A police misconduct complaint investigation by civilian investigators took 15 months to close due to communication breakdowns with command staff, exceeding the expected six-month resolution time. This delay has negative implications for the Oakland Police Department's federal oversight status, currently maintained since a 2003 settlement related to police brutality. Ultimately, the complaint was not sustained, revealing ongoing challenges within OPD regarding oversight and accountability. Over time, the department has faced several scandals, reverting progress towards independent oversight, leaving three remaining reform tasks to complete.
It took civilian investigators 15 months to close a police misconduct complaint because they ran into a communication breakdown with command staff. These investigations are supposed to last only six months, a standard upheld by federal officials who expect the Oakland Police Department to resolve 85% of complaints by the public within that time.
Missing the deadline helped sink the troubled department below the threshold required for the city to eventually close the door on federal oversight, an arrangement that has endured for over two decades since a 2003 settlement in the infamous Riders police brutality case.
Ironically, the complaint in question was never even sustained, meaning the civilian investigators ultimately found no misconduct by officers. It is an example of the tightrope that OPD has struggled to walk in a seemingly endless era of oversight.
The Department must reckon with the underlying issues that have allowed such a widespread and cascading series of failure, civil rights attorneys Jim Chanin and John Burris, who litigated the Riders case, said in court documents filed Thursday, ahead of a July 10 hearing.
#oakland-police-department #police-misconduct #federal-oversight #civil-rights #investigation-timeline
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