Oakland police commission members agree to joint peer-support, critical-incident and wellness policy drafts

Two members of the Oakland Police Commission agreed on steps to finalize department wellness policies, including separate but coordinated peer-support and critical-incident policies and a city-formatted wellness policy. One commissioner said she would provide a draft of the peer-support/critical-incident policy by Friday and a wellness-policy draft the following week.

The discussion followed a review of technical problems at a previous meeting and centered on improving support for officers’ mental health. "This is about literally about life and death," a commission member said, emphasizing the human and community impacts of officer mental-health crises and suicides and urging urgency in policy work. The members discussed how gaps in staffing and funding impede implementation and called for clearer accountability and data collection to track results.

Commission members described the proposed policy structure as tiered and collaborative. They said peer support and critical-incident response would remain together because of overlapping functions, while chaplaincy would be treated as a separate policy. The members also proposed mandatory initial contact with a mental-health professional after a critical incident, paired with tiered supports and early psychoeducation to avoid retraumatization.

On process, one member said drafts will be circulated to the department’s peer-support and critical-incident group for a 14-day comment period; both the commission and OPD would reconcile feedback before sending policies through the city's legal and administrative review. "If it's a product of the police commission and the police department, I think it has a lot better chance of not just getting approved, but getting finalized," she said.

The members also discussed reestablishing an advisory board made up of department representatives and outside mental-health professionals to provide resources and oversight. The commission noted weaknesses in data collection and said a grants coordinator position has been vacant for years, hampering efforts to secure outside funding and manage contracts with community partners.

The meeting produced a specific deliverable: the commissioner leading the effort said she would "come up with my version of the final draft and send it to our people and send it to you. I'll do that by Friday." The members agreed to review drafts by email and to reconvene when necessary; the next regular meeting was discussed as occurring on the commission's second and fourth schedule, with the possibility of an extra meeting if needed.

The exchange included mentions of named contributors and stakeholders from the transcript: Maria Madlansacay (trainer), DC Austin (identified in the discussion as supportive), and references to the Oakland Police Department and existing sample policies such as those from the International Association of Chiefs of Police. No formal vote or ordinance was taken during this call; members described next steps and committed to circulating and reviewing draft policies.

What happens next: a draft of the peer-support and critical-incident policy is to be distributed by Friday and a wellness-policy draft in the following week, after which the documents will be circulated to the peer-support/critical-incident team for comment and then routed through city legal and onboarding processes.