Stand Up for Civilian Oversight of OPD

Our proposal, which cleared the Public Safety Committee on June 23rd with the help of many of you, is headed to the full City Council tomorrow night, Tuesday, July 7th. It’s Agenda Item #16, so it should be heard sometime between 7 and 8 PM, we think.

Proposal: To close Internal Affairs to citizen complaints against Oakland police officers, and send all complaints to the Citizens’ Police Review Board instead.


Why?

1. Citizen investigators are much less expensive than sworn officers who investigate citizen complaints;

2. Sworn officers should be doing police work, not investigating citizens’ complaints;

3. Citizens are more likely to file complaints if they know that their complaints will be taken my fellow civilians, not police officers;

4. Although this proposal involves just the intake and preliminary investigation of complaints, it is anticipated that, eventually, the CPRB will do the full investigation of all citizen complaints;

5. The CPRB conducts hearings of complaints, where fellow Oakland residents hear both sides and decide if misconduct occurs; Internal Affairs does not conduct hearings;

6. Many of the complaints filed at Internal Affairs are re-directed to and investigated by the supervisors of the officers who are the subjects of the complaints;

7. Oakland residents deserve the same kind of objective, independent and professional oversight of Oakland police as BART riders deserve of the BART police;

8. CPRB has public reporting responsibilities but Internal Affairs does not. CPRB can track complaints and analyze many aspects of the complaints; Internal Affairs can not.


If we can get Council approval of this proposal, we can move forward to seek grant funding (no City funds are available because of our deficit). So, it is vitally important to get the Council to cast an affirmative vote tomorrow night. Please plan to attend and speak in favor.

If you are not available, please phone or email Council members indicating your support for Item 16 on tomorrow night’s Agenda.

Feel free to forward this notice to your distribution lists, as well --- the more, the more powerful!

This is ‘our time’ to make an important move for police accountability in Oakland, but we can’t do it without your support!