OAKLAND, Calif. --- Former Spokane Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick took a new job in Oakland, Calif. on Wednesday.
Kirkpatrick, who retired from SPD in 2012, had recently been tapped to lead the Chicago Police Department’s new Bureau of Professional Standards.
Her job in Chicago was created to put into place recommendations made by an accountability task force after the fatal shooting of a black teen, Laquan McDonald.
She left the Chicago PD after just six months on the job for the new position in Oakland.
Kirkpatrick takes over a police force that has been troubled in the past.
The Oakland PD has been under federal court oversight since 2003 and without a chief for seven months. It has been dogged by a scandal that, as the Associated Press reported, ensnared two officers throughout the San Francisco Bay Area accused of having sex with the teen daughter of an Oakland dispatcher.
The teen has told The Associated Press and other media outlets that she worked as a 17-year-old prostitute and had sex with two dozen officers, sometimes in exchange for tips on prostitution stings and protection from arrest.
The police force has been under federal court supervision since the 2003 settlement of a civil rights lawsuit that accused officers of planting evidence, beating suspects and other wrongdoing.
The previous Oakland PD chief was forced to resign after the sex scandal, which also derailed the department’s reform process.
“I don’t consider it a mess, it’s an opportunity,” Kirkpatrick said at a press conference on Wednesday. “It’s all about going forward, it’s about going from going from good to great.”
Kirkpatrick was hired as the Spokane Police Chief back in 2006 to reform the department after a police brutality scandal that led to the death of Otto Zehm. Kirkpatrick retired in 2012 after facing several lawsuits, including some for wrongful termination.
The Associated Press and CBS News contributed to this story.