Former BART officer is named police chief
City manager: ‘He has a tremendous amount of law enforcement experience’
EMERYVILLE >> A BART deputy police chief who was in the spotlight when he defended officers accused of using excessive force while making an arrest has been named Emeryville police chief.
Jeffrey Jennings was sworn in Monday, when his duties also officially began at the East Bay department, which has 41 sworn officers and an additional staff of 17.
“He has a tremendous amount of law enforcement experience at agencies both large and small,” City Manager Christine Daniel said about why Jennings was tapped for the chief’s job. “He’s also a very kind individual and very skilled.”
A 26-year police veteran, Jennings will receive an annual base salary of $218,000, as well as benefits.
The city’s previous chief earned a base pay of about $222,000, according to the website Transparent California, which provides a database on the compensation of public employees.
In July 2016, Jennings publicly defended BART officers whose bodycam footage showed them ar
resting a man and his pregnant girlfriend as police investigated a robbery report at San Francisco’s Embarcadero station that turned out to be unfounded.
After the couple were brought to the ground and handcuffed, the man raised his head and spat in an officer’s face, the film shows. The officer immediately punched the man in the face, prompting shouts and screams from witnesses on the train platform.
T he man faced si x charges of battery on an officer and one count of resisting arrest, according to the Los Angeles Times. A jury later acquitted the man of three of the battery charges but was hung on the remaining four.
“Some would say it was a punch; I say it was a distraction blow,” Jennings told ABC7 around the time of the arrest and denied officers used excessive force when bringing the couple to the ground
“All he had to do was comply,” Jennings said
about the man.
Jeff Adachi, then the public defender of San Francisco, told the Los Angeles Times that the arrest was “really an example of what’s wrong with our system: the system run amok.”
Adachi also the said man was “the victim of excessive force, yet found himself having to stand trial.”
Asked if the case came up during the hiring process, Daniel said, “Chief Jennings is very supportive of accountability” and offered no additional comment.
In 2017, Jennings also opposed a recommendation from a citizens watchdog committee tasked with overseeing BART police that proposed new standards for officers. The committee suggested only the “minimal” amount of force should be used when taking a suspect into custody.
Police officers wanted that definition to be “reasonable.”
BART, like the majority of police departments across the country, uses a standard of “reasonableness,” which essentially says officers must use only the amount of force necessary to bring a situation un
der control, as judged “from the perspective of a reasonable officer on scene at the time of the incident,” BART police’s Policies and Procedures Manual reads.
The nonbinding recommendation to change that followed a BART police officer fatally shooting Oscar Grant on New Year’s Day 2009 on the platform of the Fruitvale station.
Twenty people applied to become Emeryville chief. Jennings was among five finalists.
Before joining BART police in May 2013, Jennings was with the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Department, where he was a lieutenant.
The previous full-time Emeryville chief was Jennifer Tejada, who retired in June.
Jennings has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from California State University Sacramento and has a master’s degree in public administration from Golden Gate University.