But you are delusional if you think anybody as dumb as a US cop is giving up $100/hr for sitting at a desk pretending to do paperwork just because someone wants to take video of it and never review it.
Given the context (government), the taxpayers are probably footing the bill for expensive therapy sessions that go unattended.
EDIT: Between 2010 and 2020 Oakland's population increased 12% and total homicides, not per capita, remained flat. The Covid years (2021-23) saw a big increase in homicides (and presumably other crime) which may account for some of the increase. However by 2024, homicides returned to pre-Covid levels.
sounds like $50 of work for Gemini could replace $490,000 of that officer's overtime.
Some quick googling seems to indicate that Oakland's population also increased nearly 15% in the same time frame. And then, of course, COVID wreaked havoc on everyone in the early 2020s. Crime rates went up, but police staffing remained the same, so more opportunities for overtime?
edit: actually, it looks like Oakland froze police staffing completely in the wake of the George Floyd event, and then cut the OPD budget by $15 million and also reduced sworn officer staffing from 780 to 730. Eliminated 50 police officer jobs.
He is also the head of the labor union…
Source?
>Lieutenant Timothy Dolan, a 26-year veteran who leads the traffic unit and serves as vice president of the OPOA police union, was paid $493,247 in overtime in 2024. Combined with his salary and other pay, this netted him a $711,000 paycheck, making him OPD’s highest-paid employee
Well I'm just going to have to guess his OT is actually 2x and not 1.5x, as otherwise he's working more than 80 hours a week. Or maybe he's only expected to work something like 20 hours a week?
>On July 9, Dolan reported he worked 23 hours. The next day, he worked 16 hours, and for the following three days, he worked 15 hours each.
It just looks like the attorney general in this area has been asleep at the wheel.
Civil cervants need more & better options to get a higher payment within their org structure, I say.
And it’s funny how fans of one hate the other and vice versa.
The data in this article is good, but this piece is really weak. They should have just left this blurb out.
100% of that money should go toward investing in the community and it will provide better results, I'm sure it will lower crime too.
Has anyone ever called the police? I have, a couple of times. They did nothing and seemed to have sub-highschool education when I interacted with them.
I also knew police families growing up. Every single one of them was a raging racist. Something is dangerously wrong with policing in the US (we have the largest prison population in the world). Cutting their funding seems like a great step 1.
In my area, the "Defund the Police" folks on the city council have directly caused a massive increase in overtime by actively thwarting efforts by the mayor and police chief to help improve work conditions and recruiting for the police force.
I look at this and see what I see when I look at any government agency: mismanagement and government worker unions with too much power.
> These guys are decked out in fully blown war paraphernalia
What "guys" are? I see cops every day and none of them are dressed like that.
> Has anyone ever called the police? I have, a couple of times.
Yep, they've been very responsive and helpful.
> I also knew police families growing up. Every single one of them was a raging racist.
Sounds like you surrounded yourself with bad people?
Here you try to shift blame. Is it really the fault of the defund-the-police folks that a single cop gets almost 500k paid per year? How were this the case? Something is fundamentally broken if cops are paid so much more than regular people.
Employees in any profession are going to test boundaries and see what they can get away with. There was a similar report of a BART employee racking up incredible overtime as well.
It’s ultimately whatever the system permits.
If there are abuses of the system, they should be prosecuted, absolutely. I’m not sure that’s the entire story here though
All that overtime with the traffic unit, and what to show for it? Anyone who lives in the Bay knows that cops have completely abdicated their mandate and responsibility for traffic enforcement. The roads truly feel like the Wild West, and those who "serve and protect" are laughing their way to the bank.
Population increased 12% between 2010 and 2020. Total homicides, not per 100k, were roughly the same - 95 vs 110. There was a marked increase in homicides during the Covid years but it dropped back down in 2024.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland,_California#Demographi...
"“At this staffing level, more officers will be forced to work excessive overtime, which in turn will accelerate attrition,” Nguyen said in a statement. “We cannot meet the needs of our community without forcing officers into more shifts.”
It is true that OPD is severely understaffed by hundreds of officers. Mayor Barbara Lee is attempting to shrink the staffing gap, with plans to increase the number of officers. "
That's the head of the police union. Not an objective outsider.
> It is true that OPD is severely understaffed by hundreds of officers
And despite increasing staffing a little, overtime went up a lot. Two things can be simultaneously true: Oakland PD is understaffed and Oakland PD isn't managing overtime spending well.
If they only correct the understaffing problem without fixing overtime, they're going to exacerbate the budgetary issues. It's important for officers to be well-rested when doing their work.
Did you read it? They are understaffed by hundreds of officers. What lower level officers are going to do it when it's all hands on deck to keep the ship afloat?
- [Fetch reports]
- "Select All"
- "Mark as Reviewed"
- Log 7 hours of OT
- Go home
Police unions often resist head count increases if it eats into the overtime scam. And zero cops are "forced" into this, but it's one of the biggest piggy at the trough scams going.
Further, police are just shockingly, unbelievably unaccountable for often being profoundly terrible and completely incompetent at their jobs. Budgets and headcounts keep exploding -- it is usually far and away the #1 cost for local budgets -- while the often far-right police force intentionally doesn't do their job to make some sort of statement.
Adding funding and number of cops, it turns out, is almost meaningless, and instead crime just fluctuates on other society macro elements.
I am not a defund the police person, but policing is at the very top of institutions that needs an extremely close investigation and retooling, being torn down and rebuilt on new foundations if necessary. If police were held to the efficiency standards most of the rest of society is, we would have an infinitely more capable policing system at much lower cost. Instead we have lazy, inept cops who intentionally do a shit job because it earns them overtime, and also sticks it to that "lefty" mayor, etc.
And for the "put their lives on the line" people who invariably drop their rhetoric as a diversion -- https://www.ishn.com/articles/112748-top-25-most-dangerous-j... -- dangerous, but if you aren't also hero worshipping delivery drivers, garbage collectors and roofers, maybe tone down the nonsense.
Yes they also do essential work.
Sitting in a cruiser playing candy crush counting as "work" is funny when you compare it to the fact that flight attendants only get paid for the time when the door is closed on a plane.
Whoever it is, that's always the case in government. It's not their money and any accountability like this is so rare, that there's no need to do things like audit the books or to ask that there be a documented reason why this particular cop needed to do all that OT. The chain of responsibility just abruptly terminates with someone who has the prerogative to approve things without explanation, and that person doesn't (legally or department-policy-wise) owe anyone an explanation, and he won't give one. (Because usually the answer is "Because he's in on the scam himself")
Note: I'm not saying that every civil servant scams. Far from it. I'm saying that conditions are nearly always ripe for this type of thing because those in charge won't be held responsible, and those at the very top are elected officials, who are in more and more areas only vulnerable to primary challenges. So if you have a good enough rep for "supporting team blue/red" you can cruise past plenty of oopsie-daisies like this by just scoring cheap political points.
"government" here can be replaced with any sufficiently large organization. There's nothing special about corruption in overly sized organizations. We've just decided businesses get to do whatever they want because their grift is primary.
Oakland mayor and progressive DA ousted amid crime complaints: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/11/09/oakland-mayor-progr...
As a Bay Area resident and someone who leans very far left - I was not surprised by the impact, and outcome of "policy by slogan".
Look up her current scandal and FBI case involving the local garbage company.
ratelimitsteve•33m ago