Oakland Police Sex Scandal: Third Police Chief Steps Down In A Week
UPDATE: 10:30 p.m. EDT -- "I am here to run a police department, not a frat house," Oakland, California, Mayor Libby Schaaf said at a Friday news conference, after a second interim police chief left the city's police force, which has been rocked by a sex scandal involving multiple officers and claims of sex with an underage girl.
Schaaf has opted to withhold some details about the scandal to insure a strong legal case, designed to "root out this toxic macho culture" that pervades the department, according to San Francisco's KGO-TV.
.@LibbySchaaf "I am here to run a police force, not a frat house..." @oaklandpoliceca pic.twitter.com/7sCNSzT4E1
— Laura Anthony (@LauraAnthony7) June 18, 2016
Schaaf said she will not appoint a thid interim chief, but will instead have police officers report to City Administrator Sabrina Landreth, in effect placing civilian oversight over the department's operations.
Original story:
Just two days after Oakland, California, Mayor Libby Schaaf fired interim police Chief Ben Fairow, his replacement has stepped down as acting boss of the beleaguered force.
The move comes a week after Chief Sean Whent was ousted amid a sexual-misconduct scandal involving 14 Oakland police officers and a prostitute daughter of a police dispatcher who claims she had sex with three of them when she was underage.
Sources who spoke to San Francisco's KGO-TV confirmed that Paul Figueroa, formerly the assistant police chief, had withdrawn from the position for personal reasons.
Whent had been credited with improving the reputation of the Oakland Police Department, which for years had faced accusations of police brutality and profiling of minorities. But the suicide of an officer in September and an ensuing cover-up of allegations made in the officer's suicide note led to Whent’s departure June 10.
Schaaf then appointed Fairow, but the mayor abruptly fired him Wednesday, saying she had received new information about him that she declined to reveal.
Now that Figueroa is out as well, a city administrator will temporarily run the department, according to KNTV-TV in San Jose. Figueroa was Oakland’s sixth police chief since 2011, though three of them left the force this month.
At the center of the sex scandal is Celeste Guap, a pseudonym for an 18-year-old prostitute whose mother works as a police dispatcher. Guap claims to have had sex with nearly 30 police officers in different local jurisdictions, sometimes for money. Three of those officers, she claims, had sex with her when she was a minor, including Brendan O’Brien, the officer who committed suicide and left a note claiming he and other officers had had sex with Guap.
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