Oakland Police Disavow 'Reprehensible' Statements By Former Officer Who Marched On Capitol Hill
OAKLAND (CBS SF) -- The Oakland Police Department on Thursday condemned the words and actions of a former officer who said he participated in the march on Capitol Hill in Washington that ended in rioting and violence.
The department issued the statement Thursday afternoon. It opened with a general condemnation of "the violent acts that unfolded as an unlawful mob took over the US Capitol Building" on Wednesday, saying that they "were a disgraceful assault on our democracy."
The statement went on to single out a former Oakland Police Department employee who claimed to have participated in the violent insurrection at the Capitol and made statements defending the mob's actions.
"It has come to our attention that a former employee made statements that he attended the events in Washington DC and defended the actions of the takeover at the Capitol," the release read. "The statements made by the former employee were reprehensible and we wholly disavow his remarks."
On Wednesday evening, KPIX 5 reporter Joe Vazquez interviewed former OPD officer Jurell Snyder, who he said he was in Washington and marched with the crowd to the Capitol Wednesday. During the interview, he defended the same unfounded claims of voter fraud that President Trump has been making since the November election as the reason behind the violence at the Capitol.
While the release issued by the Oakland Police Department did not specifically identify Snyder the officer in question, it stated that it was a former employee who had not worked for the department for almost six years. According to Snyder's job history on his LinkedIn page, he was an officer with the department from 2006 until 2015.
"We want to assure our community that those statements offend the morals and ethics of the women and men of our Department," the release by the department read.
The release also said that the department "has overhauled our hiring and screening procedures to ensure that these values do not represent our current department employees." It further said that an officer or department employee making such statements would face "immediate initiation of a disciplinary investigation and could lead to termination."
"Our democracy is the very foundation of the rule of law and our law enforcement officers are on the front lines of defending and upholding these tenets," the statement issued by the department concluded. "Anyone engaged in the unlawful behavior that occurred at the Capitol and injured officers and civilians alike should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."