OAKLAND, Calif. (CN) — Oakland’s police force is finally making strides in complying with a settlement agreement, after several internal scandals derailed its progress and led to another police chief being fired.
It has been nearly one year since Oakland fired its eleventh police chief within in the last decade, joining a string of leaders removed amid ongoing department scandals, including incidents involving police brutality and sexual assault. Mayor Sheng Thao fired LeRonne Armstrong following a scathing report of multiple failures of the Oakland Police Department’s internal investigations of a sergeant. The report also put U.S. District Judge William Orrick III, the judge assigned to the case, on alert.
As of Tuesday, eight months since Orrick ordered the federal monitor to remain active in the case, a new status report says that the police department has made some progress in complying with five remaining tasks under the settlement agreement.
“The department is making commendable efforts to not only be in compliance, but to create solid foundations that will facilitate sustainability,” monitor Robert Warshaw said.
One of Warshaw’s concerns was with the department meeting requirements to respond to and investigate complaints in a timely manner.
“Timeliness is an imperative,” he said. “It ensures that the interests of complainants are met, as well as the rights of officers and other employees who are the subjects of complaints and are awaiting resolution. We will be closely scrutinizing the department’s compliance with Task 2.1 in our next report.”
Warshaw said that following concerns raised in November 2018 on the identification, potential underreporting and investigation of uses of force, the monitor reviewed hundreds of investigations and found department personnel to be "responsive."
There have been some inconsistencies on reporting use of force incidents by officers and supervisors, which Warsaw said are being rectified. The report found that, as of November, the number of use of force incidents increased among Black residents at 61% compared to 52% in the last status report. Use of force incidents decreased among Latino, White and Asian residents.
“In our most recent reports, we expressed our concerns that matters relevant to disparities continue within the department,” Warshaw said.
“We stated in our last report that we ‘hope that the department and city will create tangible and sustainable policies and practices that will ensure that members of the organization are treated equitably.’ While the department has addressed this issue, through both analysis and policy, it must strive to address cultural issues which, when unaddressed, perpetuate actual or perceived disparities. We see this as an effort in progress, and will continue to work with both the department and the plaintiffs’ attorneys, to bring this task into compliance," he continued.
The federal monitor over the police department has been in place for more than 20 years. Judge Orrick in January slammed the city’s failure to achieve compliance three times due to scandal, which he said “exposes rot within the department.”
Throughout 2023 as the monitor reviewed the department’s work on remaining tasks, Oakland’s Police Commission has been handling the recruitment and hiring recommendation process to find a new police chief. The process was marred by public conflict among several members of the commission over former police chief Armstrong’s push to be reinstated, with three commissioners boycotting meetings this fall to demonstrate their opposition against any efforts to reappoint him.
Despite those public quarrels, the commission this month passed a list of three candidates to Mayor Thao, who has the final say in hiring the new chief. Armstrong may be on that list, according to a report from local journalist Jaime Omar Yassin. Assistant Chief Darren Allison continues to serve as acting chief following a January report that internal investigators mishandled a sergeant who failed to report crashing his police vehicle and fired his gun inside a city building.
The Oakland City Council also received a report Tuesday on the police force’s ongoing staffing issues, showing that only 9% of officers live in Oakland and 712 of 746 positions are filled. The city is considering launching a lateral police academy to improve recruitment and hiring of new officers to tackle that deficit.
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