Fremont's new police chief outlines plans
- Fremont Police Chief Floyd Mitchell, sworn in on April 16, said this week he is focusing his first weeks on property crime, fatal traffic crashes and a regional response to homelessness. - Mitchell told Bay Area outlets he is expanding traffic enforcement, meeting with command staff and council members, and using real-time crime data to explain why officers are deployed in specific areas. - Fremont is treating public safety as a 2026 council priority while city traffic data shows fatalities have risen since 2020 after earlier Vision Zero declines. (fremont.gov)
Fremont Police Chief Floyd Mitchell said his first priorities are cutting property crime, reducing deadly crashes and building a more transparent police operation. (ktvu.com) (cbsnews.com) Mitchell was appointed by City Manager Karena Shackelford on March 3 and officially sworn in on April 16 after a nationwide search. He previously served as Oakland’s police chief until October 2025. (fremont.gov) (patch.com) (ktvu.com) Six weeks into the job, Mitchell told KTVU he was still conducting one-on-one meetings with command staff and supervisors and attending town halls with Fremont council members. He said residents had raised concerns about car thefts, retail theft and reckless driving. (ktvu.com) He said more traffic enforcement is part of the answer to the city’s fatal-crash problem. Fremont police records list fatal collisions on Osgood Road, Cushing Parkway, Stevenson Boulevard and Grimmer Boulevard in the first three months of 2026. (cbsnews.com) (fremontpolice.gov) The city’s own traffic data shows why that issue is pressing. Fremont says it recorded 87 fatal crash incidents from 2014 through 2025, with a general decline after Vision Zero began in 2015 but a significant increase since 2020. (fremont.gov) Fremont’s transportation program now uses the Safe System Approach, a road-safety model that assumes people will make mistakes and tries to prevent those mistakes from turning deadly. The city says that framework has guided its traffic planning since 2022. (fremont.gov) Mitchell has also framed homelessness as a regional issue rather than a problem one city can solve alone. At his swearing-in, Councilmember Kathy Kimberlin said Fremont, Newark and Union City need to work together on homelessness, traffic and housing. (cbsnews.com) (ktvu.com) Some residents are taking a wait-and-see approach. KTVU reported that longtime resident Salim Mastan said he wants Mitchell to address homelessness without criminalizing unhoused people. (ktvu.com) City Hall has already put public safety on its 2026 priority list, with an emphasis on staffing, service capacity and “data-driven reporting and engagement.” Mitchell told ABC7 he wants real-time crime data shared with residents so they can see where spikes are happening and why officers are assigned there. (fremont.gov) (abc7news.com) For now, the new chief’s opening agenda is narrower than the politics that followed him from Oakland: more enforcement on dangerous streets, more attention to theft, and more explanation of what Fremont police are doing and where. (ktvu.com) (abc7news.com)
