear them too.

City and state governments apparently have no power to protect us whatsoever against these attacks.

We have to organize in our neighborhoods to keep our own selves safe while you watch them disappear your own constituents and do nothing.

But we're supposed to believe you care about our safety.

They're building concentration camps.

They look like the ones in Palestine.

How are we doing, folks?

Dante Altaborano, District 3.

In September, my fiance and I awoke to gunshots and witnessed a shooting outside our window.

We watched a man bleed in the streets.

Last month, a hit and run driver struck my car and two others.

Uh also were consistently subject on our doorstep to unhoused individuals openly defecating, littering, uh aggressively harassing passers-by.

I support flock because I think it helps to provide evidence to hold people responsible.

To those skeptical, I say that the only those who break the law have anything to fear for that level of transparency.

Law abiding citizens are the ones harmed when leniency and lack of evidence allow offenders to go free.

Indeed, as Adam Smith said, mercy for the guilty is cruelty for the innocent.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Oklahoma.

Come on.

So let's keep it moving.

Hi, my name is Sara Fathallah.

I'm a district three residents.

Please restate your name, ma'am.

Sarah Patala, Sarah.

Yeah.

Um, I wanna, because you moved item six before this one, I want to comment on something that Officer Dassa Croz talked about, where he found a way to sneak in viol uh video surveillance when talking about domestic violence prevention.

I'm a domestic violence survivor.

I work with survived and financial with a group of criminalized survivors of violence.

You know what has never helped us?

Video surveillance.

You know who helped us?

Our neighbors and our community members who intervened, who formed defense campaign committees around us, who gave us places to stay when we were feeling unsafe.

If we had a sliver of the 2.25 million dollars to support domestic violence prevention, we would feel more safe.

OPD at every single time only made things worse.

And I really want you as a committee to see through this transparent and quite frankly, disgusting effort to capitalize on our survivorship to advance a mass surveillance agenda.

This is not okay.

Don't do it under our name, and shame on you.

Thank you for your comment.

Hi, my name is Shulpa Joshi.

I'm a district five resident.

I think you're faced with an impossible task because you are uh a body that is responsible for public safety, but you don't handle any of the parameters that control crime or improve people's lives.

So you're just dealing with the symptoms, and you can't deal with the root causes.

So you really have like a bum deal, and I'm sorry for that.

But what I will say is we're at a time in this country when fascism is at our door, it's creeping down from the federal level.

And I love Oakland, and I have with all my heart for years.

And my question is I never thought that this city would value modeling those kinds of fascist values and bringing them here.

And that's exactly what using a venture backed capitalist Peter Teal program that is open to hacking, that surveils us, that collects all this data, and that just makes profiles of us for the federal government to use.

We are guinea pigs in a lab, and we deserve better as Oakland residents, so please vote now.

Hi, I'm Zedena Diaz.

Um, considering this proposal tells me that you are not connected to the immigrant community in the city.

Um, folks are not even leaving their house to eat to get groceries, kids are not going to school.

How do you think um having flop all over the city will impact them?

You're you are telling them that their safety doesn't matter.

What message are you sending?

Um, and the 200k penalty per data breach.

So you're telling me that a life, the price of a disappeared person's life is 200 worth 200k?

We do not need to be reactive.

Oh, if we lose people, we need to be proactive and prevent these people from getting lost in the first place.

And look at how little support that you have for Flock.

You think that these cameras are gonna last?

You're gonna spend two million dollars and they're gonna be destroyed, and that money is gonna be wasted that could have actually gone to services that again have proven to support mental health services, education, community leaders.

Your comment, you are wasting two million dollars.

Please go ahead.

Hi, I'm Anna.

District 5 resident opposing Flock.

I was adopted from Paraguay when it was under military dictatorship.

And here there's cameras on street corners instead of soldiers.

As a current Oakland educator in majority low-income Latino schools, I've witnessed students attended sadly decreased this semester as their families are understandably too afraid of ice abduction to continue bringing their children to campus.

Many of those now absent kids relied on the school's meals to get fed enough during the week.

Though Oakland is a sanctuary city on paper.

Expanding flock surveillance with its publicly documented history of police departments leaking data to ice would deepen the harms on our immigrant neighbors.

So I urge the council to take the cameras down while investing in truly safe ways to protect and enrich our communities.

This allow this Olone land deserves flocks of birds, not flocks of cameras.

Hello.

My name is Wang Di, and I call District 2 home.

And uh I come from a place where the surveillance apparatus is uh very much a part of everyday life, and it takes the pulse out of the places that we live, and I do not want to happen in my home.

And I'm asking the city council to where is the line if this is going to keep happening year after year, and this is going to be under consideration, and what I'm asking the city council is to not only not move forward with this vote, but also take down the existing cameras.

My name is Lakshmi Rajagopal.

Um I'm in District 3.

The public speaker, what is your first name?

Lakshmi.

Thank you.

Um, I find it ironic that OPD claims to care about Latino victims when they are openly trying to fund a system that has been deporting and stealing people out of their homes away from their families, and is Flock has been actively working with ICE, they have admitted to this.

I know that there are some contract amendments that will supposedly cure this issue, but we both know that ICE regularly flouts the contracts, Flock regularly flouts contracts, they have lied before, they cannot be trusted.

Um I know that OPD, we saw in item five.

OPD has multiple issues, they clearly not run very well.

I think a 2.5 million dollars would be much the better suited towards reforming that system and fixing the current system we have instead of wasting it on cameras that are gonna be broken and destroyed and killing people, basically.

Thank you for your time.

Hello, uh, my name is Anam, and I am in district three, and I've been working as a product designer in the tech industry for the last decade.

I attended the last uh privacy advisory commission meeting in September, where Flock presented their security solutions to prevent ice from accessing OPD's data again.

And I've just been stunned for months that they were calling cosmetic design fixes um security fixes.

Um their first solution was prohibiting word filters.

They said if a federal agent types a prohibited term in their search, they won't see Oakland data.

This just means agents will avoid typing certain words.

Calling this a security measure is wishful thinking that literally anyone can bypass.

Flock software sounds like a security disaster.

I personally have seen much stronger security in high school hackathon projects.

And I'm just stunned that uh there's a 2.25 million dollar proposal on the table with such a flawed company when the city could invest that money in prevention programs that we factually know improved conditions.

Thank you for your comment.

Reduce crime.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Navi, and I'm a resident of Oakland District 5, where I work as a where I work as a worker owner at Asta Muerte Cooperative.

I have both experienced a burglary in my own home, and our business is no stranger to break-ins or robberies, and we urge you to see that no ALPR or surveillance system will bring us public safety.

Asta Muerte is an Oakland business that has been in operation for eight years.

Despite and throughout incidents targeting small businesses and their patrons from forced entry break-ins, robbery to vandalism.

Experience has proven to us again and again that showing love and care for people on your block goes much further than policing and surveillance solutions.

If you have an extra two million to spend, give it to small businesses to help feed and care for our neighbors in need, to help clean up trash, to replace lighting on unlit streets.

Give it to programs that actually care for our community, and you will see just as we have, the neighbors will watch out for each other and care for each other.

We adamantly oppose flock or any surveillance infrastructure infrastructure, as they are not solutions in crime prevention, but mere transactions in the heyday of billionaires, an era which compels military.

Thank you for your comment.

Of everyday life for the rest of the name's Matthew Lieber Knight.

And I'm Victoria Trujillo, and I'd like to yield my time to him.

Thank you.

I'd like to go over some of the things in the proposed contract, attachment B for tonight's agenda.

On page eight, it states if legally required to do so by warrant, subpoena, court order, or similar judicial authority, the legal order, contractor may access, preserve and or disclose the footage and/or city data to law enforcement authorities, government officials, and or judicial officers.

To the extent legally permissible, contractor will use its best efforts to notify city in writing within 24 hours of receipt of such legal order.

That seems to me to be a loophole you could park an aircraft carrier in.

It is, I'm not an attorney.

Maybe our city attorney could advise us about that, but it seems to me that Flock is begging for some sort of legal order, reminiscent of those national security letters, that gobbled up all of our phone metadata and then barred the telecom companies with gag orders from disclosing that.

Flock seems with this clause to be begging somebody to do something similar and get all of our data.

And OPD would have no way to counter that at all.

On the page, so if that were to happen, we would then go to page seven, one page in front of it, which states.

Which reminds me of what happened in Evelston, Illinois, where Flock reinstalled cameras against the city's wishes, forcing the city of Evansdill in Illinois to cover the cameras with garbage bags.

Um that is now prohibited in the contract.

Um, so my question to the city council, I know this is a comment period, but would you consider removing those phrases from the contract?

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Kenyatta Thomas, resident of District 3, and I work at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights nonprofit.

And while I'm here as an individual representing myself, EFF has done multiple investigations into both Flock and ALPRs, and it has proven how invasive this tech is and how many lies this corporation will tell in order to continue profiting off of the data of millions of people.

