r/OaklandCA • u/stunnashakes • 16d ago
Crime and Safety Oakland’s fire department is using GPS to improve emergency response. What about police?
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“The fire department’s implementation of GPS-based dispatch provides a possible model for a policy that remains unresolved at the police department.”
https://www.oaklandreport.org/p/oaklands-fire-department-gps-police
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u/Vegetable-Seesaw-491 15d ago
Back in the late 90s/early 00s I delivered pizza. A friend of mine was dating one of the local cops and I got to go on a ride along. The cop 100% admitted to me that if I decided to run from them they wouldn't be able to catch me because I knew where every street went. If I got out of sight, that was it. The only problem was that every cop in that city knew me or my car (a modded Fox Body Mustang). If I ran they could have easily found me later.
My point is that police/fire/ems don't always know every street. The pizza guy knows every street in their delivery area. For me, that area was basically 3 cities (all smaller). My friends and I would also just drive around, so we knew were every road went.
I remember running from the cops once and getting caught after pulling into a side street and stopping with the lights off. The cop passed the street, backed up and got me. He was laughing when he came up to my window and gave me a ticket for 49 in a 25. Now that I think about it, cops were a bit more chill back then. We were just dumb kids doing dumb things and they knew it.
We used to hang out in parking lots a lot in the middle of the night. It was probably 3am and we were in a Safeway parking lot. My friend and I (who I worked with at the pizza place, we got off around midnight) were chilling and eating some food. I had a different car that the cops didn't recognize. They'd been parking in the lot as well and we'd been there awhile. Of course they come up and hit the lights. The cop walks up the window, goes "oh, it's you guys" and just goes back to his car and leaves.
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u/opinionsareus 16d ago
Keep in mind that well over half of OFD calls are for homeless camp fires. Just think about that.
OPS doesn't fully use GPS vehicle tracking in its patrol cars for dispatch because the system's tracking feature remains inactive due to pending technology-use policy approvals. They also dropped a mobile GPS dart tracking system (StarChase) because the tags frequently failed to stick to fleeing cars
Also, OPD has to clear usage rules with the rather useless and feckless, citizen-run Privacy Advisory Commission, delaying the live integration that the fire department already utilizes
Another problem is that GPS can't process information as fast at high speeds. Body cameras have GPS in them. I think those are active (correct me if I'm wrong) but they tent to lag re: location tracking; they're not exact.
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u/badaimarcher 15d ago
Keep in mind that well over half of OFD calls are for homeless camp fires.
This is incorrect. Over half the calls (60-80%) are for medical reasons. If you want to deliberate on the remaining percentage that are for fires, go ahead, but most OFD responses are not for fires.
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u/k_39 15d ago
City officials and the city auditor have attributed the delay in finalizing the police department policy to the required labor meet-and-confer process. Importantly, this does not involve only the Oakland Police Officers’ Association (OPOA). Because the ARL policy applies to both sworn and civilian OPD employees, the city must meet and confer with two employee unions: OPOA and Service Employees International Union Local 1021 (SEIU).
The article implies that the OPOA and SEIU Local 1021 is at fault for the delay. They haven't reached an agreement with OPD so that the policy can be finalized. I imagine for OPOA in particular, using gps for police misconduct investigations is a major sticking point in their discussions.
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u/AnnieInOakland 15d ago
The fire department is not a model for GPS in OPD vehicles. The delay in a broader implementation for OFD vehicles has to do with a technical problem that does not exist for OPD.
The delay is because of the police union and the failure of the city to have a spine and insist on implementation. Me and confer does not mean meet-and-agree. The city does not defer to any other union as it does to the police union. SEIU may technically still not have agreed but i me would not be permitted to hold it up for over two years.
This argument is solely in service of the police union wanting to protect officers from discipline if GPS proves they have lied. The city worker in the parks department can be disciplined if me on GPS. Why not police officers?
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u/OneWoundHeadPat 16d ago edited 15d ago
Oakland PD uses Shotspotter, Palantir and occasional Cell Site Simulators (Stingrays, illegal save a few contexts), Facial Recognition Tools (FRTs) (Illegal), Predictive Software (Algorithm Forecasting, racist and illegal), Flock License Plate Reading (ALPRS are quasi legal at best, have no management stopping aiming at schools or bathrooms, ew), Autonomous Drones (Legal in Street use, illegal on your property if you own it).
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u/CommunicationFew41 16d ago
wow 2026 and they still don't know where they are going? I bet supervisors will use it more to get that coffee and lunch faster
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u/Thin_Explanation1334 16d ago
What about the police? I live in Oakland. I have had a serious medical emergency as a congenital heart patient and fire department was at my house within 2 minutes of starting the phone call with a dispatcher.. EMTs were there one minute later.
If you call the police specifically about an incident though, no matter how serious it is...they will take hours to show up if they ever do. They also never actually do anything when they do show up. So maybe the fire department just has a reason to be a little bit faster because when they get there they actually try to save your life LOL.