Berkeley Police Chief Michael Meehan resigns

Berkeley Police Chief Michael Meehan led the department for six years. Berkeley Police Chief Michael Meehan led the department for six years. Photo: Handout, City Of Berkeley Photo: Handout, City Of Berkeley Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Berkeley Police Chief Michael Meehan resigns 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

The police chief of Berkeley resigned Wednesday after facing criticism in recent months from rank-and-file officers over his leadership style and judgment.

Chief Michael Meehan’s resignation was accepted by City Manager Dee Williams-Ridley after he led the department for six years, said Sgt. Andrew Frankel, a Berkeley Police Department spokesman.

Capt. Andrew Greenwood, a 31-year veteran of the department, will take over as acting chief.

“I am extremely confident that acting Chief Greenwood and the men and women of the Police Department will move the department forward and continue providing excellent service to the Berkeley community,” Williams-Ridley wrote in a memo to Berkeley officials Wednesday.

Prior to serving as police chief, Meehan was a captain in the Seattle Police Department, where he had worked for 23 years.

Meehan did not immediately explain why he was quitting.

An internal survey obtained by the news site Berkeleyside showed that officers reported low morale and poor communication between Meehan and the ranks.

The chief also weathered criticism for two separate incidents in 2012. In a case that critics deemed preferential treatment, he sent a team of officers, himself included, to track down his son’s stolen iPhone. In another incident, he sent a sergeant to a news reporter’s home after midnight to demand changes to a story about a slaying in the Berkeley hills.

The pair of controversies miffed the rank and file, an attorney for the police union said at the time.

“Chief Meehan's indiscretions, which expose a pattern of serious flaws in judgment, have unfortunately caused the national media to focus on the city of Berkeley as the example of poor police decision making,” Rocky Lucia, an attorney representing the Berkeley Police Association, said in 2012. “The reputation of the Police Department has seriously suffered since Chief Meehan's arrival.”

More recently, his department was in the spotlight in 2013 for the in-custody death of a transgender woman — whose demise was ruled a drug overdose by the county coroner — and in December 2014 for its handling of antipolice demonstrations in the city.

In her Wednesday memo, Williams-Ridley said she accepted Meehan’s resignation and thanked him for his service, highlighting the department’s fair and impartial policing efforts, and crisis-intervention training to help those experiencing psychiatric troubles.

Berkeley City Councilman Kriss Worthington called Meehan a reformer and innovator of the department who faced pushback from the rank and file for his efforts.

“Chief Meehan instituted dramatic and significant reforms, and they were not universally appreciated in the Police Department,” Worthington said. “But in the broader Berkeley community, there was great appreciation. ... It’s a giant loss.”

Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates also highlighted Meehan’s work to reduce racial profiling — including unintentional bias — among police officers on the force.

“We have a history of police chiefs and the police force not getting along,” Bates said. “It was really internal politics.”

The friction between Meehan and the rank and file likely made it challenging for Meehan’s ideas to be pushed through, Bates said.

“Maybe that’s just our shelf life for a chief — five or six years,” Bates said.

Meehan’s resignation comes after the sudden departures of chiefs on other Bay Area police forces this year.

Greg Suhr resigned as head of the San Francisco Department in May after a Bayview sergeant fatally shot an unarmed woman. A month later, Sean Whent resigned as Oakland’s chief amid a broad sexual misconduct scandal.

Kimberly Veklerov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kveklerov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kveklerov