Across the country, other cities are demanding that are terminating a contracts, demanding cameras get taken down, and like the speaker just said, they're either putting them back up or refusing to take them down entirely.

A lawsuit was quite literally filed today because of data violations that are being alleged that the OPD has fallen has um done, sharing data with ICE, FBI, and the DEA.

This invasive surveillance is a deep violation of privacy that makes Oakland unsafe.

You should not trust a words of this corporation.

Um I want my neighbors to be fed and housed, not watch 24-7.

I urge the city not to move forward with this acquisition and to instead invest those millions of dollars into programs that will benefit community members and not the surveillance machine.

Thank you.

My name is Phoebe, and I am an executive director of Repocare, a national nonprofit abortion hotline.

We supported 4,000 abortion seekers last year, and I live in Oakland.

Oakland should not be investing in surveilling pregnant people, including those driving to California.

So many of the people I support are in abusive relationships.

Abusers use abortion bans and the threat of police to further terrorize their victims.

And Flock furthers the surveillance they're subjected to.

Cops in Texas have already used Flock this way after a woman's abusive partner reported her to the police for getting abortion pills from California.

The police used a Flock search during a death investigation into the woman's fetus, then lied and said they were searching for her out of concern for her.

Police criminalizing abortion almost always happens under the guise of non-abortion laws being broken, and you cannot trust them to be honest about how Flock will be used.

If you support reproductive rights, oppose Flock in Oakland.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Diana.

I'm a live in District 3.

I'm a registered voter, and I also convinced my company to move from Emoryville to Oakland in January of this year.

I strongly oppose strongly am opposed to Flock coming to with Oakland.

Um the University of Washington researchers released a report on October 21st showing federal immigration agencies like ICE and Border Patrol had access to the data of at least 18 Washington cities, often without their police department knowing.

So who's to say that they're gonna do that here in Oakland?

The other thing that I noticed in their report that they provided to us.

They said crime was down, they gave us the statistics for that.

However, not one statistic was given how these cameras lowered the crime rate.

Not one.

So all I have to say is cameras, they maybe help solve crimes, but they do not prevent them.

There was not one data that you for your comment.

My name is Keon, and I may be new to Oakland, but I damn sure wasn't born yesterday, like some of y'all up there.

You think we're stupid in not recognizing that some of y'all have already made promises to approve this contract went like over a month before, like Chair Wang up there.

You think we don't recognize that Flock, like that the only support which uh out of 86 comments registered about 30 percent supporting this contract, we're taking verbatim from Flock's own August 25th product updates and their own marketing materials.

I'm gonna, I don't need to share provide data.

I'm just gonna lay out exactly the overarching strategies y'all are falling for.

They're gonna be referencing Flock's own materials as independent sources, such as the claim that Flock led to about a hundred arrests in just six months.

Guess what?

That exact statistic is only found verbatim in Flock safety press releases, not OPD reports or anything from the city.

And they make a claim without any verifiable information.

So rather than asking for like asking for evidence.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you, sir.

We do have to ask you to step away.

Thank you.

For the next speaker, please come up.

My name is Olivia Olivo Planis.

Um, I'm a district one resident and a third-year law student at Berkeley.

Um, I'm also a lifetime East Bay resident.

I'm horrified by the potential mass surveillance of Oakland, which is a black and Latino city, and this violation of our right to privacy.

VLOC has repeatedly lied and even broken state law in Illinois.

This is an untrustworthy company, and it is not only a possibility but a given that they would share this data with ICE.

I love Oakland so much and do not want to see it turned into a surveillance or police state.

Mass surveillance is the primary indicator of totalitarianism.

I am asking you to protect our rights of privacy and uphold Oakland's status as a sanctuary city.

There are many better uses for 2.25 million dollars.

Y'all are so worried about how dangerous unhoused people are.

Maybe we spend that money on housing them.

Thanks.

Hi, my name is Srishti.

I'm a Berkeley Law student and a district one resident.

I've been emailing with Councilmember Unger and was hoping to see him engage tonight with stakeholders, which he stated was so important to him in his emails.

Here is what I heard from the presentations that you made me sit through tonight.

OPD is not activated as GPS systems.

There are huge disparities in response times between West Oakland and East Oakland.

You do not have enough investigators across OPD.

You don't even have a stolen vehicle investigator.

You have not adequately invested in domestic violence research.

You don't know OPD's response times for domestic violence incidents, and crime is actually down in Oakland.

Pick something better to spend your 2.25 million flock dollars on.

Spend it on reducing response times, spend it on responding to DV incidents, spend it on community-based programs.

Right.

Invest it in more in small businesses, apparently.

Pick something else.

Please vote no.

My name is Jean Moses, and I live in District 2.

As I wrote in an email to Councilmember Wang yesterday, I've lived in Oakland since shortly after retiring 10 years ago.

I love this city in all its gritty diversity.

It's home to my three children and three of my grandchildren.

Their safety matters profoundly to me, and I am convinced that their safety could actually be compromised if you expand the contract with Flock Systems.

Even with the data storage in a California-only cloud and every other possible security measure, I believe that a federal mandate could force us to share this data, or it'll happen even before we know that they're looking for it.

Flock has lied and violated their contracts, thereby impairing the safety of residents of the cities where they operate.

If you're going to spend 2.25 million on security measures, let us spend it in the Bay Area and not send it to Georgia.

Thank you.

I'm voicing opposition to Flock, although OPD told us that this is supposed to make low-income communities safe.

And we got some amendments to try to protect private policy.

I have little confidence that either of these things will happen.

I grew up in Florida post-9-11, so the Muslim community has been the subject of mass surveillance for as long as I can remember.

And we were told that we had nothing to worry about if we didn't do anything wrong and the cameras would keep us safe.

But crime in our communities remained and paranoia skyrocketed because the police used the footage as probable cause to detain us and then pressured us into accepting guilty pleas.

So go figure when you're low income, you can't afford a lawyer.

And now I see Oakland is considering the same things.

We're not here because we misunderstand the terms of your contract.

We're not here because we're misinformed on the risk.

We're here because we have intimate knowledge of the violence.

Thank you for so much.

Yes, sir.

Hi, my name is Adriana.

I'm a third-year law student at Berkeley as well, and I'm a district one resident.

As a Mexican woman and as someone who has spent years doing immigrants' rights work, I'm here to express concern about Flock Security Camera contract you guys are considering.

As you are all aware, I'm not the only one who shares these worries.

Based on a multitude of concerns about Flock, U.S.

Senator Ron Wyden and his office recently conducted an independent investigation into Flock.

In doing so, they uncovered Flock's refusal to audit its government customers to prevent abuses.

The result of this investigation led Senator Wyden to believe that abuses of the product are not only likely but inevitable, and that Flock is unable and uninterested in preventing them.

So in his view, he found that local elected officials can best protect their constituents by removing or refusing Flock from their communities, and I urge you to do the same.

Vote no to protect our immigrant communities, ones that are already facing an incredibly challenging time and continuous threats at the hands of ICE.

This is supposed to be a sanctuary city.

Keep it that way.

Hello, my name is Alejandro, District 3.

I just want to open by saying it is incredibly insulting.

You believe a $200,000 fine means anything to a multi-billion dollar company.

That is less than 1%.

You have to be kidding.

Like this is childish, right?

Like, and I just want to say this flock company is helping Trump and his associates further their ethnic cleansing campaign of brown and black people in this country.

They want to knight a white nationalist government here, right?

And you want to support them by giving them access to our data.

You want to make it easier.

Donald Trump has said Antifa is a terrorist organization.

Fighting fascism is terrorism.

And Flock, apparently, will help with this process, right?

They will help Trump find us, hunt us down, and give information to the federal government.

And you're gonna sit there, you know, and just be okay with it, right?

Because it doesn't affect you, or you don't think it affects you yet.

And that is a disgrace.

That is barbaric to me that you're gonna sell us out, and you're gonna keep doing this.

I understand this, right?

This is how you operate.

Capital keep giving you money, you will keep pushing garbage bills that were cost dependent on us.

That is how you do things.

Well, no one flock.

This has to stop at some point.

Thank you.

My name is Bill Lowe.

I'm the fine artist.

I work 30 years in private security in Oakland.

And I start with the rhetorical question.

Do we have to prioritize the deterrent of crime?

Thanks, supposedly, to Flock, as inferred by OPD in its report tonight.

Do we have to prioritize the deterrence of crime over our privacy rights, our constitutional rights?

The answer is, of course, no.

It is of utmost importance to our right to privacy and be put to this flock leaking our private data to ICE and other outside agencies.

The only way to do that, stop contracting with ICE.

I have to ask the Oakland Chinatown community.

Are you aware of the fact that this contractor, Flock, does us grave harm and injustice, leaking our data to government agencies that it is not supposed to, that it is not authorized to, that our rights as American citizens have been violated by Flock and will continue to be violated only to an even greater scale if we continue to contract with this company, which has a sort of comment, Mr.

Lowe?

It has a sort of history.

We have to.

Thank you so much.

