Internal Affairs must report directly to OPD chief: judge
Oakland Police Chief Floyd Mitchell signs a paper on his first real day on the job. May 13, 2024
OAKLAND, Calif. - A federal judge on Friday ordered an organizational change at the Oakland Police Department: The Internal Affairs division must report directly to the police chief, a ruling that also extends the oversight of the department, which has been under this monitoring for more than 20 years.
How long this situation will last is unknown.
"Until further order of the Court," the IA Department shall be a "direct-report" to Police Chief Floyd Mitchell, wrote U.S. District Court Judge William Orrick.
That means, on a daily basis, Mitchell, who has been in the job four months, shall "bear final and full responsibility" for the activities of the IA division.
Orrick said that Mitchell, representatives from the mayor’s office, city administrator and city attorney’s office must begin meeting with the monitoring team every two weeks to discuss the status of important investigations.
Orrick gave the city until Oct. 8 to explain how the chief has responded to his order.
Orrick said he understands that Mitchell is busy, but "the Court can no longer tolerate the lack of integrity, consistency and transparency with which Internal Affairs has operated."
Orrick said he was making this change so that OPD can one day free itself of the Negotiated Settlement Agreement that it has been under for 21 years stemming from the infamous Riders scandal, when police officers used to beat up Black men and plant drugs on them.
OPD did not immediately respond for comment on Friday after the judge's order.
But in a lengthy court hearing on Wednesday, Mitchell told the judge that having IA directly report to him would pretty much take up all his time – time that he also needs to spend on other duties, such as curbing crime.
Mitchell said he already meets every Wednesday with his IA team, one of whom he called a "stickler" for rules, and that he spends other days of the week meeting with the mayor and the city administrator on other necessary business.
"IA has my undivided attention," Mitchell assured the judge.
At that hearing, Orrick and others complimented the department on making huge improvements since the 1990s.
Racially motivated traffic stops have declined greatly and the use of excessive force has dropped significantly since that time.
A KTVU investigation found that Oakland police payouts for misconduct have plummeted in the last five years. From 2018 to 2023, Oakland police paid out roughly $1.7 million for cases involving wrongful death, use-of-force and chases that led to injury, based on data provided by the city attorney's office – far lower than cities like Fremont and San Jose.
But the one sticking point for the department is how the police investigate themselves, according to the judge, civil rights attorneys Jim Chanin and John Burris, and Oakland Police Commission Chair Marsha Peterson.
And they spent about 2.5 hours at the court hearing trying to figure out how to change old patterns.
Peterson suggested that all OPD officers read journalists' Ali Winston and Darwin Bond Graham's book, "The Riders Come Out at Night: Brutality, Corruption and Cover-Up in Oakland," to understand the department's history – and what not to do today.
On Friday, Burris said he feels the judge's order reflects the "dissatisfaction and frustration" with the police department, and that this change should "hold the chief accountable…and hopefully will change the culture of officers protecting each other."
The judge's order comes after Mayor Sheng Thao fired then-Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong last February over the handling of two IA investigations.
Armstrong's response was that, as chief, he didn't have time to read every IA report.
He has since sued the city and is running for city council.
Then, The Oaklandside first reported another IA investigation involving Armstrong and other top brass, which the Police Commission’s Community Police Review Agency and an outside law firm said fell short in their handling of homicide detective Phong Tran, who is accused of bribing a witness before a 2016 murder trial that ended in the wrongful convictions of two men.
One unlikely stakeholder at the hearing said he thought having the chief's eyes on IA from the start would be a much-needed change.
Police union attorney Rockne Lucia said this novel approach of having recruits and rank-and-file officers being aware that the chief would be looking at their alleged missteps early on would likely change their behavior.
"I think it's a great idea," Lucia said.
Lisa Fernandez is a reporter for KTVU. Email Lisa at lisa.fernandez@fox.com or call her at 510-874-0139. Or follow her on Twitter @ljfernandez