What happened when Gavin Newsom sent a ‘surge’ of state troopers to fight crime in Oakland

This text was produced in partnership with the non-profit newsroom Type Investigations.

On August 28, Gov. Gavin Newsom sat down behind a desk towards a backdrop of American and California state flags, flanked by state patrolmen, to fulfill the press. Earlier that yr, President Donald Trump had despatched navy troops into Los Angeles to protect towards “violence and disorder,” and by late August, Trump had mused that San Francisco was subsequent. 

Addressing the phalanx of television cameras, the governor spoke to individuals’s fears about crime and dysfunction whereas refusing to present the president any ammunition in his effort to painting California as lawless underneath Newsom’s management.  

He held up an indication studying, “IN CALIFORNIA CRIME IS DOWN,” at the same time as he stated, “We’re aware that we now have much more work to do.”

Newsom had known as the press convention to announce an growth of certainly one of his signature initiatives on crime — the CHP “surge.” The pitch was to deploy officers from the greater than 7,000-strong California Freeway Patrol, usually tasked with patrolling the state’s huge freeway system, to the state’s highest crime cities, saturating communities with their acquainted black and white patrol automobiles.  

The operations started in February 2024 in Oakland, which has one of many highest violent crime rates within the nation and had suffered what Newsom known as an “alarming” improve in violence through the first few years of the pandemic. With the blessing of Oakland’s then mayor, Sheng Thao, he started a sequence of extremely publicized surges, accompanied by common press releases touting the confiscation of a whole bunch of firearms, the restoration of 1000’s of stolen automobiles, and 1000’s of arrests.

Quickly, he expanded the operations to Bakersfield and San Bernardino. Then, sitting earlier than the cameras 18 months in, Newsom pledged to develop the CHP surges to Los Angeles, San Diego, the Central Valley, and Southern California’s Inland Empire, the place he wished to construct on the “success of this confirmed program.” 

However what unfolded in Oakland was hardly the daring crime-fighting initiative the governor promoted on tv, an investigation by The Oaklandside and Kind Investigations has discovered. Within the surge yr of 2024, CHP officers averaged one or two assault arrests per thirty days and logged no different violent crime arrests. As an alternative, CHP officers started ratcheting up visitors stops — disproportionately stopping Black and Latino drivers.

Newsom has decried racial profiling by federal companies. Final July, he condemned the actions of immigration agents in Los Angeles, saying, “They’re violating constitutional rights, terrorizing neighborhoods and companies and concentrating on individuals due to their pores and skin coloration and the language they converse.” But the CHP’s personal information exhibits that folks of coloration have been disproportionately swept up by Newsom’s surge. 

The Oaklandside and Kind Investigations obtained two years of information capturing greater than 38,000 CHP stops in Oakland, temporary detentions that normally started with a suspected visitors violation and barely led to arrest. We discovered that in 2023, the yr earlier than Newsom’s initiative, the CHP stopped 5,027 Black drivers within the metropolis. That quantity jumped to 7,461 in 2024, the primary yr of the surges, a 48% improve. Stops of Latino drivers jumped from 4,820 to 7,748, a 60% improve.

Black individuals and Latinos every made up round a 3rd of CHP stops through the 2024 surge yr, a price barely increased than the town’s proportion of Latinos — and much increased than the town’s Black inhabitants, at 19%. 

“They’re racially profiling,” stated Philippe Kelly, an organizer with Oakland’s Ella Baker Middle for Human Rights, which has campaigned towards police misconduct.  

The overwhelming majority of individuals the CHP encountered have been warned or ticketed, in line with the company’s information. But arrests climbed as CHP touchpoints elevated, up 64% for Black individuals and up 96% — practically doubling — for Latinos. These encounters can carry particular dangers for noncitizens.

Driving underneath the affect was the most typical cost. Drug possession and paraphernalia arrests greater than doubled. Arrests for auto theft and weapons possession rose, although they remained small in quantity.

Sooner or later final summer time, Kelly, who’s Black, stated he seen a CHP automotive trailing him. He suspects the officer ran his plate earlier than peeling off. Within the span of quarter-hour, Kelly stated a second, after which a 3rd CHP automotive pulled up behind him. Nobody initiated a cease, however Kelly stated their presence despatched his coronary heart racing. 

