Skip to main content Currently Reading Oakland formed a task force to help defund the police. Now some members want the city to reconsider FacebookTwitterEmail 9 1of9The Oakland Police Department investigates a fatal shooting in the 1900 block of 84th Ave. in Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday, October 14, 2020. One victim was a 19-year-old male who went by the nickname Lalo. The event left three shooting victims, with two fatalities. This incident marks the 77th and 78th homicides of the year in Oakland.Yalonda M. James / The ChronicleShow MoreShow Less 2of9Oakland councilman Loren Taylor (District 6), center, is flanked by Eden Silva Jequinto, left, and Sizwe Andrews - Abakah, right, and others as he meets with Oakland residents at the Akoma Outdoor Market on Sunday, October 18, 2020, in Oakland, Calif. Taylor is co-chairing the Reimagine Public Safety Taskforce. At the height of the summer s racial justice protests, Oakland city leaders, like so many of their counterparts across the country, floated an audacious proposal to reshape public safety: cut the police budget in half, and shift many of its responsibilities over to civilians. To accomplish the goal, the City Council put together a task force with members from all sides of Oakland s varied cultural diaspora, from budget hawks, to activists who had protested the police for years. Now they re scrambling to deliver a plan by June and sell it to a city of skeptics and neighborhoods rattled by a violent crime wave, merchants weary of civil unrest downtown, people who agreed with the vision but thought the task force was just lip service. Other cities, including Minneapolis, had already failed to meet the promises they made the summer, and nationally, support for Black Lives Matter appears to be flagging. Oakland, with 17 years under federal watch, a recent sexual misconduct scandal and a long history of cycling through chief after chief, seemed like an unlikely torchbearer. But despite the odds, city politicians are convinced they can pull it off.Yalonda M. James / The ChronicleShow MoreShow Less