I'm gonna ask next speaker to come back.

Thank you.

I've worked in the cybersecurity industry as a malware analyst for seven years.

Flock has throughout its existence shown a complete disregard for cybersecurity and data privacy.

I cannot understate the severity of the risks associated with allowing Flock to fill Oakland with devices that several peers in the industry have found to be dangerously vulnerable to extremely simple hacking techniques that can danger everyone in their proximity.

But beyond the real possibility of hackers gaining access to Flock devices and their data is the present reality that Flock data is already being shared, often illegally, despite whatever amendments city contracts have, and circumventing city state and state policies with federal agencies such as ICE.

Oakland has long claimed to be a sanctuary city, and this sanctuary needs to be strengthened through policies such as those put forward by groups like Coalition for Police Accountability, Anti-Police Terror Project.

List goes on.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

And uh we shouldn't be undermining our sanctuary by partnering with deeply untrustworthy surveillance companies that blatantly lie, such as just the about the data that they collect and who they share it with.

Hi, my name is Cade.

Um, I'm in District three, and I'm opposing Flock.

Um, but I also want to speak to the emotional part of those in front of me and those who came here, because I can understand that this is an issue of safety, and it can bring out this really scared animal part of us that feels that anything that we can do to create that safety um is possible.

And Flock is manipulating that fear and offering us some easy solution that is a lie.

And we've heard again and again that they're lying to us, and we know that it won't keep us safe.

So I'm asking you, don't fall for it.

We know that the safest communities are the ones with the most resources, not the ones that are the most policed and surveilled.

I also want to add the domestic violence connection.

I work in domestic violence prevention, and we know that 40% of police openly admit to abusing their partners, and we know that it's very hard for victims of police uh to leave their partners partially because of surveillance technology that police have access to.

So I am very excited about it.

For people trying to leave when Flock gets employed.

Please, go ahead.

Yeah, my name is Nikita.

I am a D3 resident, and I'm speaking against Flock today.

At the very least, I urge you to not send this to council on consent, given all of the comments today.

I work in the tech industry and I understand how these startups operate.

Flock took nearly a billion dollars from Trump allies, Peter Teal, and Mark Andreessen on the promise of 10 billion dollar returns.

Where are they gonna get that money?

Flock claims that we own our data and that they don't share it or sell it.

That data's on their servers, they can do whatever they want.

I've been in the rooms where people have decided that you can do whatever you want with data that is on your the company's servers.

Other tech companies do this all the time.

They've been caught sharing data with ICE, we know this in Oakland, in Berkeley, in SF, most recently in uh Capitola and Santa Cruz.

We've heard about all the security issues.

The thing is that this can't be solved with guardrails or with a fine.

This is core to their business model.

This is core to their grow at all-cost business model.

And while they can't do it.

But even if that logic were not so clear, I would still be against investing in more surveillance.

These companies have no stake in the community and do nothing to prevent harm in our communities.

Especially the marginalized communities that the audits showed are so disturbingly neglected.

And since I was listening tonight, I would also add that it is so telling that OPD wants to know our every move and not even turn on their GPS.

Right.

They're allergic to accountability.

Every penny we spend on these surveillance technologies is a penny we don't spend on affordable housing, violence prevention, education, mental health support, and other systems that keep our communities resourced and safe long term.

Put these pennies where they count, invest in community.

Hi, my name is Juan, and I'm an engineer with a decade of safety and security experience, and I cannot believe that we are seriously considering paying 2.25 million dollars to a company with such a horrible track record of outdated operating systems, backdoors, left and right, leaks, hack risk, and rampant lying.

This is not just us saying this.

We have been warned by countless privacy experts, a US senator, and even this city's own privacy commissioners that resigned over this.

These vulnerabilities are already being exploited and will be exploited by other parties like ICE, no matter what those being paid by Flock to speak will have you believe.

Over 20 cities have already responded to this public safety risk for their citizens by canceling their contract.

So I urge the council to join them and the hundreds of your constituents who have been here for four hours now and reject this contract.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name's Keen D1.

Uh, I just want to say uh surveillance is the illusion of safety.

When crime goes down, we need more.

When crime goes up, we need more.

Civil rights be damned.

You're here to decide on whether to use our tax dollars to enrich the creators of a system that want to aggregate and pipe our data into a machine learning system that will accelerate fascism around the world.

All of this at a time when the abuses of supposed law enforcement are being encouraged to grow each day.

And it's not like OPD have a sterling record here.

The feds aren't monitoring us because they want to take notes on our internal affairs record.

So how can you grow such a system with a clear conscience?

Because some folks are scared.

This is fascism, baby.

Everybody's scared.

We're all scared.

Fear is the fuel that rips us apart and builds a system to create the illusion of safety for some and oppression for the many.

The question isn't who is is whose fear will this body recognize.

Or sorry, the question isn't whose fear will the body recognize, but rather how do we come together to build solutions to that fear?

And I say this with all due respect, Council members.

Fascism is not a substitute for your leadership.

So if you go to bed and you can't say that I didn't build fascism today or tomorrow, you have no business being up here.

We don't obey fascists in advance.

We don't build their opponent all over the thank you.

I'm okay.

Thank you.

Next speaker, please.

Hi there, my name is Jason Martins and I live in Berkeley, where in September we also went to our city council and told them no to flock.

I'm here because I visit Oakland all the time, and this will also impact me.

Uh and uh I want to mention again Evanston, the city that had flock cameras, uh, where they took them down because of the illegal sharing, and flock went and reinstalled them without permission, showing utter contempt for the city council, showing utter contempt for the city or the residents of Evanston.

And they will do the same thing to you.

They will do the same thing to the city of residents of Oakland and any visitors to Oakland as well.

And I can't imagine why you would trust an organization with that track record and give them a contract.

Thank you.

Next speaker, please.

Um, hello, my name is Jung.

Um, it is the height of dishonesty for Flock to market their system as a solution to end crime.

Flock's predatory business model targets over surveilled disadvantaged populations while fear-mongering about only one type of crime, street crime.

What flock uh PR ignores is the epidemic of white collar crimes.

For example, the type of white collar crimes that all of us should be very, very worried about is identity theft.

According to an AARP report, the direct the direct cost of identity theft to individuals in the US amounted to 43 billion dollars in 2023.

This figure does not include the time lost in detecting, reporting, and recovering from identity theft.

Um identity theft is the type of crime facility facilitated by companies like Flock, with their predatory business model of mass surveillance, trafficking our personal data to any entity who wants to pay, and their flouting of well-established cybersecurity standards and best practices.

As a final point, ICE wants to spend two 180 million dollars.

Thank you for your comment.

Hello, my name is uh Jaleel Butron, and I'm a resident of District 6.

I've been an Oakland resident now for four years, but before I lived in Oakland, um I actually lived in Shanghai, China, which, if you know if aware about world affairs, China is probably leading the charge in state surveillance.

And one of the things that I told people whenever they would ask me about that was that I felt very fortunate as uh a foreigner there that I could leave at any time.

Um, and so I don't want to have Oakland become a place where I am afraid of what the state is going to do with my data, my information, everything that I do.

Um, I actually had a partner who was a victim of a robbery when we lived in Shanghai, and there were probably about 16 cameras in the intersection where it happened, and the police didn't do anything.

Because the data is not intended to be used to solve crimes.

Uh, it is intended to surveil the people, it is intended to repress the people.

Thank you for your comment.

I don't want that to.

Okay, thank you.

Next speaker.

Uh good evening, Council members.

My name is Stephanie Tran, president of the Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce.

Public safety has top concern for our businesses.

Working in partnership with our Bid Alliance, we operate more than 50 uh community cameras in Chinatown, but we need clear and responsible rules to guide how OPD uses and is accountable to technology.

The OPD camera use policy provides strong procedures, accountability, and privacy protections with limits on data retention, a ban on facial recognition, and audio recording and safeguards against discriminator targeting.

And to be clear, we believe that the city's sanctuary policy is a non-negotiable bedrock.

The city has a duty to protect our immigrant communities, so the contract for any ALPR deployment or any technology must explicitly and unequivocally prohibit sharing of data to federal enforcement agency.

But we respectfully urge the public safety committee to move forward with a camera use policy to balance safety protection and civil liberties.

Clear rules and protections are needed to safeguard our technology and to support our business career.

Hello.

My name is Inez.

I'm a resident of District 2, and I spend a lot of tonight just listening and really want to thank Oakland for showing up tonight and speaking up.

It's pretty embarrassing the situation that we've got ourselves into, and obviously the contract and the company we are working with has a lot of flaws.

But I live on the blade and watch dozens of women be sold by a handful of men every single night.

And I do think a system of surveillance could help on that placework.

Thank you.

Please go ahead.

Hi, my name is Hank from District 2.

Um, the connection between Flock and various like tech billionaires has been pretty well documented tonight.

Peter Teal, Mark Andrews and all them.

Um if OPD believes inviting this billionaire-funded surveillance company into Oakland and giving them access to private cameras is a meaningful intervention to lower violent crime rates.

