OAKLAND (KRON) — Forty-four new officers are now in uniform and are ready to patrol the streets of Oakland.
Friday marks the graduation of the Oakland Police Department’s 174th basic police academy class. The new recruits are joining a police department in the midst of sex scandal allegedly involving four officers with an underage girl.
Oakland mayor Libby Schaaf talks about a new executive order aimed at finding problematic traits in those applying for the job of police officer.
“We are also conducting an audit to look at if there is anything that we can do in our background checks, in our training, in an early warning system, to suss out right away these types of character flaws,” Schaaf said.
With the addition of these 44 new officers, Oakland now has 773 men and women in uniform.
That is the highest number of officers in the city since 2010.