Oakland considering deleting police personnel records after 20 years

OAKLAND, Calif. - The Oakland City Council is considering a request by the city clerk to retain police personnel records for a total of 20 years, and after that, they would be destroyed and purged. 

The item was originally buried in the consent calendar and falls under a general request to update the city's retention policy of various departments, which has not been updated since 2003. 

Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas told KTVU that she moved the item on Tuesday to the non-consent calendar for a full discussion, once it was brought to her attention. She moved that both the Oakland Police Department and Community Police Review Agency records not be changed and that a proposal for these records be brought back to the council’s special meeting on March 6.

The proposal to delete the records came after the city hired a consultant to help manage its electronic and video retention policy across all departments.

Specifically, the city clerk wants to delete records of complaints and disciplinary actions, as well as investigations for police personnel after two decades.  Currently, all administrative Internal Affairs records are held indefinitely. San Francisco police also keep similar records indefinitely. 

Civil rights attorney Jim Chanin, who sued Oakland police in 2000 with colleague John Burris over the "Riders" scandal where officers beat up Black men and planted drugs on them, thinks getting rid of those types of records is wrong.

Case in point: His suit was filed more than 20 years ago, and it's still being litigated, as seen with the federal oversight of the Oakland Police Department, now in its 21st year.

"The Riders case is still active," Chanin said.

He also pointed out that many police officers work for 30 years, and so what would happen if a victim came forward in 10 or 20 years to say an officer molested her?

"What are we going to say? We destroyed those records?" Chanin asked rhetorically. "What are the chances of her winning that case?"

In addition, other critics of the plan note that while only certain police personnel records are now public because of limited transparency laws, one day, those laws might change and make many more police personnel records public. If that were the case, they point out, those records would have been destroyed. 

In addition, some argue that Oakland's history with the police, including the late 1960s with the Blank Panthers, should be preserved in memoriam to educate the public about the city's past. 

"Transparency and accountability don't have an expiration date," said David Loy, legal director for the First Amendment Coalition. "Without retention of records, there can be no public disclosure of documents showing whether or how officers may have abused their power."

EDITOR'S NOTE: See page 32 of the document regarding destroying police personnel records after 20 years.