Already embattled Police Chief Michael Meehan is receiving more bad press as reports come to light that he sent 10 police officers to Oakland in search of his son’s stolen iPhone.
Meehan and how he exerts his influence and power as Chief had already been under investigation, stemming from an incident where he sent an officer to a reporter’s home in the middle of the night to demand changes to an article that negatively reflected upon the chief. Now, questions are being asked about why so many officers were sent into neighboring Oakland in search of a single iPhone.
The phone had been taken from his son’s unlocked locker at school. But because it was equipped with locating software, the Chief was able to identify its relative location in Oakland. He then apparently asked stolen property detectives to investigate, and four sergeants went to Oakland, where the asked for additional officers from a drug task force to join them. Despite having the location pinned to within a block, the phone was not recovered.
From the Oakland Tribune:
When Berkeley police Chief Michael Meehan’s son’s cell phone was stolen in January, 10 police officers were sent to track it down, with some working overtime at taxpayer expense, police said Monday.
A police report about the theft of the teen’s iPhone from a school locker was never written and the Oakland Police Department was never notified that officers on the department’s drug task force were in North Oakland knocking on doors looking for the phone. Three detectives and a sergeant each logged two hours of overtime.
Read the full article here.