The Time to Act is Now for Strong Police Accountability in Oakland

Stand Up and Demand Strong Police Accountability

1. Attend the City Council meeting on Tuesday, July 19, and speak out (or cede your time)

Speaker Form | Police Commission agenda item | July 19 City Council meeting agenda

2. Contact Council members prior to the meeting (email, tweet, social media, phone) urging them to accept the changes to the Kalb/Gallo measure offered by the Coalition. Earlier, Kalb/Gallo had made changes, some of which we agreed to but some of which we disagreed with. We need to fight to have the original language of our measure re-inserted so we want to ask the Council members to vote "yes" on the 19th to accept the changes advocated by the Coalition (7 specific changes listed below).

Dan Kalb: dkalb@oaklandnet.com / 238-7001

Noel Gallo: ngallo@oaklandnet.com / 238-7005

Desley Brooks: dbrooks@oaklandnet.com / 238-7006

Abel Guillen : aguillen@oaklandnet.com / 238-7002

Lynette McElhaney: lmcelhaney@oaklandnet.com / 238-7003

Ann Campbell Washington: acampbellwashington@oaklandnet.com / 238-7004

Larry Reid: lreid@oaklandnet.com / 238-7007

Rebecca Kaplan: rkaplan@oaklandnet.com / 238-7008

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Seven Changes Needed for the Kalb/Gallo Police Commission Measure dated June 14, 2016

Problems and Solutions

The Coalition for Police Accountability is committed to a model of civilian oversight that achieves the objectives of

— increasing community trust by improving police accountability
— acting independently on behalf of the Oakland community
— engaging the community in defining acceptable standards in policy, practices and customs that allow the Police Department to demonstrate ‘best practices’ of 21st Century policing.

Toward that end, we strongly urge the Council to adopt the following changes to the current language in the Kalb/Gallo measure without which the Commission will be unable to achieve these desired outcomes.

IMPACT

The new Police Commission must have a powerful impact in creating permanent reforms of the Oakland Police Department.


1. PROBLEM

The current draft restricts the power of the Commission to review and change OPD policies, procedures, customs and General Orders to use of force, force review boards, and profiling.

The very recently published Strategies for Change, Eberhardt, J. L. (2016) contains 50 recommendations for changing OPD's customs, policies, procedures and General Orders. {Specifically regarding police and practices: 46) Review policy: Handcuffing people undergoing a search. 47) Review policy: Searching people who are on probation or parole: 48) Review practice: Asking people whether they are on probation or parole.}

Under the scope of the currently proposed language, none of these would be under the purview of the Commission's policy-making authority, despite the fact that these directly address the issues of racial disparities and unconstitutional policing which the Commission is being created to address. In addition, in the future there are sure to be other types of misconduct currently not thought of that should be the subject of Commission authority. As the recent sex scandal shows, potential misconduct goes far beyond the use of force.

SOLUTION

Our suggested text removes the subject matter restriction and allows the Police Commission to review all OPD policies, procedures, customs, and General Orders.

MEASURE CITATION: (b)(3)(4)(5)


2. PROBLEM

The current text states that the Agency shall not be required to investigate each public complaint it receives, but shall only investigate complaints involving use of force, in custody deaths, profiling, and First Amendment assemblies. As with the issue of Commission's proposal of rule changes above, serious police misconduct can take many forms and the Agency cannot have the impact the community expects if it is not required to at least consider every public complaint.

SOLUTION

Require the Agency to investigate every public complaint it receives.

MEASURE CITATION: (f)(1)


3. PROBLEM

The current draft restricts the power of the Commission's adjudication of police misconduct cases where there is a disagreement between the Chief of Police and the Agency to a review of the record and prohibits the Commission from conducting its own investigation. There are likely to be cases where new evidence could change the outcome of a case and there is no compelling reason to hamstring the Commission's adjudicatory powers in this manner. The current draft also allows officers to appeal discipline to the Commission in lieu of going to arbitration. In those cases, the Commission must conduct a full evidentiary hearing. This provision could clog the Commission with work that is peripheral to its mission.

SOLUTION

Our text of the measure allows the Commission to conduct a full evidentiary hearing in cases where there is a disagreement between the Chief of Police and the Agency but restricts this power to level one discipline cases. We have also deleted the provision that allows an officer to elect a hearing before the Commission instead of arbitration.

MEASURE CITATION: (g)(2)(8)

COMMUNITY TRUST

The effectiveness of a Police Commission can largely be measured by the degree to which it is able to engender trust in diverse communities. Essential to trust is a process for selecting commissioners that is transparent and free of political patronage.


4. PROBLEM

The current draft allows the mayor to directly appoint three members of the seven member commission. Those three members would immediately be under a cloud of suspicion as surrogates for the mayor. Oakland residents would have reason to be believe that the mayor's appointees' priorities would be to further the mayor's political interests rather than reflect the needs of the communities which are most affected by police misconduct. The result would be a fatal lack of trust in the work of the Commission.

SOLUTION

Preserve the integrity of the Selection Panel and allow the mayor to appoint two members to it. There should be no direct appointments to the Commission.

MEASURE CITATION: (c)(2)

INDEPENDENCE

The Police Commission and the Community Police Review Agency must be focused strictly on oversight of the Oakland Police Department. The mission of these new government institutions must be clear and unambiguous. They must be independent of other City agencies and of other City officials including the City Administrator and the City Attorney.


5. PROBLEM

The current measure allows the City Administrator to exercise certain powers that would undermine the independence of the Police Commission and the Agency. The City Administrator would choose the Commission's administrative support person and would choose an Agency Director from several nominated by the Commission. The Commission would be allowed to terminate the Director with five votes, or four votes and the City Administrator. The same process would apply to the Inspector General. These powers would put the City Administrator into the business of the Commission and the Agency and reduce their independence.

SOLUTION

Delete the provisions that allow the City Administrator's involvement with the work of the Commission and the Agency. 4

MEASURE CITATION: (e)(5)(6)(7)


6. PROBLEM

The current draft provides for the Commission's attorney to be a Deputy City Attorney. This creates a situation where the Commission's attorney reports directly to the City Attorney rather than the Commission. This undermines both the independence of the Commission and its credibility.

SOLUTION

The Commission must be able to hire an attorney who will report directly to it and not to any other City agency, currently the status of the CPRB counsel.

MEASURE CITATION: (c)(1)


7. PROBLEM

Since it appears likely that the final step in discipline proceedings will continue to be binding arbitration, it is essential that the City be represented by effective counsel. The Kalb/Gallo draft is silent on this, which means that the current practice of the City being represented by the City Attorney's office would continue. However, long experience and an extremely negative report by the Federal monitor has shown the inadequacy of that representation.

SOLUTION

The City should be represented in arbitration by the attorney/investigator of the Agency. This would be the attorney with the most knowledge and understanding of the case and the person best able to represent the City. The City Attorney could also, if she wished, assign a Deputy City Attorney to assist in the case.

MEASURE CITATION: Currently not in the measure, but should be added in subsection (g) Adjudication.

[June 14 Oakland Police Commission Kalb/Gallo proposal, prior to amendments by Campbell Washington/Reid/Guillen]