Their burden of proof as to its effectiveness is really high, and they've not offered any evidence to clear this bar.

In the report that was mentioned earlier tonight, OPD claims that flock is part of a multi-pronged approach that has facilitated the decrease in violent crime over the last two years, but at best they establish a correlation between the two and make no attempt to establish a causal link.

I could just as easily attribute crime reductions to the departure of the athletics as I could to the adoption of flock surveillance.

Instead of surveillance, this money should be invested in supporting the ceasefire initiative, or as one community comment stated, something as simple as improving light in areas that have been identified as high crime.

Um, all of these solutions can claim greater effectiveness than surveillance, and they give people hope.

Um, this should not be invested in increasing the surveillance drag net paid for by tech billionaires intent on remaking for your comment.

Hello, my name is Jay C Wyn Grant.

District 6 is my home.

I am a mother of a black child, a concerned neighbor, and a community social worker.

I urge you to reject Flock.

Flock has shown itself to be untrustworthy, insecure, inaccurate, ineffective, and a dangerous threat to privacy and constitutional rights.

From abortion seekers and immigrants to women fleeing violence from police, ex-partners and children of color misidentified as armed when they have chip bags.

As a social worker, I can say definitively safety comes from meeting people's basic needs.

This is where 2.5 million dollars should go, not to an ineffective surveillance program.

Across Oakland, hundreds of neighbors are already showing up on street corners to keep each other safe from unlawful ICE activity.

And East Oakland community members and business owners thank us because as reachers shows, more carrying people on the streets increases safety, reduces crime, and builds trust.

We distribute food, know your rights cards, narcan, and offer presence and support with sidewalk solidarity.

Cameras cannot do this.

I say to you, reject Flock.

As an immigrant and Oakland Recién approving a contract with flaw cameras would be another setback for the crumbling trust in government agencies.

Do you want to reduce crime?

Me too.

However, this company has a lawsuit for data sharing and is untrustworthy.

You will be doing this contract in the name of safety.

It doesn't make me feel safe.

It makes me feel targeted.

As you know, this company is funded by Peter Thiel, one of Trump's biggest supporter and funder, and that's who you will be working with.

Either you are falling for their fear mongering or you work with them.

We have kids afraid of going to a school and having to learn what to do if I shows up.

And parents are afraid to go to work because they might not come back home to their families.

That is a safety concern.

Being kidnapped is a safety concern.

Partnering up with Flock is partnering up partnering up with ICE and the current estates of surveillance and terror.

Who polices ICE?

Oh P.

Next speaker, please.

Casey Kettering, D5 surge member.

The idea Flock doesn't sell or share data is hilarious and terrifying.

Nine of 13 Denver City Council members are saying no to Flock as of October 25th.

Loveland, Colorado's police chief had to unequivocally deny that they ever gave border patrol access or permission to its data because border patrols stole it with Flock's provision.

The experience of Evans in Illinois was already acknowledged tonight, so to add, Evanson has had to serve a cease and desist letter for this alarming breach of contract.

I don't care what protections you think you have created.

Oakland is not different from these cities.

Oaklanders' data will be misused because it's already happening.

Keeping this contract effectively revokes Oakland's commitment as a sanctuary and safety net city, and maintaining a contract with Flock, knowing this company commits these violations.

That is on your heads.

I do not want to turn my right to privacy over for a fallacy of improved safety.

I do not want Oakland to aid ICE kidnapping my neighbor's friends and loved ones.

I do not want police or federal agents.

Okay.

Thank you.

Next speaker, please.

Next speaker, please.

Ma'am, I'm gonna you're gonna have to step away.

Next next speaker, please.

Unless somebody sees their time.

My name is Ellen.

I live in District 1 and I work downtown.

For a year, Oaklanders have been demanding that the city adopt further ethical investment policies, and we stand before you now, asking you to turn down this $2 million contract continually, over and over.

It feels like we are asking you to spend our money responsibly.

We are asking you to invest meaningfully in the wellness of our communities.

There are solutions beyond Flock.

There are solutions beyond spending $2 million on a deeply suspect technology with a proven record for disregarding our data and a proven record of collaborating with ICE and the federal government.

Let's invest in real need.

Among other things, we heard tonight about Oakland's slower 9-1-1 response times.

Could we not invest this $2 million in recruiting and hiring multilingual 9-1-1 dispatchers?

The privacy committee.

The privacy committee has uh sorry, the privacy advisory committee has already advised against Flock.

There's already a lawsuit against OPD for sharing license plate data with federal agencies.

Flock's negligent data security practices have already been raised with the FTC.

There are so many red flags.

Oakland demands genuine safety, not a solution.

Thank you for your comment.

We demand and deserve solutions, not surveillance.

Hi, my name is Jenny Ty.

Um thanks for your continued attention at this late hour.

Um I am following up my e-comments.

I'm a district one resident, joining the many, many others to urge you to reject the Flock contract.

As a federal worker, I have had frontline experience of witnessing how the Trump administration has been using increased surveillance and oversight to control the population.

This contract with Flock furthers Trump's agenda of widespread surveillance for the sake of control, while also failing to protect our most vulnerable populations.

We do not manage Oakland like the Trump administration.

Our own privacy committee is in opposition to this contract, so why is the public safety committee willing to sacrifice their individual civil liberties for the sake of supposed control?

Our communities are already feeling vulnerable, but Flock can't even promise to protect them.

According to a 2025 study in Oak Park, 99% of its alerts resulted in zero police action.

We cannot invest over two million of precious taxpayer money on such ineffective and inefficient programming, not when our needs are so great.

Thank you for your comment.

Hi, my name's Rebecca Gertie, and I work for a nonprofit that provides legal and social services to low-income immigrants.

The majority of our clients live in Oakland, and many are parents whose work not only supports their families, but the critical functions of this city.

The reports of increased immigration enforcement this month show what happens when our community does not feel safe to leave their homes.

Businesses were closed, students missed school, and community events were cancelled.

Our immigrant community is looking to this council for protection.

This year, OPD admitted that federal agencies accessed Oakland's flock cameras over 200 times, including for the use in immigrations enforcement.

The city has now been sued over this violation of sanctuary law.

I want to be clear that these violations are nothing, or these violations result in deportations of our neighbors.

$200,000 is nothing compared to the trauma, family separation, and death that flock is causing.

To actually promote public safety, the city could invest in solutions that actually prevent crime, not just record it.

Oakland is a sanctuary city.

Thank you for your comments.

Please go ahead.

Hi, my name is Brennan.

Um I just want to say we cannot expect responsible data handling from a company with a track record of extrajudicial illegal data sharing with entities like ICE that we saw in Evanston.

Any of these 2.25 million dollars could be invested into any of the community service programs that we have heard today in this city hall.

Um, including, you know, uh going to address the 620 cases per investigator that we have on the domestic violence unit.

That is ridiculous.

We could put this money into staffing that unit.

Um we also, I think it's very funny that we want to go and put in mass surveillance to the people of Oakland instead of turning on our GPS that already exists that could already reduce these call times.

The people are in life and death situations every single day.

Why are we not turning on GPS, but we somehow need to five million dollars.

Exactly.

Hi, my name is Ron Strollock District 4.

Uh, we've seen that federal agencies have engaged in kidnappings and disappearances of community members across the U.S.

And we have also heard that access to flock data will facilitate that and exacerbate what is already a nightmarish and honestly dystopian situation.

It's a city council's responsibility to safeguard the privacy and safety of all Oakland residents, especially during these times of federal government lawlessness, overreach, and attacks on U.S.

citizens and immigrants.

And as a sanctuary city, Oakland has a special responsibility to protect the safety of immigrants who are among our most vulnerable residents.

I'd like to cite uh Senator Ron Wyden again, who said that in my view, local elected officials can best protect their constituents from the inevitable abuses of flock cameras by removing flock from their communities.

I urge you to protect all Oakland residents from flock's abuses.

Please vote no on this contract.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Jesse Rosemore, and I am happy for my community.

I'm glad that we're here tonight, and I am so upset that we have to come and speak about this disastrous proposal.

I cannot believe that we're bringing something forward that would do such harm to our community.

We have advisory commissions for a reason, and if you're even thinking about advancing this proposal, we expect you to do your due diligence and discuss all of the crimson red flags that they brought up point by point by point by point.

What about OPD's vague use policy that they talked about at length and what that could mean for what's going to happen with our data when it's in their hands?

And you can see through the staff reports and everything that the OPD submitted how unseriously they're taking this entire thing.

For example, Councilmember Brown, thank you so much for submitting that supplemental, and thank you for those questions.

You can see by their answers that they are not taking this seriously whatsoever.

They there's side door access.

What happens when someone searches this data and provides a false keyword search or false term or no or no or nothing at all?

When will the $200,000 penalty be assessed then when that happens or not?

Okay.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

My name is Nathan, I'm from District 3.

Let the will of the people be made crystal clear by the sheer amount of people said people who are here this evening, who are still here this evening, in spite of the jobs, the families, the early bedtimes, the travel distances, and other commitments.

