Oakland's New Chief Attends Community Meeting

Anthony Batts was hired earlier this year and officially takes over the department following a swearing in ceremony on October 19th.

But the soon-to-be-former Chief of the Long Beach Police Department believes in hitting the ground running, so he appeared at an elementary school in the Rockridge neighborhood this weekend to introduce himself.

KCBS' Mark Seelig reports

"Number one it's very important to allow them to hear what my vision is," he said.

He says violent crime is clearly Oakland's top priority right now, and he promises to track crime and have the resources to deal with it.

Batts says he's worried about the disconnect that currently exists between his department and the community at large.

"The reality is that we carry guns around, we have a tremendous amount of power," he said. "We have to make sure that the public knows that we're using that in a correct way."

He says he'll implement short term strategies to help fight crime, but asks that residents give him 90 days to take stock of the department before unveilling some of his longer-term strategies.

Batts says the bottom line is that too many people are dying on the streets of Oakland and it's going to take a collaborative effort involving police, civilians, chuch leaders and members of the business community to fix. He challenged them all to join him in fighting for peace.

(ewi)