“I used to be scared to dying,” stated Kelly. “All the experiences that I’ve had up to now with cops have by no means been good.”

 California legislation explicitly banned racial profiling throughout police stops a decade in the past. The law mandated that legislation enforcement companies gather and analyze information about stops as a way to determine and remove disparities. Since then, information collected by the California Division of Justice exhibits that throughout legislation enforcement companies across the state, stops of Black individuals have remained stubbornly excessive.

“All legislation enforcement working in Oakland have to be accountable to our group and our values of equity and fairness,” Mayor Barbara Lee stated in a response to our findings. “Reported disparities have to be examined and addressed.”

The Oaklandside and Kind Investigations discovered proof that the CHP concentrated its patrols in neighborhoods of coloration.  We mapped a pattern of the company’s stops for the month of June 2024, a complete of round 2,000 — a reasonably typical month-to-month tally.

We discovered a focus of CHP stops on highways, a sign that the officers have been largely taking part in their conventional position as freeway patrol. The stops that occurred on metropolis streets have been clustered in West Oakland, Fruitvale, and areas surrounding the Oakland Coliseum — all predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods. In contrast, wealthier, whiter components of Oakland, comparable to Claremont and Montclair, had virtually no stops, regardless of abutting Freeway 24 and Route 13.

Of the greater than 23,000 CHP stops throughout Oakland in 2024, the latest yr for which information is obtainable, 1,140 resulted in arrests or misdemeanor citations, simply over 5%. Black individuals made up 36% of these arrests, practically twice their proportion of the town’s inhabitants. Latinos make up round 30% of the city’s population however made up greater than 43% of the CHP’s arrests. In contrast, White individuals skilled 11% of arrests and Asians and Center Jap individuals skilled 7% — lower than half their share of Oakland’s inhabitants. 

Cease numbers for Native American, Pacific Islander, and blended race people have been too small to be included in our evaluation.

Frankie Ramos, a group organizer who works within the closely immigrant and Latino group of Fruitvale, described Newsom’s CHP push as a publicity stunt to assist lay the groundwork for a possible presidential run. By Newsom’s personal estimation, he has held 9 or ten press occasions in the previous few years targeted on his crime suppression efforts. 

“Portray inside cities as crime-ridden and scapegoating immigrants and folks of coloration, it’s an outdated playbook,” stated Ramos, organizing director for Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice. “And it really works.” 

A Fox Information host, responding to the August press convention, stated the governor was taking “a web page out of President Trump’s playbook.”

On the press convention, Newsom was requested if his deliberate growth was a response to Trump’s suggestion that he would possibly ship the Nationwide Guard to different California cities, after LA. The governor was fast to reject the comparability. 

“We’re not reacting and responding to something, fairly the opposite,” he stated. “He’s doing issues to individuals, not with individuals, and so, some extent of profound and consequential distinction.” 

Few violent crime arrests

Our information evaluation revealed one main accomplishment of the surge: a whole bunch of arrests for driving underneath the affect, which kills greater than 1,300 people a year within the state and has lengthy been a major focus for the CHP. In 2024, CHP officers made 615 DUI arrests in Oakland, up 30% from 2023.

The surge noticed an uptick in CHP arrests on different costs, together with drug or paraphernalia possession, which greater than doubled from 47 in 2023 to 127 in 2024. Arrests for obstruction or resisting an officer practically quadrupled from 16 to 66. In 9 of these 66 chases, obstruction was the one alleged crime. 

CHP officers made 267 automotive theft arrests throughout 2024 and, although retail theft has remained a sizzling button problem in Oakland, solely six different theft arrests.

Our evaluation confirmed the CHP did little to carry perpetrators of violence accountable. There have been 18 arrests for assault or battery in 2024. However not a single individual was logged as arrested by the company for murder, theft, or sexual assault through the first surge yr.

Diana Crofts-Pelayo, a spokesperson for Newsom, declined to reply intimately to our findings, directing us to his previous press conferences and saying solely, “The state is happy with its investments in public security and its key partnerships with native legislation enforcement companies to make sure California communities are safer day by day.”