Even still this many people have stayed up and stayed to make our voices made clear.

Think about how many people would have been here this evening if um who could still be here this evening.

You should know you've been flooded by with emails prior and calls prior to this.

Many more still aren't here because they don't even know about this this evening, who don't even know that we're so dangerously close to approving such an insidious and frequently inaccurate system that aims to become another tool for the oppressive agencies and governments to use unchecked.

Massive powers like this should only be put to a vote directly by the people.

Um, because democracy dies in the darkness, and we refuse to let you snuff out our light.

Instead of being able to vote directly on this ourselves, we urge you to be a part of the light yourself and reject this creep of fascism and its tools.

With that, I see the rest of my time to the next speaker.

Thank you.

I'm Nora District One.

I've worked in education and with moms and their newborn babies.

The vast majority of everyone who has spoken before me has already shown why Flock is not secure, not to be trusted, works with ICE and the federal government, and does not belong in Oakland, which, by the way, is nothing without its black and Latino community.

I know some of you council members will vote for Flock after all of this anyway, and I just want to say we will all remember what a shame you are to our communities.

These cameras are not it.

Flock is about to use ring doorbell cameras and integrates private camera data sometimes without permission.

ICE and CBP are kidnapping and disappearing, not only our Latino community, but also Southeast Asians, attacking black folks in Chicago, and a Chinese man was found hanged in immigration detention.

Do not sell us out.

If you have a conscience, or alternatively, if you don't want to be voted out, please vote no to the clock and please take down the cameras.

They aren't what help us.

Free emails in preparation for EBT cuts are what helping us or what are helping us in lowering crime.

A GoFundMe and our neighborhood has done more for my neighbor whose car was stolen last week.

Hi, I'm Juan, a D4 resident, and any invitation to ICE will make us all less safe.

Flocca lying about the effectiveness effectiveness of their tools, taking credit for national trends.

Nowhere did OPD link anything to Flock.

That privacy, the privacy commission needs to review that bullshit report.

Finding Flock and Nickel won't mean shit to the people who will be kidnapped, brutalized, and shot as a result of this.

The people pushing for this, such as Empower Oakland, a front for OPD and Coinbase, don't live in Oakland.

Andrees and Horowitz own a significant share of both Coinbase and Flock.

While OPD won't even turn on the GPS trackers in their own cause.

Council members Wang and Houston should be honest about who is asking them to rush through this no big deal for Flock.

Don't build a surveillance state, don't give Flock the contract.

Don't skip procurement processes to pay back your donors at our expense.

The right wing decides to target.

We can't have it both ways.

OPD and Flock have both shown they can't be trusted with this data, and federal government can't be trusted not to overreach and seize what the city collects.

We should be ashamed to even contemplate recording people's trips to job sites, immigration proceedings, health care, synagogues and mosques, or home depot parking lots.

We've already seen too many reports about how ICE, sheriffs in Texas hunting abortion seekers, and private employees stalking romantic interests have abused this technology.

We've seen lawsuits just today against OPD and San Jose PD for not locking down this very data.

Senate inquiries into Flock for their inability to keep it secure.

Flock that noise.

Hello, my name is Wayne, and I'm here to read a statement on behalf of a beloved Oakland business and bike shop in District 2 called the bikery.

The bikery at 1246 23rd Avenue strongly opposes the proposed expansion at OPD's flock camera and surveillance system.

As a community center business, we believe mass surveillance threatens the safety, privacy, and trust of our customers and neighbors, especially those from immigrant and marginalized communities.

This expansion undermines Oakland's status as a sanctuary city, exposes sensitive data to thousands of outside agencies, including ICE, and risks driving away the very community members who make Oakland vibrant.

As longtime community members, we know that the true public safety comes from investing in people and basic infrastructure, not invasive technology.

We need safe roads, transportation infrastructure, and clean drinking water in our schools, not cameras and private contracts.

We urge the city council to accept the recommendations of your Oakland privacy commissioners and reject the OPD community safety camera system use policy and flock safety contract.

Hi, good evening.

And I'm here to urge you, along with the rest of us and the wonderful youth who were here earlier tonight to vote no on this.

Flock no, we don't need it, we don't want it.

We are a sanctuary city.

Our city motto is love life.

Expanding flock surveillance tech makes us all vulnerable to abuse by OPD, ICE, federal agencies, and surveillance by bad actors.

Just this summer, Alper data was shared with federal immigration by OPD and SFPD.

They can't be trusted.

It would be shameful for you, our elected representatives, to sell out our sanctuary city, our privacy, our people, and our people to untrustworthy tech companies.

To love life is to use these funds for proven and effective public safety solutions, investing in housing, youth programs, violence prevention, community ambassadors, jobs, parks, and services.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Charlotte, and I'm proud to be one of several district two residents here to speak out against this flock contract.

Taking public safety seriously means taking our commitments as a sanctuary, sanctuary city seriously.

It means we don't jump into bed with shady tech companies who don't keep their promises, don't protect our data, don't think twice about collaborating with the modern day Gestapo known as ICE.

The fact that they're even willing to do it should tell you everything you need to know.

It means at a time where Oakland crime is declining, we don't spend 2.25 million on new toys for OPD with no data to support their efficacy.

It means taking a holistic view of safety.

Rent is too high, EBT, housing assistance, and healthcare subsidies have either been interrupted or on the chopping clock.

If you care about our safety, do something about our failing safety net.

Turn off the spigot of endless cash for greedy collaborating tech companies who don't give a shit about us.

Thank you for staying and for caring so much about this.

My name is Heather McLeod.

I'm in District One, and I'm a member of the Social Justice Council of the First Unitarian Church of Oakland.

This is the wrong time to use a new technology like AI to collect information on Oaklanders.

Information that can be shared with an increasingly dangerous federal government.

Police officers have been sharing information not only here that they've gotten from Flock, but in other cities.

Flock makes a substantial profit from collecting and selling our information.

Why would you trust them to place our interests over their profits?

Kaylin Moran, District 3.

Good evening, Council Members.

I hope you're all doing all right.

We know it isn't easy to finding safety for half million souls.

There's too much fear, too much suffering to capture in any statistic.

Data can't save us.

All we have are our principles and the people we choose to save.

To people I meet and know and love, each camera's a bargain struck with their lives, their face, their well-being, their shot at a home here, traded for some percent chance to punish those who hurt us.

Not a chance to heal ourselves, to find the opportunity every human needs.

Not to prevent that harm in the first place, the way boss, courage, and other orgs facing cuts have, but a chance to punish, monitor, control.

If that's what you choose, how you define safety, we don't want your safety.

We choose each other over flock because only the people save the people.

Hello, my name is Samia, and I'm a district one resident, but I work with unhoused folks and housed neighbors and small brick and mortar businesses all across Oakland.

Um Flock is a surveillance system that has and will be used to target the most vulnerable people of Oakland.

If you really cared about public safety, I would like to see you actually support a vulnerable people.

Um I don't know if you know this, but there's multiple instances where battered women and elders would call police after being mugged and beaten.

OPD comes, and then because they're living in a vehicle and not in a house, OPD then comes and steals their vehicles and sells it to chop shops that are currently being investigated by the county.

So tell me, is that actually supporting these domestic violence victims, these interpersonal violence victims?

I think not.

Maybe at the average price of a one bedroom wasn't $2300, then there would be less crime.

Maybe if there was more permanent supportive housing, if you guys were standing up and supporting tenants, like fighting slum lords like the Valley Street tenants, if you're bolstering uh tenant boards and protections for these unhoused and undocumented vehicles, then maybe we would.

Thank you for your time.

Hi, ready.

Uh, my name is Rebecca.

Um, I want to remind people something that nobody said before, and it's that this company is building a global surveillance network.

Um, if you go to dflock.me, you could see cameras right now all over the world, not just in America.

Um, we need to be an example of how to stop this, and if we uh make dragnet surveillance a norm, it's gonna be really hard to take it back.

Um, I also want to say that um if govern if data is in government databases, it can be used and abused by employees and people with access.

Um, I've had this happen uh with the DMV where a DMV employee used data they were able to find on me to find my house and like smash out all the windows to my car.

And uh that's that's now and that's without cameras.

Um, so it's just gonna get worse and worse the more um info about all of us is available to people that work um at this company.

It's not gonna be secure.

Um anybody at the company, or a lot of people at the company, regardless of what they say, can access and give and share it.

Um it's one.

Go ahead.

This is why I love Oakland.

Yes, sir!

Well, not just council members.

Uh, my name is José Anton Dorado, vice chair of the Comunidad de Comunicantes Oakland.

I'm proud to say I'm an Oakland Ticadno.

Born in East 10th in Jingletown and raised on 38th Avenue.

My office is on Fruitvale, where I continue the work my father started 70 years ago.

In those seven years, I've seen many great changes in Oakland.

The most important ones were the struggles of the people against a rich and powerful in Oakland.

