Oakland makes finding police personnel records easier under SB 1421, SB 16
A detailed view of a patch for the Oakland Police ((Photo by Brandon Sloter/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images))
OAKLAND, Calif. - The city of Oakland has made finding police personnel records a lot easier with an easy-to-decipher, organized website.
Instead of being buried in an internal system identified by an arcane case number, public records are now arranged by category under two police transparency laws authored by state Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley), known as SB 1421 and SB 16.
Those laws make certain records public if there are "sustained" findings against officers. A "sustained finding" is when an investigating agency determines the officer violated the law or department policy.
The website now arranges search functions by those disclosable categories: Officer-involved shootings, use of force, dishonesty, sexual assault or misconduct, excessive force, failure to intervene, prejudice and unlawful arrest or search.
The website also lists published cases by officer name.
As of this week, the city said it has disclosed roughly 170 cases, which includes more than 32,000 records – roughly 70% of the total dating back to the 1990s.
The site is a big improvement to how Oakland used to release these records, which were uploaded by case number only, which made it almost impossible to decipher.
The city attorney's office did not say what inspired the new website.
But in the latest Oakland Police Commission agenda packet, the background about the release, or lack thereof, of police personnel records was explained.
In 2020, two lawsuits were filed against the city related to public record requests for OPD records.
Reporters Darwin BondGraham, Ali Winston, Scott Morris, Brian Krans, Sarah Belle Lin, Oakland Privacy and citizen Michael Katz, represented by attorney Sam Ferguson, won their suits against the city after they said Oakland had lagged in responding to their many California Public Records requests.
In 2021, the court ordered Oakland to produce all responsive requests every two weeks.
As part of the settlement, Oakland also agreed to clear the backlog of cases, which the city said it is close to achieving.