Oakland Police: Judge Clears Path For Possible End to Federal Oversight

As part of that agreement, the city and OPD agreed to pay nearly $11 million and comply with the court’s reforms. The tasks relate to the use of force, discipline, supervision, training and internal affairs investigations, among other requirements.  

As long as the department remains in compliance by the next court date, which is scheduled for Sept. 29, Orrick said he would close the case at that time. 

Much of the city’s leadership was in attendance at the hearing, including Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee, who told Orrick she intends to ensure the department complies with his requirements. 

“Because I said before the court, over and over again, I’d like to be completed and exit this court oversight under my watch,” Lee said. “However, compliance with and no backsliding is also my requirements.”

In a phone interview with KQED following the hearing, Lee called the news monumental, but said there’s more to do. 

“It’s just been focus and direction and sustained commitment to constitutional policing that I believe is happening now,” Lee said. “The monitor and the judge at least through their comments and their evaluation — and believe you me this is not easy, it’s very difficult — have said that the 51 tasks to date have been accomplished.”

Jim Chanin, one of two attorneys representing plaintiffs in the case, congratulated OPD, but expressed concern about what he described as a failure to consider whether there is a double standard in how officers of different races are disciplined. 

“I believe that the leadership of OPD really believes in the principles of the [settlement agreement],” Chanin told the court, “that they no longer want to attain compliance because they have to, but because they want to. Hope I’m right about that.”

Most recently, the court has been focused on three tasks that deal with the timeliness of internal affairs investigations, complaint procedures and the fairness and consistency of officer discipline. 

“At this point, these tasks appear to have been accomplished. Some work remains,” Orrick said. 

Orrick directed the federal court monitor overseeing the reforms, Robert S. Warshaw, to continue to evaluate the department’s compliance with those tasks over the coming months. He also asked the city to evaluate the other 48 tasks to determine if they too have been met and asked the parties to reflect on lessons they’ve learned from the case.    

Plaintiffs attorney John Burris said he supported the city reviewing the other tasks. 

“What we’ve done here is not just for today, even though it has taken 20-something years to do, it is for the next 25 years,” Burris said. “And that’s why I want to make sure that we have put in place — and the court has sanctioned what has been in place — that will endure beyond today and beyond next September when this hopefully ends.”

The department has worked to meet those requirements even as new scandals have emerged and as the department has experienced repeated leadership turnover. 

Still, Chanin said, much has changed within the department in the intervening years. 

“When I started out doing police misconduct work in Oakland, people would beat people up and then they would get cheered in the locker room,” he said. “That doesn’t happen anymore. Now they get turned in.”

In a May 22 report, Warshaw wrote that OPD had reached compliance with all 51 tasks of the settlement agreement for the first time. 

“While there is still work to be done, the mayor’s leadership and the department’s commitment to addressing these three tasks have culminated in success,” Warshaw wrote. “We will continue to monitor the department’s performance, and are hopeful that these findings will remain.”