Today, after serving four and a half years on the force, Emeryville’s chief of police Jennifer Tejada, announced she is retiring, effective in mid June the Tattler has learned. Chief Tejada notified the City Manager, Police Department employees and the City Council of her imminent departure earlier today. No reasons were offered yet aside from her desire to leave service. Ms Tejada is 57 years old. Chief Tejada's short one month notice will necessitate the City of Emeryville to begin searching for a replacement directly.
Chief Tejada was hired in September 2015 after a four and a half month search by the City of Emeryville. She previously had been the chief of the Sausalito Police Department, having served there for four years.
A controversial chief of police for Emeryville, Ms Tejada instituted a program of “mindfulness”at the department including liberal use of officer yoga. Sources within the department have told the Tattler over the Chief’s tenure, her managerial style is generally not well received by the rank and file who have complained it has sometimes come at the expense of basic and necessary police work.
 |
| Retiring Police Chief Jennifer Tejada She made the cover of 'Mindful' Magazine in 2017. |
The Tattler has often been a critic of Chief Tejada’s policing policies, especially her equipping Emeryville beat officers with 'AR-15' assault rifles in their everyday neighborhood rounds and her injecting racist entrees into the Emeryville police blotter released for public consumption.
Ms Tejada insists the rifles in question are not assault weapons, contravening public pronouncements from the State of California and chiefs of police from around the Bay Area, all of whom confirm the rifles now carried by Emeryville police do qualify as assault rifles.
The Chief was told by the City Manager to take down the racist blotter entrees after a Tattler exposé in 2016. She finally complied after a second Tattler story caused widespread embarrassment at City Hall.
More recently, Ms Tejada was revealed to have failed to alert her officers and technician employees that the Emeryville Police Department is the Emeryville enforcement arm of the mandated Alameda County COVID-19 emergency orders, leaving the rank and file believing the Alameda County Sheriff's Office was the agency tasked with that work. As reported by the Tattler, an unreported number of Emeryville citizen complainants were mistakenly not assisted and/or deferred to the sheriff's office as a result.
Ms Tejada leaves the Emeryville Police Department after 24 years in police work.
Well I'm not too surprised. She didn't make many friends around here. The police officers I talked with weren't big fans. The yoga thing didn't go over real well from what I gather. She didn't do a great job connecting with the community.
ReplyDeleteNext!
The racist charge you make is weak as is the assault rifle issue but the story on her failing to tell the officers they're in charge of the county emergency order is spot on. I can see how something like this could happen with all the extra work for the police during the pandemic but clearly the chief blew it with this failure. I'm wondering if this has something to do with the early retirement.
ReplyDeleteI am guessing she is going for the Beverly Hills Chief position, leave now to make it less sticky. Follow the trail of the last Beverly Hills Chief (who just retired).
DeleteMindful and racist. Nice mix. She's mindfully racist, woke about her racism. I guess that's better than most cops who are racist but don't know why. When she's in the lotus position, is she thinking about how she wants to hem up some black people?
ReplyDelete