OAKLAND — Nearly two weeks after implementing a new policy for reporting use of force by officers, Oakland police officials have scaled back the changes, citing a large number of 911 calls that had stacked up citywide.

Since Feb. 15, the backlog of daily emergency calls had consistently surpassed 100 — including, in some cases, high-priority calls, which involve robberies, assaults, shootings and other serious crimes.

The new rule required officers review body camera footage and write a report for any use of force incident within the same shift, a task that officials said was taking officers nearly two hours to complete, pulling them off the street as 911 calls kept coming in. City Administrator Sabrina Landreth said in an email to the City Council that the situation had become so dire in the last week that she was “losing sleep.”

At the urging of the department, as well as the federal monitor who oversees Oakland police, the city’s citizen police commission unanimously voted Thursday to allow officers to report low-level use of force over police radio and in supplemental reports in order to free up cops to respond to emergency calls.

The independent monitor, Robert Warshaw, had previously raised concerns that OPD was underreporting use of force, a criticism that promoted the policy change in the first place. Officers are still required to write reports of more serious use of force incidents.

The rule change is one of the first under Acting Chief Darren Allison, who replaced former police chief Anne Kirkpatrick after she was fired last week in a joint decision by the police commission and Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf.

Response times for top priority calls — which the department typically responded to in about two minutes and five seconds — increased to more than five minutes, Deputy Chief LeRonne Armstrong told the commission prior to the vote.

Between Feb. 1 and Feb. 14, under the old system, the number of use of force incidents ranged between two and 12 per day, according to a city email obtained by this news organization. Since the new process began on Feb. 15, those numbers rose significantly, to between 13 and 42 incidents a day, the email stated. The vast majority of those were categorized as “type 32” incidents, defined as “any use of force to overcome resistance of a person during an arrest or detention.” Beginning this weekend, officers will now be able to report “type 32” incidents over the police radio and in supplemental reports, where the department will log them.

On Feb. 20, five days into the reporting policy, an East Oakland man called police to report his brother was mentally unstable and armed with a hammer, said acting Lt. Bryan Hubbard, who is the watch commander for East Oakland, but there were no officers able to respond.

“He called back and made a complaint against the dispatcher,” Hubbard said. “He said, ‘I never want OPD to respond to my house again. I’ll just deal with my problems myself.’ It hurts to hear stuff like that.”

“If you had your house broken into and you needed a police officer to show up, it’s not uncommon now for someone to wait two, three days for a police officer to show up,” the lieutenant added. “At the end of the day, the citizens are the ones who are truly suffering.”

Deputy Chief Armstrong said six officers were taken off the street to write a report for restraining a mentally unstable person needing medical assistance. At another medical call, multiple officers helping a man having a heart attack had to hold him down so paramedics could take him to the hospital. He survived but the act of holding him down required a written report.

On the city’s west end, calls stacked up as well. On Feb. 16, there were between 150 to 170 calls pending including a sideshow happening with about 100 cars, authorities said. At one point this week, police had six top-priority calls pending at one time, according to an email the city administrator sent to city leaders.

Oakland resident Helena Wong told police commissioners on Thursday that she was concerned about the amount of paperwork preventing police from patrol duties.

“There are calls and calls and calls that are being lined up. I know of someone who was robbed, her boyfriend was trying to protect her,” Wong said, saying that the man had called police but they were unable to respond.

Commission Chair Regina Jackson, who went to police lineups the day after Kirkpatrick’s termination, said she heard from multiple officers about how labor intensive the report writing became.

“The officers were very frustrated. I don’t think anybody anticipated this,” said Jackson. Following the commission vote she added, addressing any officers who might be watching the meeting, “We heard you.”

The original policy had been prompted by a 2018 report from the monitor, Warshaw, which criticized the department’s reported drop in cases involving the use of force, pointing to cases he found in which officers simply never reported drawing their guns on citizens, as required. In response, a committee of Oakland police, police commissioners, and others worked to develop and expand the city’s use of force reporting policy, including requiring officers to write reports on the same shift that an incident occurred.

“Sometimes you put out ideas with the best of intentions and then in practice they compromise public safety,” said Jim Chanin, a civil rights attorney who represents plaintiffs in the city’s federal oversight program.

“It’s clearly not acceptable,” he added. “I think it was an honest mistake.”