Impartial researchers have discovered disparities in CHP stops up to now. Evaluation by The California Coverage Lab has repeatedly discovered that CHP officers disproportionately stop Black drivers. For instance, the researchers discovered that statewide, Black individuals have been stopped by CHP 74% more typically than White individuals in 2019 and famous that the Bay Space had a number of the highest disparities within the state.

CHP spokesperson Jaime Espresso stated officers base enforcement actions on noticed violations, not demographics, and the place officers are deployed displays requires service and visitors quantity. She stated neighborhoods have been chosen for CHP patrols in coordination with the Metropolis of Oakland and the Oakland Police Division.

“We take allegations of racial profiling critically,” Espresso wrote in an e mail. “Our focus stays on skilled, unbiased policing and sustaining the group’s belief.”

Espresso didn’t reply to claims that the governor was utilizing CHP sources as a publicity stunt. In response to our findings that CHP officers made only a few arrests for violent crimes, she stated, “Broadly talking, efforts to cut back violent crime usually are not restricted to arrests for violent crime.”

“Our seen presence on the highways deters crime,” Espresso wrote. “Freeway enforcement is usually the primary level of contact that uncovers wished suspects, stolen automobiles, or different indicators of violent or organized crime. Even a routine cease can turn into an investigation.”

An embrace by Oakland officers

Alameda County, dwelling to Oakland, Berkeley, and different East Bay cities, noticed a pointy uptick in crime through the pandemic, in line with information analyzed by the nonprofit Public Policy Institute of California. Violent crimes rose by 39% and property crimes by 28% from 2022 to 2023 — although nonetheless remaining under statewide peaks within the Nineteen Eighties and Nineteen Nineties. Comparable will increase in crime have been seen during the pandemic across the US.

The primary CHP surge operation in Oakland was supported by then-Mayor Sheng Thao, who publicly praised Newsom’s transfer, calling it “a game-changer in serving to us maintain extra criminals accountable.” Thao, who was recalled final yr and is now dealing with a federal indictment on corruption costs, didn’t return requests for remark.

Since then, the Oakland Police Division has posted substantial drops in crime, consistent with a nationwide pattern that noticed a surge in crime through the pandemic adopted by a steep decline. Homicides fell by 32% in 2024 in comparison with the yr prior, and auto thefts dropped at an analogous price. Since President Donald Trump known as out Oakland as certainly one of a number of cities which might be “thus far gone” resulting from crime, Lee, who took workplace in Could, has known as on the media to “reject these false narratives” about crime within the metropolis. 

“Oakland is cleaner and safer,” Lee stated in October.

But Lee and Oakland Metropolis Councilmember Charlene Wang, who chairs the council’s public security committee, stated they proceed to welcome the CHP’s assist. CHP Sergeant Andrew Barclay, an company spokesperson, instructed us that takes the type of a surge in Oakland each few weeks or so, throughout which the state company sends as many as 40 officers to “proactively patrol” metropolis streets. 

Wang stated she is very involved about ongoing crime in components of her district, comparable to Chinatown and Little Saigon. 

“It’s fairly irritating,” Wang stated. “Stuff that doesn’t even make the information, and stuff that individuals are not reporting, as a result of they’re so fed up with getting a nonresponse that they don’t even hassle calling.”

An OPD spokesperson responded to queries with an announcement saying that the CHP focuses on “Oakland’s Excessive Harm Community, corridors, and intersections with the very best focus of extreme and deadly crashes.” OPD didn’t reply to an in depth record of questions, together with how the division collaborates with the CHP and whether or not OPD was involved about our findings of racial disparities within the CHP’s stops and arrests in Oakland. 

“We additionally need to make it clear that the division, the Mayor, the Governor, and CHP usually are not in competitors with each other,” the OPD spokesperson wrote. “Our purpose is to work collaboratively to maintain our metropolis protected.”

Metropolis leaders have lengthy argued that the OPD is woefully quick staffed, and a September report back to the town’s impartial police commission found greater than 100 officers at the moment on both medical or administrative go away. Lee has stated she needs to see the division develop from 644 officers to 700. 

In September, the OPD disbanded its visitors unit, reassigning its six traffic enforcement officers to patrol — and Wang is a proponent of CHP backfilling these roles. Final fiscal yr, greater than 1,000 individuals in Oakland have been injured in collisions and 45 individuals have been killed, in line with a current OPD report to the City Council.

