On Friday, Gov. Gavin Newsom said that some crime cases in Alameda County will now be handled by a different person.
The governor said that some of the cases that were being brought by the California Highway Patrol in Oakland will now be handled by the state Department of Justice with help from attorneys from the California National Guard.
The news on Friday is the latest step Newsom has taken to fight violent and organized crime in the East Bay. However, the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office strongly disagrees with it.
For months, the governor has been using state resources to help Oakland with its crime problems. For example, more CHP officers have been sent to the city in a series of “surge” operations. 156 felons were arrested because of the operations, Newsom said. At a news gathering in July, the Oakland police chief thanked the team for their work.
But at the time, Newsom said that Pamela Price, the DA of Alameda County, did not want to bring in California Guard attorneys like he did in San Francisco. So, after pulling back from the offer, Newsom said he would go ahead with a different plan to bring cases to justice through the state Department of Justice.
“This is not the job of the AG’s office to assume all the responsibilities of the Alameda County DA’s office,” he said. Not at all, but we want to lighten the load. We need to deal with some of the more complicated cases.
Price has denied what the governor said, saying that his first offer was both wrong and deceptive.
But when NBC Bay Area asked Price for comment on Friday, she sent out a statement saying that her office welcomes state investigators. The released statement says, in part, “We hope the swift agreement reached between the Department of Justice and California Guard yields equally swift results, and my office is willing to assist in that effort in any way possible.”
Price did tell the public that even though there were a lot of arrests because of the CHP rise, only 11 of them were sent to her office to be prosecuted.