Skip to main content

Anne Kirkpatrick Named Oakland’s New Police Chief

She might just save the city.

Anne Kirkpatrick Named Oaklands New Police Chief
AP Photo/Ben Margot

If you Google the Oakland Police Department, you get a link to their website, their phone number and then a litany of articles detailing failure and scandal rife in the department. You'll see how the department went through three police chiefs in eight days as the city realized dozens of officers were involved in a sex scandal with a teenage girl, you'll see a slew of officers suspended or fired in the wake of that scandal, and you'll see the department described as "scandal-tainted," "troubled," and like a "frat house." If you dig a little deeper, you'll see that all this happened after the department worked for years at reform to shed the memory of a group of officers accused of planting evidence on and beating up black residents and to recover from a rocky past.

Well, now the city has brought in someone who they hope will fix the mess. It's someone they believe is the best man for the job, and she's a woman.

The Washington Post reports Oakland tapped Anne Kirkpatrick as the department's next chief. She will be Oakland's first female police chief, but Anne has made it clear that her gender has nothing to do with her job.

“Y’all, those are character traits, and those character traits are not gender-based. Those are leadership-based,” Anne told reporters, addressing a list of characteristics residents said they wanted in a chief. “So I am a leader who is cloaked as a woman, and I am grateful for being a woman, but I will be your leader as well.”

Since Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf called the department a “frat house” with a “toxic, macho culture" in the past, she took the podium recently to let everyone know Anne wasn't chosen specifically because she is a woman who would disrupt that machismo, but because she's most qualified for the overall job. When you look at Anne's more than three-decade run as a police officer, chief and reform leader, it becomes clear why she beat out any other candidates.

Since we live in a time when the gender pay gap still exists, women still face obstacles getting jobs traditionally held by men and child birth is still seen as a drawback to employers, Anne is clearly shattering a glass ceiling. Her gender definitely does not have to do with her job, but for those of us who share her gender, we're pretty grateful for her being a woman too.

Related: The NYPD Made a Very Dangerous Comment About Rape