Last week, as Oakland prepared for what organizers expect to be the largest Occupy Oakland protest since November, the city’s police department called a news conference to announce major reforms to its crowd-control policies.

“We are committed to immediately improving our training, tactics and policies in light of our experiences,” Chief Howard Jordan said. By the end of April, he added, the entire department will have received crowd-control training for this week’s May Day event.

The changes were recommended by the Frazier Group, the independent agency hired by the department to investigate complaints about the policing of Occupy Oakland. Chief Jordan said that the department was also forming a community advisory working group to review the department’s current policy and improving its communication with outside law-enforcement agencies that provide mutual aid.

But as the May 1 protest approaches, concern is mounting that protesters and the police might again come to blows, as they did Oct. 25 after the police evicted protesters from their encampment in front of City Hall.