![]() The department has redoubled its efforts, he said, with an emphasis on "attracting a diverse applicant pool that is representative of the community we serve." It is now receiving less than half the number of officer applications than it did just a few years ago and an even smaller fraction than in decades past, Reifschneider said in an email. ![]() James Reifschneider, who heads the department's recruitment efforts, said finding candidates has become much more challenging in recent years, with the number of officer applications significantly diminishing industry-wide. "We have been working on that issue for a couple of years and are really trying to enhance our recruiting efforts, especially around minorities," Jonsen said.Īcting Capt. The issue is one that the city is taking seriously, he said, and one that department leadership has discussed with the Human Relations Commission. Police Chief Robert Jonsen confirmed Monday that with Moore's departure, the department no longer has any Black officers. "This is the first time in three decades that we've been without an African American officer. "Shame on the city of Palo Alto for claiming to have a diverse police force," James told the council immediately after it approved Moore's resolution. He noted that the last time the department had a Black woman in a leadership role was in 2011, when Lt. While the council's resolution didn't mention the fact that Moore was the department's last Black officer, the fact was not lost on resident Aram James, a former public defender and critic of the department, who urged the agency to do more to attract Black officers. It also comes at a time when the city is being sued by a group of police officers over a Black Lives Matter mural that the city commissioned last June, which included an image of Assata Shakur in one of its 16 letters. ![]() This comes at a time when the city is spearheading a "race and equity" initiative that seeks to, among other goals, improve accountability and increase diversity within City Hall. Yet her departure, which the City Council recognized this week with a special resolution in Moore's honor, also represents an unfortunate milestone for the Police Department, leaving it with no Black police officers. Attempts by this news organization to investigate the incident were complicated by the fact that Moore's body camera was turned off during the incident in violation of department policy. At times the spotlight wasn't particularly flattering, as in June 2019, when she served as a supervisor during a botched emergency call in the Barron Park neighborhood in which it took responders more than 40 minutes to transfer a woman who was suffering a seizure to a hospital. ![]() Adrienne Moore retired from the Palo Alto Police Department last month after 24 years of service, the city lost a versatile veteran with experience as a detective, a police dispatcher, a field training officer and a patrol officer who had worked every shift.īecause of her unusual dual role as both an officer and a dispatcher, she routinely topped the city's list of highest paid employees, netting more than $100,000 in overtime in some years. Adrienne Moore has left the Palo Alto Police Department with no Black police officers.
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