OAKLAND, Calif. -- The Oakland Police Department lost its third police chief in eight days as it struggles with allegations that several of its officers had sex with a teenage prostitute and exchanged racially biased text messages.
Mayor Libby Schaaf said acting Police Chief Paul Figueroa was on the job for two days before stepping down Friday but said his decision was not connected to the two scandals.
However, she denounced the department's "toxic, macho culture" and vowed to root out "the bad apples."
"As the mayor of Oakland, I'm here to run a police department, not a frat house," Schaaf said at a news conference Friday evening.
Schaaf said she will not immediately appoint an acting or interim chief. Instead, the command staff will report to City Administrator Sabrina Landreth, who will be responsible for personnel and disciplinary decisions.
"This is the appropriate time to install civilian oversight in this police department," Schaaf said. "I want to assure the citizens of Oakland that we are hell bent on rooting out this disgusting culture."
The Police Department was already engulfed by the sex scandal when Schaaf revealed at the news conference a separate investigation into racially biased text messages that she said were "wholly inappropriate and not acceptable from anyone who wears the badge of the Oakland Police Department."
Schaaf said the number of officers involved in the discriminatory text messages is not as widespread as those involved in the sex scandal, but said the investigation was ongoing. One of the officers under investigation in the text scandal has been placed on leave, she said.
Some of the officers being investigated were "engaging in hate speech," and others were "tolerating it" by receiving offensive messages and not reporting them, Schaaf said.
She said Figueroa has taken a leave of absence and asked to return to the force as a captain, not as an assistant chief.
In a statement released Friday, Figueroa said, "I thank the city for the opportunity, and I am deeply sorry that I was unable to fulfill the functions of acting chief of police."
Schaaf appointed Figueroa on Wednesday after abruptly removing the interim police chief, Ben Fairow, after learning unspecified information that led her to lose confidence in his ability to lead the beleaguered department. She had appointed Fairow after Chief Sean Whent suddenly resigned June 9.
Two officers with the troubled Oakland department have resigned amid the sex scandal, and three others remain on paid leave.
The scandal involving at least 14 Oakland police officers is another blow to a department already under federal oversight over past failures to adequately hold officers accountable for misdeeds that included planting evidence and robbing residents in predominantly black west Oakland.
John Burris, the attorney who negotiated the 2003 settlement that placed Oakland police under federal oversight, said he hoped all of the department's skeletons can be revealed at one time in order to clear a path to real change.
"It appears to be a cesspool here," he said. "But you gotta keep working at it to drain the swamps."
Information for this article was contributed by James Queally of the Los Angeles Times.
A Section on 06/19/2016