{"id":2034,"date":"2026-09-30T07:50:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T07:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/?p=2034"},"modified":"2026-09-30T07:50:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T07:50:08","slug":"judge-ends-federal-oversight-of-oakland-police-department-after-23-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/?p=2034","title":{"rendered":"Judge ends federal oversight of Oakland police department after 23 years"},"content":{"rendered":"


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OAKLAND, Calif. — <\/span>A federal judge on Tuesday ended federal monitoring of the Oakland Police Department after 23 years, capping the longest-running oversight of a police department in U.S. history. <\/p>\n

\u201cI’m particularly grateful to the men and women of the Oakland Police Department … for achieving substantial compliance,\u201d San Francisco judge William Orrick said. \u201cMay it ever be thus.\u201d <\/p>\n

The police department<\/a> made national news in 2000 after a rookie officer came forward to report abuse of power by a group of officers known as the Oakland \u201cRiders.\u201d The four officers were charged with making false arrests, planting evidence, using excessive force, falsifying police reports and assaulting people in west Oakland, a predominantly Black area. Three of the officers were acquitted after two separate juries deadlocked on most of the charges. The fourth officer is a fugitive and is believed to have fled the country.<\/p>\n

The case resulted in the department coming under federal oversight in 2003 and being required to enact dozens of reform measures and report its progress to an outside monitor and a federal judge. That same year, the city of about 400,000 people settled a class-action police abuse lawsuit involving 119 people for $11 million.<\/p>\n

The Oakland Police Department has had constant leadership turnover<\/a> over the years. In 2023, police chief LeRonne Armstrong was fired after a probe found that he covered up officer misconduct. The current chief, James Beere, took office in July, making him the 16th head of the department over two decades of federal oversight.<\/p>\n

The department\u2019s federal monitor in May issued a report saying that the Oakland Police Department had complied with all 51 court-mandated reforms stemming from the 2000 police brutality and corruption case.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the first time in 23 years that OPD has achieved each of the 51 tasks in the (settlement agreement.) No one can say, \u2018mission accomplished.\u2019 But I do congratulate the city and OPD for getting this far,\u201d Orrick said during a hearing in May.<\/p>\n

Some civil rights organizations had asked Orrick to delay releasing the department from federal oversight for at least a year after court-appointed monitor Robert S. Warshaw said in a progress report this month that he had found that the Oakland Police Department had again fallen below the threshold for timely investigations into severe misconduct violations.<\/p>\n

But Orrick noted Tuesday it was important for the court to \u201cget out of the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

While plaintiff attorneys at the hearing noted the department fell short of completing 85% of its serious misconduct investigations within 180 days, they did not oppose the ending of federal oversight.<\/p>\n

Oakland Police Chief Beere acknowledged those cases to the judge, explaining that many were complex officer-involved shootings.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did slip a little bit,\u201d said Beere, KTVU reported. \u201cBut we own our mistakes.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Oakland police union said the decision was an \u201cimportant new beginning\u201d for the department and reflects years of hard work by officers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe next chapter for the City and OPD must be about recruiting officers, rebuilding staffing levels and giving the men and women of OPD the resources they need to keep Oakland safe,\u201d said Cesar Leyva, interim president of the Oakland Police Officers Association.<\/p>\n

Civil rights attorney John Burris reflected at the hearing on the progress made over the past two decades and the importance of continuing that progress under the leadership of the city of Oakland.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, it\u2019s not today that\u2019s important, it\u2019s tomorrow \u2026 whether or not what\u2019s been put in place here stands the test of time,\u201d Burris said.<\/p>\n

Some local groups urged the importance of strengthening civilian oversight of the police department through the Oakland Police Commission, established by voters in 2016.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need more independent oversight, more transparency, and more accountability, not less,\u201d said Cat Brooks, executive director of the Anti Police-Terror Project.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OAKLAND, Calif. — A federal judge on Tuesday ended federal monitoring of the Oakland Police Department after 23 years, capping the longest-running oversight of a police department in U.S. history. \u201cI’m particularly grateful to the men and women of the Oakland Police Department … for achieving substantial compliance,\u201d San Francisco judge William Orrick said. \u201cMay…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2035,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}