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

By John Ramos

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.” For many in the community, the actual dispute with the federal monitor has been a little confusing.

“The oversight never showed us what the police department is lacking on it,” said Ali Alvasiery, an Oakland resident and business owner.  “Everything is just paperwork between him (federal monitor Robert Warshaw) and the police department.  But there’s nothing that’s affecting the residents of Oakland.”

Alvasiery founded a community group called Oakland Safe. They gathered for lunch on Tuesday after petitioning the judge to end the longest police oversight case in the nation’s history.

“For 23 years, there’s probably half the police department that’s already retired,” said Alvasiery.  “Those bad officers are already gone.  So that doesn’t mean that the police department is bad.  We cannot look at just the city of Oakland’s police department as bad. There’s bad officers all over the United States.”

But another group, the Coalition for Police Accountability, also sent the judge a letter urging that the oversight monitor stay in place.  Millie Cleveland, who chairs the coalition, said recent events show that it is still needed.

“There are some questionable police scandals that are current that need to be investigated,” she said.  “The police department cannot investigate themselves.  They cannot oversee themselves.  Either it’s a federal monitor, or it’s effective civilian oversight.” 

Cleveland said that would require the city fully funding the operation of the city’s Inspector General, tasked with monitoring OPD’s ongoing compliance. And despite what she called ‘scandals’ happening while the oversight was in place, Cleveland said they could not afford to let it go.

“We have a situation where even today they are not in compliance,” she said.  “So, if they’re not in compliance at this pivotal time, where they’re under scrutiny of the judge and the monitor, what would the behavior be if they feel nobody’s overseeing them?”

But back at Safe Oakland, local NAACP President Cynthia Adams said OPD has shown a lot of improvement under the mandate, and should get a chance to prove itself.

“Let us work together, work with the mayor, Barbara Lee, and show you what we can do as a community. And show how we have grown from 20 years under this,” Adams said. “If the community sees you out there and sees you doing what you’re supposed to do, you’re building a relationship with the community.”

But Cat Brooks wasn’t buying it. 

“We get calls every single week about people that have negative encounters with the Oakland Police Department,” she said.

Brooks founded the Anti-Police Terror Project after the killing of Oscar Grant and said not much has changed–even with the monitor–for Black residents in East and West Oakland.

“The problem is we’re tinkering around the edges.  We need to be adjusting from the inside.  The whole thing needs to change,” said Brooks.  “The culture is a problem. The people, individually, as they walk into that, are not the problem. But they get impacted by the culture. The culture is one of ‘subdue, suppress, force them to compliance.’ And it looks at the people in the flatlands as the enemy.”

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.”