“ Long run, I don’t suppose that CHP is the answer,” Wang stated. “However, I feel within the quick time period, what we’re going to see is much more Oaklanders touchdown within the hospital or households going to funerals associated to those visitors incidents. And I don’t suppose that’s acceptable both.” 

Claims with weak foundations

On the August press occasion, Newsom made some daring claims about his initiative’s success, saying that the CHP had recovered “over 4,000 automobiles in Oakland alone,” for the reason that starting of operations 18 months earlier, and, in April, he celebrated 170 illicit gun recoveries within the Bay Space within the yr for the reason that marketing campaign started. He has known as these the “tangible outcomes” of the surge.

Nonetheless, these numbers far exceed the stolen automobile and weapons arrests within the CHP information we obtained.

Our evaluation exhibits that whereas the CHP operations practically doubled weapons arrests and practically tripled stolen automobile arrests from 2023 to 2024, the entire numbers remained fairly small. CHP made 29 weapons-related arrests in Oakland in 2023; in 2024, marked by practically a full yr of CHP surges, the freeway patrol made 55 such arrests.

The CHP additionally ratcheted up stolen vehicle-related arrests, posting 81 in 2023 and 267 in 2024. Nonetheless, these arrests are far shy of the 4,000 recovered automobiles Newsom claimed — not to mention the 10,439 car thefts reported in Oakland that yr. 

We requested CHP how the company arrived on the 4,000 quantity. Espresso, the CHP spokesperson, stated the rely consists of recoveries from a big swath of the East Bay, not Oakland alone, and consists of recoveries by a activity pressure that features each CHP officers and native legislation enforcement. She additionally stated these numbers replicate recoveries from a bigger time window than the 2024 surge effort. 

We submitted a public data request asking the CHP for documentation of the gun and stolen automobile recoveries Newsom had cited. The company’s data custodian instructed us none existed. Espresso later adopted as much as say that the gun information does exist and was not provided resulting from an “unintentional inner error.” The company had nonetheless not supplied data at press time.

It’s not the one time the CHP appeared to pad its outcomes. Shortly after the surge started, we requested CHP Lieutenant Matt Gutierrez to make clear the info behind Newsom’s claims concerning the first surge week, from February 5 to 9, 2024. In a press release, Newsom’s workplace stated the surge had resulted in “the arrest of 71 suspects, the restoration of 145 stolen automobiles, and the seizure of 4 crime-linked firearms.” Gutierrez stated these tallies included arrest numbers from January 22 onward, the date CHP first started assigning officers to the realm. That method added two weeks of information to the five-day surge figures, greater than doubling the variety of suspects arrested.

When requested concerning the discrepancy, Espresso stated the “CHP’s precedence is to report enforcement outcomes transparently and precisely.” 

A historical past of CHP controversy in Oakland

The CHP’s embrace by Oakland’s elected officers hasn’t been shared by the town’s legislation enforcement watchdogs. Oakland organizers comparable to Cat Brooks, govt director of the Anti-Police Terror Challenge, have criticized the CHP for flouting guidelines Oakland has established to control legislation enforcement — particularly its restrictions on police chases. 

“It’s just like the wild, wild west for them,” she stated. 

For the final decade, Oakland has restricted police car chases to solely critically threatening conditions and requires a pursuit to be terminated if the danger turns into too excessive for bystanders. Many different massive cities, together with New York and Atlanta, have related insurance policies, however Newsom’s workplace has publicly criticized Oakland’s as “extreme.” 

In Could, the problem exploded into controversy when CHP officers chased a automotive by a residential space southeast of Lake Merritt. Marvin Boomer, 39, a public college trainer, was strolling along with his girlfriend, Nina Woodruff, in Oakland’s San Antonio neighborhood when the fleeing driver crashed into a close-by fireplace hydrant, which struck and killed him. 

Woodruff instructed The Oaklandside that as she kneeled subsequent to her boyfriend’s physique in horror and disbelief, a CHP officer handled her disrespectfully, asking if she’d been within the suspect’s automotive and demanding that she transfer away. Although the CHP has stated, citing video, that it ended its pursuit earlier than the deadly crash happened, she’s nonetheless satisfied that the CHP holds some duty for his dying.

