Why doesn’t the Richmond Police Department hire more officers? When it comes to the city council, it depends on who you ask.
The Richmond City Council on Tuesday discussed how the city should respond to a recent Contra Costa County Civil Grand Jury’s report that said the Richmond Police Department has been understaffed since the city in 2021 reallocated $3 million from its budget to fund policing alternatives.
Some council members said the report is being used by the Richmond Police Officers Association (RPOA) as leverage during ongoing labor negotiations and others thought their views weren’t adequately represented in the city’s response.
The response includes both the city and Richmond Police Chief Bisa French’s perspectives on the grand jury’s 16 findings and seven recommendations that included reducing mandatory officer overtime and a suggestion to allocate some of the $550 million Chevron settlement to hire and retain more police officers.
Ultimately the council approved the response by a 6-1 vote, with District 5 council member Sue Wilson opposed. The report will be given to the grand jury with a video link to the council’s Tuesday discussion so that all perspectives will be presented. The council had a deadline to respond by, so it couldn’t delay taking action.
A civil grand jury is a citizen-led independent oversight body that regularly examines the operations of local government throughout a county, including county agencies, municipal governments, and both special and school districts. Although it lacks direct enforcement authority, its findings can often compel organizations to implement changes.
At the start of Tuesday’s discussion, Mayor Eduardo Martinez said that the grand jury’s report, which used the 2024 Raftelis and 2023 Matrix staffing reports commissioned by the city in the last few years, was “heavily influenced by conjecture, assumptions and perceptions.” Martinez pointed out that the grand jury report also stated that the council had not heard either reports, which he said is incorrect, saying the council had received those reports in prior meetings.
“The report acknowledged that there are continuing hiring and retention challenges. These challenges were happening before and they continue to happen,” Martinez said. “Already you hear that the police union is using this as a leverage in their negotiations. I believe that this might be part of RPOA’s tactics.”
Both Wilson and District 6 council member Claudia Jimenez agreed with Martinez that the police hiring issues date back to before the $3 million was reallocated.
Martinez, Wilson and Jimenez comprise a Richmond Progressive Alliance-affiliated contingent on the council that has supported alternatives to policing such as Community Crisis Response Program’s (CCRP) now known as ROCK, YouthWORKS, SOS Richmond and the Office of Neighborhood Safety, with the programs comprising a four-pronged approach laid out by the Reimagining Public Safety Task Force in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder in 2020.
“This decision (to reallocate $3 million) didn’t decrease the amount of bodies in the police department. It took 12 to 14 lone vacant positions that the department hadn’t filled for years due to the same thing we are discussing here, ongoing recruitment and retention challenges,” Jimenez said. “These vacancies existed long before any reallocation and have continued to go unfilled regardless of budget ability.”
Wilson described the grand jury report as “intrusive” and said the report appeared to her as “people not elected by Richmond voters trying to make decisions on how we spend taxpayer money and how we approach public safety in our city.”
“I think I can make a stronger case that the police resignations, the challenges that the department has filling positions and the mandatory overtime — and these are problems — are problems happening all over the country,” Wilson said. “They resulted from Minneapolis police murdering George Floyd in 2020.”
District 4 council member Soheila Bana was critical of the city’s draft response, saying that it appeared the brief responses were “sweeping it under the rug” and a “formality.” She wanted her perspective to be included in the response.
“I don’t believe you are my representative. I’m a city council member and I’m sharing my opinion,” Bana told City Manager Shasa Curl.
District 1 council member Jamelia Brown also asked for her views to be reflected on the record and said that the reallocation of the $3 million “triggered a lot,” citing increased overtime and officer burnout and noting that in recent years officers have been using a trailer at the department to sleep after shifts.
“The acknowledgement of what that financial shift did to our department. I want that clearly defined,” Brown said.
When asked by Bana to outline the department’s challenges, French said that the department currently has 123 officers, with 24 of 147 budgeted positions vacant.
French said that since the 2021 budget reallocation, many specialized units that dealt with issues such as traffic enforcement, gangs or narcotics, and inter-agency task forces, have been eliminated. She also said department morale was hurt by the reallocation of the $3 million. The department now has only a patrol unit and a 13-detective investigations unit. Five years ago it had 50 detectives.
According to French, she was instructed to create a budget in 2021 that slashed $10 million. When officers heard this, she said, a number of resignations rolled in.
“Everything was significantly cut due to our staffing levels,” French said. “There were 14 positions that were taken to make that $3 million. Those 14 positions only became vacant within that year because officers were leaving because they didn’t want to wait to see if they were going to have a job come July 1, when the city council was going to vote on the reallocation of funds.”
French added that although the department has hired 41 officers in 2023 and 2024, it still struggles with incentivizing officers to not seek jobs elsewhere.
