OAKLAND — Gov. Gavin Newsom this week reversed a decision to send extra prosecutors to help Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price crack down on crime in the East Bay, saying he was “disappointed” in Price’s “lack of enthusiasm” to partner up and receive additional aid.
The move marked an unexpected reversal of an offer made in February to send prosecutors from the California Department of Justice and the National Guard to the East Bay to help prosecute crimes and quell rates of theft and violent crime. It was modeled off a similar program in San Francisco that sent military attorneys to the city to help prosecute fentanyl-linked crimes.
“Rather than complaining about it, rather than lamenting about it, we’re going to be moving some of the prosecutors to the state of California, the attorney general’s office,” said Newsom at a press conference Thursday in West Oakland. In doing so, he expressed frustration at how the proposed partnership “was not enthusiastically embraced” by Price’s office.
“Yes, we’ve been disappointed,” Newsom said.
The decision came despite initial vows of cooperation by Price, who said in February that she welcomed the notion of “seizing the moment to work together.” Back then, she framed he potential partnership as a “collaborative effort” to “fight against organized retail crime and the scourge of fentanyl in our community.”
Price’s office did not immediately reply to a request by this news organization for comment.
Newsom’s comments Thursday came as he announced yet another surge of California Highway Patrol officers to Oakland and the East Bay, following several similar boosts in staffing across the region since the beginning of the year. In doing so, he voiced impatience with the region’s approach to public safety — knocking city leaders at one point for missing a key grant deadline to combat retail theft last year and questioning the urgency of the county’s top prosecutor.
Standing beside new Oakland police Chief Floyd Mitchell, Newsom said highway patrol officers are expected to increase their weekly shifts in the city from 42 to 162 over the next four months, Newsom said. As a result, extra highway patrol officers will work in the city seven days a week, up from the current pace of two to three days a week.
Newsom framed their operations as a partnership with Oakland police and other local law enforcement agencies, stressing that “this is not a permanent operation.” The focus will continue be on a range of crimes, including stolen vehicles, drunken driving and other “special operations,” highway patrol leaders said.
The agency’s operations so far have led to the arrests of at least 560 arrests — including more than 150 arrests in felony cases — as well as the recovery of more than 1,160 stolen vehicles and at least 55 firearms.
The surge was welcomed by Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao and East Bay Assemblymember Mia Bonta, both of whom issued statements saying they were “grateful” for the extra resources.
The decision to backtrack on the offer for additional prosecutors in the East Bay was outlined in a letter by Ann Patterson, a cabinet secretary, to Price suggesting that the district attorney’s office took too long to agree to a memorandum of understanding that would have paved the way for the prosecutors’ arrival.
The DA’s office had not taken “initial” steps to finalize such an agreement with Newsom’s office, or to deputize National Guard attorneys to work in her office, according to the letter. That’s despite the fact Newsom’s office having fulfilled requests by Price’s team for resumes and interviews, it said.
“It was clear to me that it was just — we were just extending for time, and there wasn’t a sincere commitment to follow through on the offer,” Newsom said.
Newsom also noted that the head of Price’s narcotics unit has left her office in the months since Newsom offered to send the prosecutors, dealing another blow to the partnership. It was an apparent reference to the recent departure Michael Nieto, a veteran prosecutor who was appointed by Price to serve as a liaison with the National Guard when the partnership was first announced in February. He was appointed last month by Newsom to be a judge in Contra Costa County.
Since then, Newsom suggested he had seen too little progress by Price’s office in filling that position.
“We expressed frustration with that,” Newsom said. “We talked about the urgency of now, this moment we’re living in. Enough. We all have to step up, we all have to be accountable. All of us.”
The prosecutors tabbed for the partnership will be reassigned to other posts whose focuses will be prosecuting state crimes in Alameda County, as well as drug crimes across Northern California, the governor’s office said.
Check back for updates to this developing story.