“ A residential neighborhood is not any place for a high-speed chase, interval,” Woodruff stated.

Protected streets advocates noticed Boomer’s dying as a consequence of the CHP taking part in by its personal guidelines and demanded an finish to Newsom’s surges. 

Espresso declined to touch upon the circumstances surrounding Boomer’s dying citing pending litigation.

Then in October, one other CHP chase in Oakland resulted in a collision. When officers sought to tug over a driver for failing to show license plates, the person sped away, in line with the CHP. A chase ensued and the driving force struck one other automobile, sending it up a sidewalk the place witnesses instructed The Oaklandside it collided with a fireplace hydrant and destroyed a close-by taco stand. 

The CHP had beforehand come underneath scrutiny in June 2020, after officers shot Erik Salgado and Brianna Colombo, each 23, whereas they have been touring in a stolen Dodge Challenger in East Oakland. Plainclothes CHP officers tried to cease them after which, after Salgado, the driving force, struck two automobiles, the officers fired a barrage of bullets, killing Salgado and placing Colombo a number of occasions. Each have been unarmed. 

The CHP later agreed to pay $7 million to settle a wrongful dying swimsuit introduced on behalf of Salgado’s mom and the couple’s then 6-year-old daughter. 

Benjamin Nisenbaum, one of many household’s attorneys, instructed The Oaklandside he wasn’t stunned to study that the CHP had disproportionately stopped Black and Latino motorists, saying, “After all.”

Nisenbaum, who has litigated a number of police misconduct instances, stated that with stepped-up enforcement, officers typically depend on implicit bias to information their stops or focus their enforcement efforts on components of city with extra individuals of coloration. 

“They aren’t surging up in Montclair or…on Piedmont Ave.,” he stated. 

No construction for accountability

Information present CHP surges in Oakland usually are not solely new. 

CHP’s partnerships with the OPD return practically 20 years, a minimum of. In accordance with Metropolis Council data, the CHP reported that it had spent $3.28 million in additional time for supplemental patrols in Oakland from 2007 to 2013. 

On the time, the police chief argued that quick staffing was affecting OPD’s capability to reply to crimes in progress. Information from these previous operations mirror features of the Newsom surges: a lot of CHP stops in Oakland from November 2012 to early February 2013 — 2,338 — resulted in a whole bunch of DUI arrests and solely 14 gun recoveries. No racial breakdown of the stops or arrests was included within the metropolis council report. 

Within the two years that adopted, from August 2013 by August 2015, the Metropolis of Oakland determined to increase the CHP assist by protecting the prices itself, agreeing to allocate up to $2.6 million for the CHP to deploy a dozen officers, 4 days per week, within the metropolis. The promise then — as now — was to flood sure neighborhoods with high-visibility patrols and to help with “gang-related violence and crime.” 

The Memorandum of Understanding hooked up to that report makes clear that Oakland was in cost. Dated Could 2013, it lays out that CHP officers will function underneath “particular directives” issued by OPD outlining “precedence enforcement primarily based on public security wants.” It emphasizes that “OPD retains jurisdiction,” however however leaves the CHP answerable for any investigations into claims of wrongdoing by CHP officers.

That is the one MOU between OPD and CHP we have been in a position to acquire, and it doesn’t seem to cowl the current Newsom surges.

The Oaklandside and Kind investigations sought lively collaboration agreements or MOUs from Oakland and each different police and sheriff division in areas named in Newsom’s growth. None of those native companies supplied one.

The Oaklandside and Kind Investigations additionally requested CHP price range and planning paperwork associated to the current surge, however the CHP stated there was nothing to supply. 

Some proof has surfaced of rigidity between the companies.

In April 2024, Capt. Eriberto Perez-Angeles, OPD’s liaison to the CHP, instructed the Oakland Police Fee, an oversight physique, that he had been stonewalled by the state company when he sought particulars about its automotive stops. He stated CHP responded by handing over some data after which telling Perez-Angeles to file a public data request for the remaining.

“It’s irritating that we will’t have an open line of communication,” stated Ricardo Garcia-Acosta, chair of the fee. 

