OAKLAND — Gov. Gavin Newsom reversed a decision to send extra prosecutors to help Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price crack down on crime in the East Bay, saying he was “disappointed” in Price’s “lack of enthusiasm” to partner up and receive additional aid.
The move marked an unexpected reversal of an offer made in February to send prosecutors from the California Department of Justice and the National Guard to the East Bay to help prosecute crimes and quell rates of theft and violent crime. It was modeled off a similar program in San Francisco that sent military attorneys to the city to help prosecute drug crimes.
“Rather than complaining about it, rather than lamenting about it, we’re going to be moving some of the prosecutors to the state of California, the attorney general’s office,” said Newsom at a press conference Thursday in West Oakland. In doing so, he expressed frustration at how the proposed partnership “was not enthusiastically embraced” by Price’s office.
“Yes, we’ve been disappointed,” Newsom said.
Newsom’s comments came as he announced yet another surge of California Highway Patrol officers to Oakland and the East Bay, following several similar boosts in staffing across the region since the beginning of the year. He said that highway patrol officers would increase their shifts in the city from 42 to 162 over the next four months.
The decision to backtrack on the offer for additional prosecutors in the East Bay was outlined in a letter by Ann Patterson, a cabinet secretary, to Price suggesting that the district attorney’s office took too long to agree to a memorandum of understanding that would have paved the way for the prosecutors’ arrival.
The DA’s office had not taken “initial” steps to finalize such an agreement with Newsom’s office, or to deputize National Guard attorneys to work in her office, according to the letter. That’s despite the fact Newsom’s office having fulfilled requests by Price’s team for resumes and interviews, it said.
“It was clear to me that it was just — we were just extending for time, and there wasn’t a sincere commitment to follow through on the offer,” Newsom said.
Newsom also noted that the head of Price’s narcotics unit has left her office in the months since Newsom offered to send the prosecutors, dealing another blow to the partnership. He suggested that he ran out of patience with the continued vows by Price’s office to review job applications and conduct interviews for that position.
“We expressed frustration with that,” Newsom said. “We talked about the urgency of now, this moment we’re living in. Enough. We all have to step up, we all have to be accountable. All of us.”
The prosecutors tabbed for the partnership will be reassigned to other posts whose focuses will be prosecuting state crimes in Alameda County, as well as drug crimes across Northern California, the governor’s office said.
The District Attorney’s Office did not immediately reply to a request by this news organization for comment.
Check back for updates to this developing story.