Stories you shouldn’t miss:
1. Chief Anthony Batts announced the reorganization of the Oakland Police Department in an attempt to maintain public safety with a much smaller force. Oakland has 637 police officers, down from more than 800 when Batts was hired by then-Mayor Ron Dellums in 2009. As a result, Batts is decreasing the city’s geographic policing areas from three to two, consolidating major crimes investigations, and moving officers who are recovering from injuries from desk jobs to the property crimes unit, the Chron and Trib report. The Oakland police union, meanwhile, is expected to announce today whether its rank-and-file members have approved a tentative deal with city leaders that would require cops to pay 9 percent of their pensions.