This is specifically why we now have a city council that looks like you rather than a bunch of old white male Republican fat cats from downtown and the hills.

Recently we have seen a resurgence of this power base.

Yeah, it wants to take us back to these bad old days, flock cameras with their proven vulnerability and willingness to break the law is one big step away for the next speaker.

Sir, you are you're over your speaking time.

I'm sorry.

You have to step away for the next speaker.

Hey, Chris Moore.

Um, hey, I think the uh the good news is you guys just got a poll from the chamber, and that poll says that 67% of the city of Oakland want safety cameras in the community.

They said 67% want more OPD as well.

And I think that's an it's an important stat.

You have a lot of people, there's a lot of emotion uh that came out tonight.

Um it's the 33%.

That's that's basically you hear speaking tonight.

So you have something to to uh to really base that on.

We also know that, Charlene.

You're gonna you're gonna give me extra time here.

So we have the same amount of time as everybody else.

What's going on?

So what else?

Um what else about what else about uh OPD is that, or what what else about the cameras is that a lot of misinformation obviously has been spent tonight.

So one last thing.

Shout out to OPD.

Thank you guys for uh all that you do for us.

Thank you for your comments.

Moving to our Zoom speakers.

Francisco Escada, please unmute yourself and begin your one-minute comment.

Thank you.

Good evening, uh, council members.

Safety cameras are a tool that the police needs to do their job.

As you know, these people that oppose the use of cameras, they can bug with excuses like privacy and data breach issues, but they don't mind being part of the Oakland Brent Registry.

What gives?

You know, let's remember.

These are the same people that that defunded the police, and look how bad it is now.

Bringing kids, innocent kids to this meeting to oppose the use of cameras.

That's a new load for them.

You know, the kids don't know what they're doing.

The thing that the crime is down in Oakland, it's a very naive statement.

It's like saying that there is no trash in West Oakland.

You know, uh, St.

Colomba Church in San Pablo, they place a cross every day that somebody gets killed in Oakland.

Go see how many crosses there are already just for this year.

So let's help the police do their job by giving them cameras.

Let's give them the tools that they need to protect us to protect the community.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comment.

Moving to our next Zoom speaker, Laura Hill.

Please unmute yourself and begin your one-minute comment.

Good evening.

My name is Laura Hill, and I'm a vice president of public policy with the Bay Area Council.

We represent over 370 of the region's employers, including a coalition of 125 employers based in Oakland, who are committed to building a more stable and vibrant city.

We strongly support this item and contract and urge your approval today.

Technology is a vital public safety tool, and it is particularly critical for cities that are facing law enforcement staffing challenges.

Additionally, according to two recent voter polls, the vast majority of Oakland residents do, in fact, overwhelmingly support security camera networks.

The polling shows support across age, race, ethnicity, and ideology for visible cameras and ALPRs as tools to deter crime and make people feel safe.

ALPR technology has been proven to work and improve public safety in Oakland, and the city needs continued access to this technology to protect residents, businesses, and visitors.

Approving this contract will help the city deter crime and ultimately strengthen community safety and economic vitality.

Thank you so much.

Turn your camera off.

Going to our next Zoom speaker, Leanne Alameda.

You may unmute yourself and begin your one-minute comment.

Thank you for this opportunity to speak.

My name is Leanne Alameda, District 2 resident.

I'm speaking in support of this measure because Oakland needs effective tools available to keep our residents safe.

There's been a decrease in crime that OPD has directly tied to using technology like flock cameras to identify vehicles involved in robberies, carjackings, and shootings.

At a time when OPD is extremely understaffed, technology fills critical gaps, helping officers solve crimes faster and preventing crime sprees.

Regarding privacy concerns, Oakland already has one of the strongest surveillance ordinances in the country with strict limits on data retention and data sharing.

We need to leverage innovative and pragmatic solutions to address time.

We can protect people's rights and protect public safety at the same time.

And I believe this city council can find ways to do that with a technology that OPD has been using successfully and simply allows us to manage the contract versus CHP.

Thank you for your comment.

Moving to our next Zoom speaker, Leanne Alameda.

Oh, excuse me.

Tracy Rosenberg.

Please unmute yourself and begin your one-minute comment.

Yeah, thank you.

Good evening.

Tracy Rosenberg with Oakland Privacy.

Two dozen cities have abandoned Flock because they can't control their information, getting to immigration enforcement.

And OLCA now wants to double down.

To be clear, I have met with Flock management numerous times, and they lied to my face, and they are lying to you.

They swore up and down that federal immigration could not get to the data in their database.

And then they invited Water Patrol right in and didn't stop until they got caught.

This is not the time to lock in a relationship with a vendor who is holding hands with mass deportation.

Vote no.

Thank you for your comment.

Moving to our next Zoom speaker.

Myra Mara, please unmute yourself and begin your one-minute comment.

Maria, please unmute yourself and begin your one-minute comment.

Moving to our next Zoom speaker, Blair Beekman.

Please unmute yourself and begin your one-minute comment.

Hi, uh Blair Beekman.

I feel we may not have to finalize.

Uh a two-year flock contract tonight.

Please be considering a one-year flock contract tonight.

And in the next six to twelve months, the city of Oakland, all parts of Oakland, the Oakland community and OPD can simply continue to work towards cooperation negotiation to find a middle ground and how to consider a possibly fairly long list of more trusting and responsible local and national tech vendors that can eventually take over the current flock contracts with the city of Oakland in the six to 12-month time period.

People of local U.S.

cities, including Oakland and San Diego, are realizing how there can be different tech and data collection choices and options besides the young growing monolith of Flock.

I simply feel we can continue the community conversations for both Oakland and San Diego to leave Flock in the next six to twelve months.

A final reminder that thank you for your comment, Blair.

Going to our next.

Going to our next Zoom speaker, Jennifer Finley.

Please unmute yourself and begin your one-minute comment.

Jennifer Fidley.

Thank you.

Um, I wasn't going to chime in tonight unless I had something unique to add.

And I was just looking at the um the articles on what else is going on about flock in other cities, and this one stood out to me.

Uh Washington State.

Uh King Five News a couple of weeks ago is reporting that um they're trying to figure out how border patrol accessed thousands and thousands of searches and how those were done, and how did they possibly access the data?

We had all these promises, and two weeks later, um there is a judge in Spaghetti County, Washington, who is ruling that the flock data qualifies as public records subject to the public records act because the data that they are capturing is so broad and all-encompassing that it needs to be um available for public records requests at the same time the publication of this recording list is also blurring the faces and the license plates in all of the thank you for your comment.

Moving to our next Zoom speaker, Rajanya Mandal.

Please unmute yourself and begin your one-minute comment.

Rajne Mandel District 4.

YouTube videos, coordinated misinformation campaigns, siloed information that is repeated enough to to be thought to be true.

Sound familiar?

These were the exact strategies used during COVID to sow fear and mistrust in the government, which led to mistrust in vaccines and the death of millions.

That rhetoric, which dismissed facts and evidence from reputable sources in favor of fear mongering and paranoia, led to a rise in death and preventable disease.

What you see here today are the same tactics and the same rhetoric.

Policy should be made based on data, not anecdotes.

Policies should be made by subject matter experts, not armchair experts.

The lives of our residents are in your hands.

And I hope that you listen to actual residents, those who took the time out to email you directly because they have jobs, kids are elderly or disabled, and can't make it for a horribly long meeting.

Listen to Oaklanders and experts, not ideologues.

Make the educated decision.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comment.

Moving to our next Zoom speaker.

Lynn Derdarion, please unmute yourself and begin your one-minute comment.

Lynn Derdarion.

I'm Lynn Jerion, Vice President of the Oakmar Homes Association District 4.

I represent over 200 residents who voluntarily donated money to install flock LPRs following armed robberies and a brutal armed assault in our neighborhood.

We believe that if we had had flock cameras at the time, the crime might have been prevented and the criminals would have been apprehended much sooner.

Oakland has built one of the most transparent civilian governed camera systems in the country.

Focus on facts and accountability, not fear and speculation.

Vote yes to keep flocked LPRs in Oakland.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Amela.

Please unmute yourself.

Did you fill out a speaker's card?

I believe I did, yes.

Under what name?

Sonal Chakrasali.

We don't have one for you, I do apologize.

Oh, okay.

Thank you.

Bra AD, did you fill out a speaker's card?

You may unmute yourself.

No, I did not fill the speaker's card.

Okay, thank you.

But I would like to comment if I can.

That's okay.

You want to say that you let that randomly go.

Okay.

Maria, please unmute yourself and begin your one-minute comment.

That concludes your public speakers right of three.

Thank you, everyone.

Uh, just uh thank you for all the public comments.

And uh, do we still have our staff here to answer questions from colleagues?

I I can start.

Okay.

So uh one thing I wanted to understand why why did we buy why did OPD bypass the standard procurement process to recommend uh this uh two point, you know, two five million dollar contract was with Flock?

Oh, so like originally I was stating um CHP was the one that provided the initial access to the system.

