Oakland mayor picks new police chief
Thao says former leader of forces in Texas has delivered results on reducing crime
Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao announced the selection of a new police chief Friday, ending more than a year of uncertainty over the high-profile post as a sharp increase in crime draws heightened attention to public safety in the city.
Floyd Mitchell, who was the first Black police chief in Lubbock, Texas, will take charge of the department in Oakland after being picked by Thao from a group of four offered by the Oakland Police Commission. Mitchell resigned in September after four years in Lubbock; he had previously served as chief in Temple, a small city in central Texas.
“Chief Mitchell is a strong leader and a smart crime fighter who delivers results,” Thao said in an interview. “He has a commitment to proven crime-reduction strategies, including proactive policing, and strong officer-community engagement.”
The mayor said Mitchell had a strong record of crime reduction in both Temple and Lubbock.
In Lubbock, population 260,000, overall crime decreased by about 5% in 2020 and 2021, his first two full years as chief, before rising about 7%, according to data released by her office.
In Temple, a city of 89,000, crime fell 3% to 12% in each of the four years he was chief, the mayor’s office said. In both cities, police response times to emergency calls trended downward while he was chief.
Mitchell’s selection is one of Thao’s most consequential decisions, coming just over a year into her mayorship. Violent crime rose steeply in 2023, and the department is still struggling to complete a set of reforms mandated by a federal court two decades ago after a police brutality scandal.
Concerns about lawlessness — and its effect on the post-pandemic business climate in the
city — continue to drive politics in Oakland.
In an interview with the Chronicle, Mitchell, an Air Force veteran, said he was looking forward to stepping into the position — and its demands and pressures.
“I love the idea of being challenged and being able to help an organization transform how it is viewed by its community in regards to public safety and how it is viewed across the nation,” he said.
The 56-year-old will move to the Bay Area and start working in April or May. He said he plans to go on a “listening tour” and meet with department members, city staff, oversight officials and community members during his first 100 days.
One of his top priorities, Mitchell said, is bringing the department out of federal court oversight, which requires better tracking and disciplining of officers. He said he’ll do a full evaluation of the department’s strategies as he maps out a plan to reduce crime.
Mitchell supports Oakland’s groundbreaking Ceasefire violence-prevention program, which the mayor revived this year after it went dormant in recent years, and said he values data-driven strategies and being open with the public and the news media.
Mitchell’s appointment follows months of political wrangling after Thao fired Chief LeRonne Armstrong just a month into her tenure in 2023 — the latest round of instability for a police department that has dealt with staffing woes, high turnover among chiefs and on-andoff misconduct issues for years.
Oakland has had 12 police chiefs in the past two decades. Former Chief Anne Kirkpatrick, who served before Armstrong, filed a wrongful termination lawsuit after she was fired and won a $1.5 million jury verdict.
Armstrong, an appointee of the previous mayor, Libby Schaaf, had been placed on paid leave before being dismissed after a report by an independent law firm found he had violated department rules for not reviewing evidence from two misconduct cases before closing the investigations.
Armstrong soon began campaigning for his job back — demanding reinstatement first, appealing his termination, accusing the mayor of retaliating against him for criticizing the federal monitor, and finally filing a lawsuit against the city and Thao.
The bitter rift spilled over into the Police Commission, the independent oversight body created in 2016, which deliberated for months before including Armstrong on a list of nominees last fall that Thao eventually rejected. The mayor can select a chief only from a list of candidates drafted by the commission, according to the City Charter.
“I didn’t imagine that it would take this long and have so many hurdles and have so many, you know, barriers to entry,” Thao said. “If we were back to your old days in Oakland and the mayor were able to choose her police chief, I can tell you that this process would have been done with and over last year.”
A slate of four candidates selected by the commission last month, which included Mitchell, offered Thao a fresh pool.
The mayor set up a panel of her own to interview the group, made up of city officials and community members. The Oakland Police Officers Association declined to participate in the process, according to Sgt. Huy Nguyen, the union’s president.
After observing the panel interviews, the mayor selected two finalists: Mitchell and Lisa Davis, an assistant police chief in Cincinnati, and sat for hourlong interviews with each. Mitchell ultimately won her over with a vision for community involvement that she said felt like it was aligned with her goals on police reform.
“What stood out to me was the depth and his breadth of experience that he is coming with, and his ability to work and collaborate with other organization leaders,” she said. “It’s just not the enforcement piece.”
Nguyen said in a statement that the officers “eagerly anticipate collaborating with Chief Mitchell in serving our community. Despite challenges, our dedicated Oakland Police Officers continue to show up daily to serve our city’s residents.”
Born into a blue-collar family in Kansas City, Mo., Mitchell began his law enforcement career there as a patrol officer. Relationships between police and communities of color were strained, but Mitchell wanted to be part of the solution, he said.
After 25 years with the department, Mitchell left to lead the police department in Temple, and four years later, in 2019, he was appointed police chief in Lubbock.
During his tenure, the Lubbock Police Department was flagged for issues with its 911 system. Abandoned 911 calls doubled in two years, to 30,000 in 2022, out of a total of 183,000 calls, local television station KAMC reported. That means more than 16% percent of 911 callers hung up before their call was answered — statistics a City Council member called unacceptable at the time.
Mitchell said he didn’t pay close attention to the matter, focusing more was on how quickly answered calls were dispatched. In hindsight, he said he should have paid close attention to both metrics. Oakland, too, has suffered from operational issues with its 911 system that Thao has prioritized fixing.
“I learned from that situation, and I will definitely take what I learned when I come into Oakland,” he said.
Mitchell said he resigned in September after difficult decisions he made were met with resistance, although he wouldn’t elaborate.
“When you face resistance, sometimes it’s just easier to say, ‘Maybe it’s just time to go in a different direction,’” he said.
Oakland will be the biggest department that Mitchell has headed.
He said he was drawn to the idea of stepping in to help transform the department. Exactly how he intends to do that wasn’t immediately clear.
“I don’t want to say, ‘Hey, I’m going to come there with all the answers’ without knowing what they’re doing,” he said, “because that’s no way to enter a new organization.”