Judge ends federal monitoring of Oakland Police Department after a record 23 years

By Carlos E. Castañeda

A federal judge on Tuesday ended a 23-year court monitoring of the Oakland Police Department, the longest federal oversight of a police department in the nation’s history.

At a hearing on Tuesday at U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco, Judge William Orrick ended the monitorship, saying that the decision brings oversight of the department “back where it belongs.”   

The federal court monitoring began following the notorious 2000 “Riders” case involving officers who allegedly planted evidence, falsified police reports and beat suspects. Although no officers were convicted after two lengthy trials, the scandal led to civil and financial settlements, along with a 2003 “Negotiated Settlement Agreement” requiring the OPD to carry out dozens of reforms having to do with use of force, racial profiling, officer discipline and department transparency, among other reforms.

Repeated high-profile police misconduct incidents continued to deepen mistrust between the department and the community, including the aftermath of the deadly BART police shooting of Oscar Grant, and a sex abuse scandal involving the underage daughter of a police dispatcher connected to law enforcement officers in Oakland and across the East Bay.

In June of 2016, Oakland went through four police chiefs in nine days. That November, voters established more oversight with a civilian police commission looking over the department. Over the years, the department made progress on its reforms, even as there was frequent backtracking. 

At Tuesday’s hearing, John Burris, one of the original plaintiff attorneys in the Rider case, likened the work of obtaining federal compliance to the Greek mythological figure Sisyphus, condemned by the gods to roll a boulder up a hill, only to have it roll back and force him to start over. 

“We have been involved in pushing that rock up the hill for 23 years and each time it got close it would fall back down,” Burris said. “We’ve pushed the rock as far as we can, but now it’s up to the city to take hold of this rock and see if they can not only push it to the top of the hill but to maintain it.”