Uh we had an MOU that went through city council that went through privacy commission uh and was adopted.

So we had that system in place, so we were very familiar with it.

Uh looking at some of the other vendors in this space, the majority of them could not uh facilitate the program as uh we saw it, uh, the way that we're operating currently, uh, and there was one other vendor that was that could fulfill that, but it would be significant uh funding to replace the system, install all the new devices, uh, to get essentially the same uh system.

So uh that was why we we were requesting the bypass this that process, but we've had this this system in place and it went through uh levels of review when it was initially adopted for the MOU.

Okay.

Uh how so how many cameras?

So there's currently a set of Flock cameras in the city of Oakland.

Um can you how many are there?

Who are they operated by?

Can you explain more about that?

Yeah, so the there's 290 Flock ALPR cameras that were authorized to be uh deployed.

I think there was originally 292, but I think we haven't uh deployed some of them.

Um as part of this process, we weren't uh requesting any additional ALPR cameras through Flock.

Uh the additional cameras are pan-tiled zoom cameras, which are capturing uh real-time historical video uh but don't have LPR actually affixed to or uh activated.

And and how many additional cameras are you requesting?

Uh, sorry, 40 of the pan-tilt zoom cameras that would be managed by the department.

Okay.

Um this is a question I think that is more directed at the city attorneys.

Um it was noted by the public comment that one of the provisions written into the contract is that we would have to provide data in the case of a judicial warrant.

Can you spell out some situations by which uh that would we would have to hand over the data?

Could there be a case of um someone's abortion being criminalized or uh immigration status being criminalized that would result in a warrant in which we would have to legally, as currently written, hand over the data to uh that entity?

And Councilmember Wong, um, just so that you know um you weren't speaking into the mic, and so I I really couldn't hear that.

Sure, I can say that again.

So one of the public commenters had noted that what is written into the contract agreement is that there are situations such as a judicial warrant that would require OPD to uh by legal by law to hand over that data uh to a law enforcement agency, and I am just wondering if we can spell out what are those situations.

Uh could someone's uh immigration status be the uh the basis for a warrant, could someone's uh, you know, seeking an abortion, could that be the basis for a warrant for um Oakland to hand over this this data?

So we have Amadis Sotello on the line.

I think he had a response to that question.

Good evening uh public safety committee.

This is Amadi Sotello with the city attorney's office.

Um to that question, we don't know unless we would get the subpoena.

Um so it really depends.

Um but I did so it depends on what the subpoena asked for and what the basis is.

Uh the city would have to evaluate um how we'd respond and whether or not we would challenge it based on different factors, you know, the authority that's being asked for.

Um but one thing it that it might be helpful to consider is that there's there's a provision in the draft contract that basically says if that were to happen, if if the vendor, if Flock was to receive uh a subpoena, they would have to alert us to that and notify us in writing in 24 hours when they've received that, and that the city can seek to timely intervene and respond to that subpoena, so there is a vision in place that deals with that situation.

But as I mentioned, it's we can't really answer that unless we were to get a subpoena.

So it's it's too broad of a question to really have a helpful answer because it would just very much.

Or in the chamber, we need to hear from our lawyers.

Okay.

Just finishing it.

It's it's difficult to think of how would you know think of something without receiving a specific subpoena.

So it really just depends.

But there is a, as I mentioned, there's built into the contract of provision where we have the opportunity to challenge the subpoena if we thought it was problematic or there's you know, not a lawful subpoena, or or if there's a reason to challenge that subpoena.

So it's there's a built-in provision for that situation in the in the draft contract.

Okay, thank you.

Uh, I have another question.

Uh, and then I I have more, but I'll allow my colleagues to go with their own questions.

Um, there was another public comment around um it it was noted, and I had read about this too in Washington, where a judge had said that surveillance data could be subject to a public records request.

Is that something that could you foresee playing out here in Oakland?

And how would that work?

Is that a question for the city attorney's office?

Yes, for the city attorneys.

Uh, without looking at the laws of state of Washington, every state has different uh open records laws and public records laws, but uh in the use agreement for or excuse me, in the use policy for the cameras, there's a provision on public records, and it just depends.

I mean, it there could be a situation where camera footage is a public record, it just would we'd have to evaluate it uh based on what the specific record is.

Uh under the state law in California, there's many exceptions to what is public information, and there's also a general provision that says if the public interest is served in withholding a record, um, and that outweighs the public interest in disclosing a record, then um, then records are not necessarily public.

And so it just depends on the the nature of the specific document that's being asked asked for.

And here it sounds like you know, here that would be some sort of video.

So it really just depends on the situation.

All right.

Uh I think Councilmember Fife had her hand up first or her mic flashy button up first.

So council member Fife.

Okay.

Um thank you, Chair Wong, and thank you to all the speakers who came out today, especially our young people, um, to lend their voices to this conversation.

Um I have a couple things I want to say before I get into my questions for staff.

So please bear with me.

I want to say that my heart goes out to Abu Bakr's pain for the loss of your son.

Um, I know what it's like to lose a family member to gun violence, um, and it's a pain that can't be filled ever.

And I I can only imagine what that would be like to lose a child.

I have three.

So I just wanted to say um I'm sorry that you did not have any kind of closure for that.

And I also uh, you know, my heart goes out to Kanita, even though I don't think she should have jumped in front of the line to speak.

Um, she did fill out a speaker's card and she was having an emergency, and I know it's not the first time that her business has been broken into, so I understand those challenges as well.

What I'm not comfortable with is I have not seen a connection that was made solidly that connects not through um uh correlation but a causation to this uh technology being able to actively solve the issues that make people feel unsafe.

Um I heard so many different reports about um from the different officers in my BFO about uh crime going down, and I am really struggling with a potential, maybe uh correlation between cameras and a very real possibility of our data falling into the hands of bad actors that have a track record of working with the agencies that are uh in contradiction with Oakland's values.

We have a sanctuary city, and uh I have the most business districts in my district than any other council member.

So I have Kono, Jack London, uh Grand Lake, um, Uptown, Downtown, North, the whatever the new ones are, um, and I want to support my business districts with the tools that can create safety.

A lot of them are our challenge right now, and that's a reality.

I want us to understand that that there are issues we have to deal with.

I'm just not willing to give my support to a Peter Teal co-founded corporation that could really invest in safety measures if they were interested, versus as has been mentioned tonight, this dragnet of um surveillance data.

I am not basing this on um, this is really well informed.

There were people who've done their research tonight, and I I reject the individual that said that this is YouTube research, um, when that same individual has privately paid security for their neighborhood and they can afford that, but um I've I've only lived in neighborhoods where I saw like police lights every night my entire 30 years in Oakland.

And so, you know, when people say we keep us safe, it really is just a mantra that describes the desire to invest in communities because that was mentioned in the report as well, that black and brown communities are most impacted by gun violence.

I can speak to that directly from my life experience, and those communities are directly most impacted by violence because of generations of oppression with those particular communities.

So it's it's not justifying it, but there's context, and just for additional context, again, bear with me.

They put out statistics that say that Latina women are the most prolifically reproducing uh racial group in the United States.

Why am I saying that?

Because the federal government right now in this moment is targeting our immigrant population, primarily Spanish speaking uh Latinx folks, because by 2045, white people for the first time in the history of this country will be the racial minority in America.

So in 20 years, the United States of America will be a majority minority nation.

And so that scares the crap out of billionaires and people who want to recreate America and make it great again because making America great again means making it in the image of whiteness.

That's just the reality of this country, and we see that with this with this president who is taking money from the billionaires who are investing in this type of technology.

So I want to be clear that the New York police department has approximately 34,000 police officers.

34,000 police officers.

They make approximately 334 arrests per day.

ICE has a quota to arrest 3,000 people per day.

That is not, you cannot get to those numbers by addressing crime.

You have to create a wider net of who you are going to target.

In Oakland, that means, as we've heard, we've seen in the news, women seeking reproductive uh resources.

It means trans folks, it means black folks, it means our immigrant communities, which make up our business districts of the people who are working there inside of these very districts where people want more safety.

So I'm I'm saying all this to say that we got to do better.

We have to provide safety, absolutely.

And it will be my recommendation to because I do want to address safety and security in some of these business districts where we are seeing cars run into storefronts.

That is a reality.

We are seeing thefts, especially in our immigrant communities and on the blade, and in our um Fruitville neighborhoods.

And I also know people are scared to go outside.

We heard one of our teachers say people aren't going outside to get food.

They're not sending their children to school.

These are not criminals.

There are people who are breaking the law, and we need to address that.

And as we've said several times, the communities that are the safest are the communities with the most resources.

So what I would like to see is a complete rejection of Flock as a contractor.

And I would like the city to do its due diligence and put this out to a competitive bid.

So we're not giving a sole source contract to an organization that's been rejected by 27 cities across the country.

I have been in conversations with elected officials.

I'm a part of a progressive group of elected officials from across the country.

So I've talked to folks from Austin, Illinois, Oregon, so many states who have been really supportive in this moment, and there are other vendors.

