Jun 19, 2008 2:26 pm US/Pacific
Oakland Mayor Probes Official's Role In Gang Raid
OAKLAND (BCN) ―
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Oakland Administrator Deborah Edgerly.
City of Oakland
A spokesman for Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums said Thursday that the mayor is looking into what he described as "serious allegations" that City Administrator Deborah Edgerly may have interfered with a police investigation into the Acorn drug gang.
On Tuesday, the Oakland Police Department said that a three-month investigation called "Operation Nutcracker" resulted in the arrest of 54 members of the Acorn gang, including reputed leader Marc Anthony Candler, and the confiscation of 41 firearms.
Lt. Ersie Joyner said the gang is the worst that Oakland has seen in many years and its ongoing war with two rival gangs has resulted in 37 homicides in the last three years.
Paul Rose said, "Rest assured that he (Dellums) is looking into it and will get to the bottom of it."
Rose said he can't comment any further on the situation because it's a personnel matter.
According to a report released by the Oakland Police Department, Edgerly went to 1200 Market St. in West Oakland about 10:30 p.m. on June 7 to ask police officers why a vehicle driven by 27-year-old William Lovan, of Concord, was being towed.
Edgerly told police officers that Lovan is her nephew, according to the police report.
Edgerly told officers that she was on the phone with Assistant Police Chief Howard Jordan and would be contacting the department's Internal Affairs Division over the matter, according to the report.
Lovan was one of the suspected Acorn gang members who were arrested across the East Bay on Tuesday.
Authorities said he was picked up in Concord on suspicion of possessing a firearm in connection with the June 7 incident.
According to the police report, an officer received information from a conversation between Lovan and Candler, the gang's reputed leader, that Lovan was at Bottles Liquors at 1200 Market St.
An officer said in his report that Lovan told police that he had gone into the liquor store to get some water but had left his car engine running and had accidentally locked the keys inside.
Lovan made a reference to having a firearm inside the car, according to the report.
In an apparent reference to Operation Nutcracker, officers said in their report that they had Lovan's vehicle towed to another location because they wanted to "avoid recovering a firearm in the presence of Lovan and possibly jeopardize the future of this operation."
The police report says the officers' supervisor came to the scene to talk to Edgerly.
City of Oakland spokeswoman Karen Boyd, who works for Edgerly, said Edgerly has no comment on the police report.
Edgerly has been criticized by some Oakland police officers because Police Chief Wayne Tucker allowed her daughter to make four attempts at passing the police training academy's 24-week academic and physical training program.
Rumors surfaced last July that Edgerly, who was appointed city administrator by former Mayor Jerry Brown in July 2003, might retire, but Boyd said at that time that Edgerly had "no imminent plans" to retire.
(© CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Bay City News contributed to this report.)
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