Newsom’s hands-on approach to fight crime in California cities gains critics in Oakland

GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM’S letter to Oakland city leaders last month urging them to change the city’s policy on police vehicle chases seemed out of the ordinary: a governor weighing in forcefully on a somewhat-obscure element of local policing.

But it’s part of a larger, slowly unfolding effort to exert state influence on law enforcement in Oakland and other California cities as crime concerns rise during an election year. In the past six months, Newsom has deployed California Highway Patrol officers to Oakland, then quadrupled their shifts; sent National Guard prosecutors to help the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office with drug cases, then chastised D.A. Pamela Price for not accepting the assistance quickly enough.