In the meantime, Newsom significantly expanded surveillance within the metropolis, declaring in March 2024, weeks after surges started, that the CHP was putting in 480 automated license plate readers in Oakland and the East Bay — an growth supported by Thao, then Oakland’s mayor. 

Brian Hofer was chair of the town’s Privateness Advisory Fee on the time and has lengthy held considerations that information collected by plate readers could possibly be utilized by exterior companies in search of to arrest immigrants or police reproductive or gender-affirming care.

It’s one motive why Hofer and the fee efficiently championed the passage of what the town known as the “strongest surveillance ordinance in the country” in 2018 and pushed for a moratorium on license plate readers within the years that adopted.

Newsom and the CHP sidelined the privateness fee altogether. Not solely did the oversight physique haven’t any say within the contract and growth, Hofer stated, however the fee was solely invited to weigh on a memorandum of understanding governing the cameras after it had been signed. 

Hofer stated he believed Newsom was “forcing license plate readers down our throats” to burnish a future presidential bid. 

In July, after Trump’s aggressive immigration raids started, the San Francisco Commonplace reported that each CHP and Oakland police information had been shared with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and different federal companies.

Hofer resigned in November, annoyed and previous his time period restrict. He and his privateness advocacy group, Safe Justice, hit the town with a lawsuit days later, accusing Oakland of violating state and native privateness legal guidelines as a result of plate reader program. 

“My largest concern is that we’re principally constructing these methods for Trump,” Hofer stated. “We’re gathering the info for Trump for any authoritarian to make use of.”

Espresso, the CHP spokesperson, confirmed by e mail that there was a “single incident the place a CHP Officer accessed the Flock Information System in violation of CHP Coverage and State Legislation.”  

“As quickly as this was found, all CHP staff have been retrained, and quarterly audits are carried out to make sure no additional violations happen,” Espresso stated.

She famous that the CHP shouldn’t be beholden to native watchdogs: “Particular person cities forming commissions, advisory councils, and so forth., are solely throughout the scope of these cities and never different companies throughout the state.” 

Garcia-Acosta expressed concern about our findings that the CHP surge has had a disproportionate impression on Black and Latino residents, however he stated there’s little the Police Fee can do. 

“We don’t actually have any recourse for that,” he stated. “We simply throw our fingers up.”

Future surges

On the August press convention, when Newsom introduced that he would develop his “crime suppression” initiative into different components of the state, Sean Duryee, the CHP commissioner, fleshed out the main points. He stated the plan was so as to add groups of 12 to fifteen full-time officers in every goal metropolis, together with Los Angeles, San Diego, and cities within the Central Valley, with the potential so as to add extra officers for particular operations. It was a far cry from the 4,000 National Guards members Trump despatched to Los Angeles final summer time or the administration’s 2,000-strong surge of ICE agents despatched to Minneapolis in January.

Whereas a dozen officers would possibly make a distinction in Oakland, which has lower than 700 native cops, Los Angeles is already policed by about 8,600 LAPD officers and roughly 8,700  sheriff’s deputies.

“Even in a metropolis with massive legislation enforcement companies,” Espresso, the CHP spokesperson, stated, “focused CHP deployments could make a measurable impression.” 

Precisely how dramatic these surges are stays an open query. Espresso, for instance, described Bakersfield as “a precedence space for CHP’s crime-reduction efforts” and instructed us the company stays lively there. 

However once we reached out to Sally Selby, a spokesperson for the Bakersfield Police Division, she had a distinct impression.

Selby stated by e mail that the division did collaborate with CHP investigators throughout retail theft suppression operations final yr. Sooner or later in Could 2025, for instance, a joint CHP group rolled as much as a Bakersfield mall, stepping up enforcement for Previous Navy, Goal, Tub & Physique Works, and Macy’s; recovered stolen merchandise value $1,638; and arrested 13 individuals, in line with a division press launch. 

That crackdown garnered intensive protection by native tv retailers.

However Selby instructed us there have been no extra deliberate joint operations resulting from limits on CHP funding. “Apparently, there are three CHP officers assigned to the complete Central Valley, so right now, they’re targeted on different communities, not Bakersfield,” Selby stated. “We’re hopeful that sooner or later subsequent yr, a joint operation could be deliberate.”

This story was produced with assist from the Wayne Barrett Challenge. Further reporting by Ethan Corey.