On Tuesday, the Oakley Police Department announced it has a new police badge.
According to Oakley Police Chief Paul Beard, Oakley made the badge switch a couple weeks ago. He added the new badge became a thought back in 2016 to give the city a new identify. They also wanted to get it done in the city’s 25th Anniversary Year.
“It’s more than a piece of metal. It is the physical representation of what gives a law enforcement officer the authority to enforce the law,” said Beard. “it is a representation of the core values of an agency and the ability to convey that trust to the community. To give a proper badge is the right thing to do.”
The previous badge had severed the city for the past 16-years according to Beard and they have moved to a northern California tradition of a star badge.
“I believe this badge will have a longer run than 16-years,” stated Beard. “I think it’s a very attractive badge. Its very representative of what Northern California should look like… the motif in the middle is going to be the initials its assigned to.”
He added there is a black star at the bottom of the badge which represents they are a founding member of the Oakley Police Department.
Previous Badges
The City of Oakley released the following statement:
In 1898 Oakley became a new town in Contra Costa County. R.R. Veale was the Sheriff of Contra Costa County at the time and the Sheriff’s Office maintained law-enforcement services in the newly formed Town of Oakley. The Sheriff’s star badge was the first badge to represent law and order in Oakley. At that time, the badge of the Sheriff’s Office was a six-pointed star, which was normal for the Western portion of the United States. By contrast, the law-enforcement badges for the more established Eastern cities of the United States were shield style badges.
Around 1910-1920 some of the larger Southern California cities started to transition to the more modern shield style of badges. This is an influence that continues to exist in Southern California to this day. Some time later the six-pointed star of the Contra Costa Sheriff’s Office evolved into a seven-pointed star. When this happened, the peace officers who served the Town of Oakley did so with seven-pointed stars on their chests.
On July 1, 1999, the Town of Oakley incorporated and became officially recognized as the City of Oakley. When this happened, more law-enforcement services were extended to the City of Oakley by the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office and the seven-pointed star was altered to be an Oakley police badge for the first time ever.
In 2008 there was a regional movement to transition the traditional star badges to the shield style badges, even while most of the Northern California police departments retained the star badges. In this process the Oakley Police Department designed a shield that was very unique to Oakley. That shield style badge has served the department for the past sixteen years. Even when the City of Oakley started its own police department in 2016, we retained the same shield style badge.
We now have a desire to return to the longstanding tradition of most Northern California police departments and we have chosen to do so this year as part of Oakley’s 25th anniversary celebration. We have returned to a seven-pointed star badge that was designed in concert with the Ed Jones Badge Company, out of Berkeley. The badge is silver in color and it is unlike any badge that has ever represented law-enforcement in Oakley before. The new badge goes along with a refresh of our uniforms as we have gotten away from the yellow tones in our stripes and patches and moved to a more attractive silver-based theme. The totality of the new look of our uniform looks more professional and that trait is reflective of our values and our commitment to the community of Oakley.
The city did not give a cost of the badge change or updating uniforms and equipment.
