‘Serious and troubling’ internal investigations mar Oakland police progress under federal monitor

OAKLAND, Calif. (CN) — Oakland’s police department still has not rectified ongoing problems with how internal investigators manage cases involving its own officers, according to a longstanding federal monitor.

Chief Robert Warshaw — federal monitor over Oakland Police Department for more than 20 years — said Friday that while the police department has shown efforts to assess its internal problems, real cultural change has not taken hold.

Warshaw's report filed in San Francisco's federal court Friday found that the Oakland Police Department is still out of compliance with one of a 2003 settlement agreement's assigned tasks that pertains to handling of internal investigations, including personnel complaints. 

The federal monitor has overseen multiple attempts to internally reform the troubled agency through many scandals, including police brutality and sexual assault.

As of Friday, Warshaw said that he reached his conclusion following the findings of investigations conducted under both the Community Police Review Agency and an outside investigator. The latter in January 2023 found that  internal investigators mishandled a case involving a sergeant who failed to report crashing his police vehicle and fired his gun inside a city building.

Both investigations led Mayor Sheng Thao to fire former Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong, who became the eleventh department head dismissed within the last decade. Armstrong was also investigated for his handling of perjury and bribery claims.

Oakland Police Commission’s Community Police Review Agency and an outside law firm found that Armstrong and his interim successor Darren Allison failed to ensure that the department's internal affairs division rigorously examined the accusations against a homicide detective, according to local news outlet Oaklandside.

Warshaw said that the results of the latest shakedown transcend the department — calling into question its integrity and ability to properly handle internal personnel problems. 

“Deficiencies in internal investigations have unfortunately repeated themselves and need to be rectified. We find this to be both serious and troubling,” Warshaw wrote.

Warshaw gave the department some recognition for improvements in other areas. He said that its use of force policies and the processes in which force is documented and reviewed remain at the core of the monitor’s work. During the last seven reports, his team found that generally, police supervisors properly identify and report any violations of those policies. 

“OPD has also assigned a team of command officers to review some use of force reports as an ongoing quality control mechanism. We have found that this additional oversight and review has continued to identify and properly address concerns prior to our team identifying them,” he said. 

Warshaw also said that he looks forward to hearing more from new Police Chief Floyd Mitchell, who since stepping on in March has been learning about the community and the negotiated settlement.

The Oakland Police Officers’ Association did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report. 

The agency has been under a “sustainability period” under U.S. District Judge William Orrick III for more than two years, meaning that it seeks to achieve total compliance with all assigned tasks under the negotiated settlement. The monitor reports on the police department’s progress to the court on a quarterly basis

In April 2023, Orrick narrowed the monitor’s scope but said that the department needed to demonstrate full compliance with all tasks that the monitor assigned. By December 2023, the monitor said the department was making more progress on the agreement’s tasks. 

However, Warshaw said Friday: “The court is wrestling with the utility of its role in helping the city achieve constitutional policing after 20 years of monitoring compliance with the NSA. Much good work has been accomplished. Fundamental questions regarding the Oakland Police Department’s ability to police itself remain.”

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