The two CHP officers resumed their vehicle pursuit, following him through more residential roads in East Oakland.
About 22 seconds later, the video showed Hernandez-Garcia crashing into a minivan while turning onto 21st Street, which caused minor injuries to its passengers.
The CHP vehicle stopped its pursuit at the site of that incident, the video shows, while Hernandez-Garcia continued, picking up speed for another 20 seconds before he appeared to lose control of the car while barrelling between two parked vehicles just before the intersection of 12th and 21st streets. The car skidded onto the sidewalk and hit Boomer and his partner, Oakland resident Nina Woodruff.
Boomer was pronounced dead at the scene, and Woodruff was transported to a local hospital with multiple injuries.
The incident came just as Oakland’s police commission has been tasked with reviewing the city’s pursuit policy, which restricts chases when a suspect is not putting themselves or others in imminent danger and limits police vehicles in pursuits on residential streets to traveling under 50 miles per hour.
In May, OPD Chief Floyd Mitchell requested that the commission further relax the policy, which he said “deviates from national best practice,” by eliminating the requirement that chasing officers gain approval to travel above 50 miles per hour. Brooks said the policy, even as it stands, is “loose,” and still allows officers to engage in chases, including at high speeds.
She believes restrictions should be placed on the risky missions, which some policing experts have said do little to lower crime.
“If a chase on residential streets is going above 50 miles an hour, the logical thing to do is stop,” Brooks said. “You have the driver’s license plate, right? … Stop. Unless somebody has seriously hurt themselves or somebody else, [the car is] a piece of property,” she said, referring to the allegedly stolen car driven by Hernandez-Garcia.
“It’s an inanimate object and your pursuit of that inanimate objective is costing people their lives.”
APTP and other advocacy groups, including Communities United for Restoring Justice, Urban Peace Movement and the Ella Baker Center, are also calling for the removal of the 120 CHP officers Gov. Gavin Newsom dispatched to Oakland last February.
As long as the officers — who were sent to assist with traffic enforcement, sideshows prevention and recovering stolen cars — remain, the groups are requesting that they follow the city’s pursuit policy, which does not apply to their agency.
“We want Gavin Newsom to immediately withdraw the 120 CHP officers that he flooded the city of Oakland with that have done nothing to lessen violent crime or carjackings but have done much harm to the community, including racial profiling,” Brooks said.
