Berkeley Police present 2024 annual report to City Council; shootings and robberies fall while staffing gaps persist

The Berkeley Police Department gave a detailed presentation on its 2024 annual report at a special City Council work session on March 18, telling council members the department responded to 61,666 calls for service last year while operating below authorized staffing levels.

"We responded to 61,666 calls for service," said Speaker 4, the department's lead presenter, and noted the agency was operating with 154 officers on the books, about 140 available for full duty, against an authorized strength of 181; dispatch staffing was reported as 17 of 36 positions. The department reported a vacancy rate of about 21 percent.

Why it matters: the department said 911 calls rose by 9 percent even as non‑emergency calls declined, increasing demand for higher‑priority responses that require more officers and time on scene.

The report described measurable shifts in crime. Arlo Malmberg, the department's strategic planning and accountability manager, summarized three analyses the department used to assess bias in discretionary stops and searches. "In 2024, we do in fact see a close alignment between the demographic profiles of at‑fault drivers and those stopped for moving violations," Malmberg said, and he reported stop and yield‑rate tests that the department said are consistent with race‑neutral decisionmaking in the sampled measures.

The department also highlighted offense trends: shootings fell by 26 percent and robberies fell by 43 percent in 2024, while some property crimes remain above pre‑pandemic levels. BPD reported a recovery of 110 firearms — a 28 percent increase over the previous year — and said targeted retail‑theft operations over six months produced 79 arrests.

Chief (presenter) and senior staff described operational changes and new programs to address workload and crime trends. The department said it had deployed 32 automated license plate reader cameras that produced 14 investigative leads and 14 arrests in early months, and asked council to consider installing fixed surveillance cameras at key intersections to complement the ALPR network. BPD also said it is piloting an expansion of community service officers (CSOs), with three CSOs in training and full deployment expected by the end of April to handle nonemergency calls and traffic control.

Accountability measures and training were emphasized. The presentation cited creation of an Office of Strategic Planning and Accountability (OSPA), rollout of a Benchmark Analytics early‑intervention system, and a departmentwide "KIND" training program focused on fair, impartial policing and de‑escalation; the department said nearly all officers completed at least 40 hours of that training in 2024.

Traffic safety was a major focus: BPD reported 877 collisions in 2024 (4 fatal, 559 injury, 314 non‑injury) and identified speeding as the most commonly noted primary collision factor. The intersection of Ashby and San Pablo avenues was cited as the highest‑crash location (16 crashes, 10 injuries). The department said it uses collision and community reports to guide enforcement and that Office of Traffic Safety grant funding supports enforcement and education programs.

Council members asked detailed follow‑up questions about definitions used in the report (for example, how the department defines low‑level force and "minor discomfort"), the NIBRS transition that changed reporting categories, district breakdowns of 911 calls, and the interface between BPD and the city's Specialized Care Unit for mental‑health responses. In response, staff said the Transparency Hub provides downloadable data back to 2016 for crimes and to 2019 for calls for service and that some categories changed with NIBRS, complicating direct year‑over‑year comparisons.

Public commenters praised the department's training and intervention partnerships and requested broader time series on the public dashboard for better context. The session ended with a motion to adjourn the work session and a unanimous roll‑call vote to move on to the regular 6:00 p.m. meeting.

What happens next: BPD said several items require further follow up or council consideration, including any decision to install fixed cameras and continuing work to align force reporting with peer agencies; the department and council members also said they will pursue additional data slices (district breakdowns, mental‑health handoffs and comparative jurisdictions) in future reports.