Oakland’s powerful civilian-led police oversight body has released the names of four new candidates looking to be hired as the city’s permanent police chief that they will interview on Thursday.
They include Abdul Pridgen, the former police chief in San Leandro; Floyd Mitchell, the former chief in Lubbock, Texas; Lisa Davis, the assistant chief in Cincinnati; and Louis Molina, who has served as a public safety official in New York since last fall.
It’s not yet clear if these candidates are the only ones in the running for the chief job, or if there are others who will not be interviewed in public at the forum, which will take place 6:30 p.m. Thursday at City Hall.
The commission, a decision-making body comprised of volunteers, declared a “media blackout” after publicizing a shortlist of Oakland police chief candidates in late December.
Mayor Sheng Thao rejected that list of candidates, which notably included the former chief, LeRonne Armstrong, who was controversially fired last February and whom the mayor has said she will not rehire.
Armstrong’s spokesperson said recently he is no longer seeking to be reinstated. He isn’t on the new list.
In a letter this week to the commission’s chair, Thao said that she would not participate in Thursday’s forum, arguing that its public nature could ward away candidates who were wary of angering their current employer by searching for a new job.
“Since December, I have met several outstanding law enforcement leaders nationwide,” Thao wrote. “Many expressed interest in applying for the role. Unfortunately, when presented with the prospect of a public forum, possible candidates declined or withdrew their names from consideration.”
Of the four candidates set to be interviewed Thursday, two are currently employed and the other two recently left their jobs. Here’s some background on them, below:
Abdur Pridgen
Pridgen, the only candidate recycled from the commission’s previously rejected shortlist, was most recently the chief in San Leandro, where he was placed on administrative leave amid an investigation into undisclosed allegations against him.
Earlier this month at a public speaking event, Thao cited that investigation as reason for not treating Pridgen as a serious candidate. He officially left the job as the San Leandro chief last week.
Pridgen is also the only candidate on this list who has experience with policing in California. He had applied to be Oakland’s top cop before Armstrong was hired in 2022, and the two participated in a public panel organized at the time by then-Mayor Libby Schaaf.
Before taking the San Leandro job, Pridgen had worked as the chief of police in the Monterey County city Seaside, and before that served nearly three decades with the police department in Fort Worth, Texas.
Floyd Mitchell
Mitchell retired as the Kansas City police chief following 25 years with the department and then served as police chief in two Texas cities: Temple, and then Lubbock.
He left his latest post in Lubbock last September with a $50,000 settlement amid scrutiny of his handling of emergency dispatcher staffing, the news outlet KCBD reported.
Yearly unanswered 911 calls spiked under Mitchell’s watch while the number of 911 dispatcher positions fell, according to KCBD.
Oakland has had its own struggles with 911 response, garnering warnings from the state, though city officials said earlier this month that more than a dozen previous dispatcher vacancies have since been reduced to just four openings at present.
Louis Molina
Molina began his career at the New York City Police Department and spent some time as the head of Las Vegas’ department of public safety, which is a separate entity from the city’s police and mainly operates the jails.
He wound back up in New York State as the head of Westchester County’s jail system. Then, after Mayor Eric Adams took office in 2022, Molina became the head of New York City’s jails, including Rikers Island, a jail notorious for its level of violence.
He became the mayor’s deputy of public safety in October, just before the federal government initiated a takeover of Rikers Island that stripped the city of control over the jail, where eight inmates died in 2023.
Lisa Davis
A lieutenant colonel with the Cincinnati police, Davis heads the department’s investigations bureau. Davis is a native of the city has spent her entire three-decade career there.