I have a list of at least uh 20 vendors that we can choose outside of giving a sole source contract to Flock.

There is, from what I hear, Lonardo, Wrecker, Jeanette, uh, they don't sound good.

Genentech, NDI recognition system.

There's there's many.

So I would like to explore what it looks like to give a contract to one of these organizations that does not have a direct relationship with uh ICE and Homeland Security, so that we can address what the needs of our business community and some of our residential communities are and not support this billionaire that is moving us towards a fascist state.

Thank you.

Councilmember Brown.

And then just to confirm, Councilmember, if I were you gonna ask any questions or should I just go ahead and dive in?

I know everything that I need to know.

Thank you.

Okay, okay.

Well, you know, first off, you know, I want to, you know, really appreciate everyone that showed up to voice their opinion, um, whether it be in person, via email, um, greatly appreciated.

And I know that this item is, you know, incredibly controversial, and I've, you know, I've been listening to every concern that has been raised, whether it's about privacy, misuse, um, potential federal overreach, and just the vendor itself.

And so um I definitely hear you.

Um, and and at the same time, I'm I'm listening to um just the feedback of, you know, some of the voices that didn't make it into the room.

I I think that you know, the gentleman who mentioned about what happened um to his son.

Um, I, you know, I know of many individuals um that have been in impacted by crime, and you know, um, truth is is that there is a component, and I'm gonna ask a couple specific questions to you, Lieutenant Um Orchiza, um, that you know, as a result of some of this technology, we have been able to serve um solve some of the the crimes that we we face in our city.

Um, and I don't talk about it much, but you know, I I lost, you know, I I know I mentioned on the dais many times how I lost both of my parents at an early age, and I know that, like, you know, what happened uh to my mom, like if there would have been, you know, um uh, you know, uh technology that was available to um have tried to solve um what happened to her, uh, that would have made an impact.

And so I I know at this moment, like uh there is a lot of tension on the line around like just the issue in general and how we are showing up and um as a true sanctuary city, and also how we are recognizing that um our business community, um, so many stakeholders that couldn't be here tonight, right?

Whether it be the time of day of this meeting, um, are just in general maybe not even knowing that this is up for discussion.

Um, and so some of the questions that I have um just really linked, it's a combination, you know, I listened to every single public commenter.

So um, Lieutenant Ortiza, can you walk me through?

I think one of the, I mean, I even did some research.

So this item came to the council in 2020 uh uh 2023, I believe it was, and um, and it came about because of state legislation to kind of enable these camera systems.

Um, I I would love for you to kind of do like a a compare and contrast to that moment and and then also now and what's changing.

I mean, from what I'm can see is that we are um there's also this this authorization of 40 additional cameras.

Uh that's different from from looking at the legislation in the past.

Um, but I I would love for you to walk us through like, hey, what are what are the changes here?

Uh one of the public commented commenters mentioned, right?

So if if we approve this, you know, already in the past, one of the public commenters mentioned that there has been uh 200 um times where the data has been accessed maybe uh for misuse.

Um so that's gonna be my first question.

Can you can you walk us through like is that accurate or uh you know what has occurred since we've already had these systems already in place?

Thank you for the question.

Um it's not a short answer to your question.

Uh some of the reporting related to these issues does appear to be misleading.

Um, and as far as the the main concern I think that we've brought up a lot in this room is talking about immigration enforcement.

And the article that it was initially written uh by the SF standard was referring to a specific case uh where there was a search that accessed uh OPD's data related to uh the search reason uh ice investigation.

Uh that search was actually conducted by a CHP officer, so not a federal officer, but a CHP officer that accessed our system as we have an MOU with them and a sharing agreement with CHP.

Since that time, we haven't seen any additional searches that were related specifically to ICE.

Um we've tried to, there's different technology uh aspects that have put into place by Flock itself as far as probing and keywords.

Um we've talked about how that could be bypassed, but one of the biggest things that we've looked at as far as um how this information is being accessed.

If you look at Los Angeles, which has been suffering from a lot of disimmigration enforcement for the longest time, I think in probably the entire country, uh as far as recently, uh we haven't seen any indication or any evidence that shows that they've been using the flock technology that they have in Los Angeles for uh immigration enforcement.

That was one of the one of the main flags that we were looking for to see if if this technology is being used in that manner, and we just haven't seen it.

And one thing that's been extremely important to us is like if if we were a city please, order in the chamber, we need to hear from our staff member, please go ahead.

If we were a city in a state that didn't support our status as a sanctuary city, I'd be far more concerned if we were a city in say Texas or some of these other states that don't respect that, I'd have far more concern.

But if we look across the Bay Area, whether it's San Francisco, whether it's Berkeley, San Leandro, uh, I could keep going, Richmond, Vallejo, Antioch, Pittsburgh, all of these cities have put into place this system, uh, and all are beholden onto this the state laws that regulate the use of this technology.

And the state has shown that it's willing to go to bat and protect whether it's individual citizens or the cities themselves uh against attack from the federal government.

So that's been something that I think is is important to note is that we're not alone in the struggle.

Uh if someone was attempting to access our data, I know that the state would step up.

The state attorney general has already made it clear on what their stance is related to uh the use of ALPR technology for immigration.

So that's part of the assessment that we've done and making sure that we have it's not just us standing alone against the federal government, it's the state of California and the cities around us.

And so is it one or is it 200?

The related to ICE, it was one out of the 1.3 million searches.

That was the report from the SF standard, which is the information that we're we verify.

Excellent, thank you.

And and so then, and then more specifically, because you know, I also heard, you know, that some of the public speakers uh speak to you know, um, you know, this technology being used for like facial recognition, um, to um, you know, monitor like you know, daily actions, etc.

Can you specifically highlight how the technology will be used?

So specifically for the community safety cameras, this is about investigating uh crimes that either already occurred or just occurred and utilizing that information to prevent, and when we're talking about robberies, they're often these are serial crimes where someone's committing a robbery, then they'll do an additional one.

Uh so by solving the first robbery uh in a much faster manner, we're actually actually able to prevent further further victimization going forward.

So that's one of the primary uses in this uh example is oftentimes if you had a robbery in front of a storefront, uh the officers are going to the scene, they're speaking with the victim.

The victim may provide information that may not be completely correct as to what they saw based on the traumatic events, or they didn't exactly see where the person's coming from.

This allows us to have an independent view of that what actually occurred so we can determine what the actual vehicle involved is or the actual suspects that were involved versus just going off of like not hearsay, but that someone's recollection that could be just not completely correct to the fence.

They may think that they came from one car, but the video is able to clarify they came from another.

Um and then utilizing that information, we can use the other systems such as ALPR to locate that vehicle, identify exactly which vehicle that is, so the enforcement's taken on that particular person or those particular people, uh, and that's having having a focused approach to enforcement versus looking for multiple vehicles that may match the same description.

So that's one of the most powerful ways that it's been used.

Um and what we've seen uh with one specific case, we had a robbery at one of the gas stations near Lakeshore where uh essentially uh the suspects walk up, they bit the window, uh there was a struggle over the bag, they flee, the person begins to uh basically provides a very generic description of what the vehicle is.

It was a dark SEV.

Uh we the office heard the call come in, we see that description, we conduct a query in that area for a short time frame to see if there's anything matching the description that the victim actually provided.

Uh when we were doing that, some one of the cars stood out, it just didn't make sense that the age of the vehicle versus the uh perceived age of the plate.

The vehicle was clearly a switch plate vehicle, running it through our other systems to verify that information and recognize this is likely the same vehicle, but we couldn't push that out until we could have somebody on scene independently verify is this the car?

So while the officers on scene, there's a delay in them trying to get access to the actual camera system itself, they're trying to get whether it's passcodes or a lot of times only the manager will have access to the actual video itself.

So there was a significant delay.

Once they viewed the video, which was a significant time later, they were able to affirm that this is actually the same vehicle.

We sent that information out and that went out to the field.

When we look back, that card switched plates within 30 minutes of the crime.

So being able to shorten that distance between when the crime actually occurs and detecting who's involved in it will assist in being able to either prevent the next one or or you know provide some accountability for the suspects involved.

Excellent.

Thank you.

And then the next question that I had is along the lines of around the um the keyword searches that um and I know that they're for the report, there are certain safeguards that you know have been put in place, but I think I heard one of the public speakers say that you know perhaps you could just you know use other words that could maybe bring up specific um uh searches.

So can you maybe walk us through like is that something that's possible, or is it you know, maybe let's talk a little bit about the guardrails that are in place because we know kind of as mentioned, um, you know, uh leading out at the state level around some of the um, you know, how we are protecting um you know, state of California Saint Sanctuary State and our cities.

Um so I just wanted to get more insight around like um, are there loopholes when it comes to these keyword searches?

Um so integration-related searches, but it's everywhere.

Okay, order in the chamber.

Lieutenant, please answer, go ahead.

Uh so within California, one of the uh main adjustments that was made was removing all of the agencies from the nationwide search.