Attorneys says Feds Should Take Over Oakland PD - Chronic Failure to Comply with Settlement
/The U.S. government should take over the Oakland Police Department — the California agency led for two years by Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony W. Batts — because of a chronic failure to comply with a decade-old reform settlement, attorneys overseeing the case said in court papers last week.
The document cites remarks made by Batts early in his tenure that "there shouldn't be any excuse" for not meeting the terms of the settlement, and again a year later when he said the agency had "dropped the ball."
"If past is prologue, and it surely will be, the current monitoring model without the appointment of a receiver will undoubtedly result in more failed promises, more lives destroyed, and the continued waste of taxpayer money by the city and the [Oakland Police Department]," the lawyers' motion reads.
Batts, who spent 27 years with the Long Beach Police Department, was hired to lead the Oakland force in late 2009 and stepped down in late 2011, saying his hands had been tied by bureaucracy and a lack of resources.
He left shortly before the agency's clash with Occupy Oakland protesters, which is also heavily criticized in the court filing, quoting from a report prepared for the city by former Baltimore Police Commissioner Thomas Frazier's consulting group.
Batts took the helm of the Baltimore Police Department two weeks ago, though he has stayed behind the scenes with an Oct. 17 City Council confirmation hearing looming.
The Oakland lawsuit stems from a scandal in which several rogue officers were charged with beating or framing drug suspects in 2000 along with other claims that resulted in nearly $11 million in payments to 119 plaintiffs and attorneys.
In January, U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson said he "remains in disbelief" that the police department has failed to adopt the reforms and threatened federal takeover of the agency.
The city's current chief, Howard Jordan, and Mayor Jean Quan said last week they both believe the department is making progress with the reforms. They said the city is in compliance with 85 percent of the 52 mandated changes.
"We're all working to move in the same direction, which is full compliance," Jordan said in a statement. "It's not been easy. It's been challenging. But no one here [is] ducking from the responsibilities we have.
"We all want the same thing. Judge Henderson wants the same thing, and I want the same thing: constitutional policing in Oakland."
Similar reports critical of the agency have been issued over the years, and attorneys John Burris and Jim Chanin wrote that the city and police department suffered from a culture of "repeated empty promises."
"In the wake of the city's inability to change the culture of the OPD and to fully embrace these reforms, citizens continue to be victimized and subjected to civil rights violations, supervisors allows misconduct to continue unabated, and millions of dollars have been paid out on police misconduct claims since 2003," the attorneys wrote.
Henderson increased the oversight authority of a court-appointed monitor. Jordan now must consult with the monitor before making important department decisions such as promoting and disciplining officers and changing policing policy and tactics.
In an interview last month, Batts said the court monitor was counterproductive. "I had to call the monitor twice a week, and I had to ask permission and he had to say, 'OK'" before moves could be made, Batts said.
"I do think we had progress there," he said when asked about Oakland during his introduction at Baltimore City Hall in August.
Batts' supporters in Oakland have said he was stymied by a lack of resources and meddling from City Hall. Geoff Collins, a businessman who led Oakland's Police Foundation when Batts was chief, said the court monitors have been "out of control."
The monitors "want to take over the department," Collins said. "Tony got caught in that grinder."
Quan testified, according to the motion filed last week, that she did not believe Batts devoted much "hands on involvement to the NSA reforms and spent a considerable amount of time looking for another job while he worked for the city." Halfway through his tenure, it was reported that Batts was a finalist to become chief of the San Jose Police Department.
In a Sept. 25 deposition, Quan said Batts was "not truthful to me" about seeking out the San Jose job and that she "probably mistakenly gave him a second chance."
"It was my sense during the first six months that I was mayor that [Batts] was not in town a lot and was not committed to just the overall role, much less the [settlement reforms]," she said in the deposition, according to a transcript.
The report cites the agency's clash with Occupy Oakland protesters, which occurred about two weeks after Batts stepped down. The city hired the Frazier Group, led by former Baltimore and San Jose chief Thomas Frazier, to review the department's response and to independently investigate some of the misconduct claims stemming from it.
The Frazier Group's report, according to the attorneys, cited "command turnover," staffing cuts, and a lack of "succession planning" for future leaders.
