Monitor Says Oakland Police Reform Efforts are Declining

Bay City News Service—An independent monitor who is overseeing long overdue reforms in the Oakland Police Department says in his latest quarterly report that the department's compliance efforts are continuing to decline.

Robert Warshaw, in a report filed late Wednesday with U.S. District Court Judge Thelton Henderson, who approved the settlement in 2003 of a police misconduct case, said his report "marks the second consecutive quarter of overall decline in the department's agreed-upon tasks" to comply with the settlement. (You may read Warshaw's complete report here.)

Warshaw said, "The shift from stagnation to decline should be as unacceptable to all parties as it is to us."

Warshaw said he's particularly concerned that the department has failed to adequately investigate citizen complaints and that officers aren't reporting the misconduct of fellow officers.

The settlement required Oakland police to implement 51 reforms in a variety of areas, including improved investigation of citizen complaints, better training of officers and increased field supervision, but Warshaw said the department is still not in compliance with 11 tasks, two more than the previous quarter, even though all the reforms were supposed to have been completed five years ago.

Among the other reforms are improving the way officers report their use of force on suspects and implementing a computerized early-warning system to identify officers who are prone to abusing suspects.

The slow progress in complying with the mandated reforms prompted civil rights attorneys John Burris and James Chanin, who represent the plaintiffs in the case, to seek a federal takeover of the Oakland Police Department last year.

But in an agreement reached in December, Oakland will instead hire an independent, court-appointed "compliance director" to be in charge of completing all the reforms. The plaintiffs and the city have submitted potential candidates to Judge Henderson, who is expected to appoint someone soon.

Warshaw said that in police misconduct cases stemming from Occupy Oakland protests last year, "A common thread running through these investigations is that officers consistently refused to say that they saw, knew, discussed or observed the actions of fellow officers who were often close by."

Warshaw said he agreed with an outside investigator who commented that a theme throughout the investigations "was the reluctance to view, ponder, assess, scrutinize or evaluate another officer's use of force."

The monitor admitted that Oakland police at times have "an extraordinarily difficult job" and officers often have to deal with provocative protesters, some of whom threw rocks and bottles.

"Undoubtedly, it is difficult after standing in a line with fellow officers while confronted by a large, hostile and threatening crowd, yelling the vilest sort of insults and hurling all manner of dangerous missiles and projectiles, to later be called upon to offer evidence of your fellow officers' misconduct," Warshaw wrote. "That is, nevertheless, exactly what we expect of our police."

In reviewing use-of-force incidents, Warshaw also expressed alarm at a case in which he said two officers who were serving a search warrant involving a misdemeanor crime "pointed their firearms at a sleeping 19-month-old child who, of course, posed no immediate threat to the officers or others." But he did not give additional details about the incident.

Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan and Mayor Jean Quan haven't responded to requests to comment on Warshaw's report.

The reforms are the result of the Jan. 22, 2003, settlement of a lawsuit filed by 119 Oakland citizens who alleged that four officers known as the "Riders" beat them, made false arrests and planted evidence on them in 2000.

Three of the officers faced two lengthy trials on multiple criminal charges stemming from the allegations against them but they ultimately weren't convicted of any crimes. The fourth officer fled to Mexico and was never prosecuted.

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