State backtracks, says Oakland can go without acting police chief

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, flanked by City Administrator Sabrina Landreth addressed the media about Landreth's appointment to over see the Oakland Police department during a press conference at City Hall in Oakland, California, USA 17 Jun 2016. (Peter DaSilva/Special to The Chronicle) less Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, flanked by City Administrator Sabrina Landreth addressed the media about Landreth's appointment to over see the Oakland Police department during a press conference at City Hall in ... more Photo: Peter DaSilva, Special To The Chronicle Photo: Peter DaSilva, Special To The Chronicle Image 1 of / 7 Caption Close State backtracks, says Oakland can go without acting police chief 1 / 7 Back to Gallery

After a day of confusion, state officials backed down late Monday on an assertion that Mayor Libby Schaaf’s plan to have the Oakland Police Department function without an acting police chief violated California law.

Officials at the state Police Officers Standards and Training agency, or POST, had said earlier Monday that Oakland’s plan to have police commanders report to City Administrator Sabrina Landreth was illegal. They cited both California government code and a state attorney general’s opinion backing their argument that the city needed to name an acting chief to head the department, which is embroiled in multiple scandals and has gone through three chiefs in less than two weeks.

Acting Assistant Chief David Downing is in charge of day-to-day decisions for the Police Department, Schaaf’s office said, while Landreth is overseeing administrative and personnel decisions.

Late Monday, POST conceded it had made its argument before the city attorney’s office cited more recent federal case law, from 2011, exempting charter cities such as Oakland from the requirement.

Ralph Brown, a spokesman for POST, confirmed that it appeared Oakland was correct after all in determining that, as a charter city, it was exempt from state law requiring general law cities to name an acting police chief.

According to the 2011 case law, charter cities have the authority “to constitute, regulate and govern police departments” — meaning Landreth can run Oakland’s police administrative and personnel matters.

“Acting Assistant Chief of Police David Downing is the highest-ranking member of the Police Department and is the City’s POST designee in charge of tactical and operational matters,” mayoral spokeswoman Erica Terry Derryck said in a statement late Monday.

Schaaf had said Friday that police commanders would be reporting to Landreth. At the same time, she said Assistant Chief Paul Figueroa, whom she had installed as acting chief just two days before, had backed out of the job, gone on leave and said he wanted to return to the force as a captain.

The mayor wouldn’t explain Figueroa’s decision but said it had nothing to do with a scandal in which several officers are under suspicion of having sex with a teen sex worker, in some cases when she was still underage. She also said Figueroa wasn’t connected to another investigation, this one involving racist text messages that Schaaf says several African American officers sent.

Separately, an Oakland homicide cop is under investigation for allegedly having his then-girlfriend help him write his reports.

The sex scandal resulted in Chief Sean Whent’s resignation June 9. His interim replacement, BART Assistant Police Chief Ben Fairow, was fired Wednesday. Schaaf wouldn’t say why, but his old boss at BART, Police Chief Kenton Rainey, said Fairow had admitted to an extramarital affair more than a decade earlier, when he worked for the Oakland Police Department.

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