Are we there yet?

That’s the question hanging precariously over Oakland’s police department.

On Tuesday, the city of Oakland might finally — after 23 years of reform, scandals, progress and backsliding — regain full control over its police department.

The city will appear in federal court on September 29 to argue that it has shown it can sustain a lengthy list of reforms it agreed to in 2003, in the aftermath of the Riders scandal. Moreover, the Oakland Police Department and city officials say the department’s culture has fundamentally changed since the early 2000s, when incidents of racial profiling and police brutality were rife.

However, each time OPD has gotten close to the finish line, new challenges have emerged. This time’s no different.

Last week, the court-appointed monitor who oversees OPD’s progress noted in a report that the department failed to meet a key benchmark for its investigations of serious cases of police misconduct.

Responding to that finding, the two civil rights attorneys who represent the plaintiffs in OPD’s federal oversight case are now asking the judge in charge not to release Oakland from the reform agreement. In a brief to U.S. District Judge William Orrick, James Chanin and John Burris wrote that OPD continues to “yo-yo” in and out of compliance, a situation they find “incomprehensible and bitterly disappointing.”

Chanin and Burris are asking Orrick to take the case to a new phase by ending their participation. They want Orrick and the monitor who reports to him, Robert Warshaw, to keep watch over OPD for one more year without their involvement. If the reforms appear to be sticking, they propose, Orrick could finally close the case in 2027.

The city of Oakland disagrees.

“The City respectfully requests that the Court dismiss the case,” City Attorney Ryan Richardson wrote in a brief, also filed with Orrick yesterday.

Richardson called Chanin and Burris’ proposal “not workable,” as it would create a wholly new oversight framework.

The city argues that the department is ready for full local control after “years of deliberate operational and cultural reform.”

Both sides agree that OPD has profoundly changed, but a key metric has fallen short

The current sticking point has to do with OPD’s timeliness in conducting internal affairs investigations.

As part of the reform program, the city agreed that OPD would complete 85% of Class I internal affairs cases within 180 days. Class I cases are the most serious, involving the use of force resulting in great bodily injury or death, lying or criminal acts. Meeting the 180-day timeline is important because state laws require internal affairs investigators to meet several deadlines when completing a case; missing those deadlines means the department can’t discipline the officers involved.

After years of meeting the 85% mark, OPD fell out of compliance in 2019 and remained so until 2022, when it achieved this goal again. But in late 2024, OPD again fell below the 85% threshold. After getting back above this mark again, more bad news came in May when the monitor reported that 77 of 93 cases had been completed in 180 days — an 83% score.

The city of Oakland argued in its briefing Tuesday that OPD missed the 85% mark by just two cases.

“Missing the Class I timeline requirement for the first quarter of 2026 by two cases does not indicate systemic non-compliance or a lack of institutional will that requires external intervention,” Richardson wrote.

Chanin and Burris see things differently, calling OPD’s performance a “strictly mathematical” matter.

“There is an objective target that OPD must meet and has previously met,” they wrote. “Hitting this benchmark is entirely within the Department’s control. Whether or not OPD achieves the minimum passing grade is not in any way subjective, colorable, or open to interpretation.”

Others weigh in: Oakland Police Commission, OPOA, and community activists

Orrick’s decision next week may also be informed by the views of several other groups who he’s allowed to file briefs.

The Oakland Police Officers Association, which became a party to the oversight case 14 years ago, has consistently asked for an end to the negotiated settlement agreement, known as the NSA. Attorneys for the union wrote this week that “the vast majority of the rank-and-file membership have consistently complied with all of the policies and practices that have become institutionalized in the Department.”

The Oakland Police Commission, the city’s civilian-led watchdog board, filed a statement with the judge saying that if he ends federal oversight, they feel ready to carry the mantle of accountability and reform.

The commission touted its role in helping select the current chief, James Beere, who’s been praised by both Chanin and Burris and the Oakland police union. The watchdog board also mentioned its ongoing efforts to help OPD rewrite policies related to immigration enforcement, sexual harassment, the department’s use of drones and Flock cameras, and other sticky topics.

But they noted that doing all of this and more will require the mayor and City Council to “fully fund” the commission’s work. The statement said the commissioners have “demonstrated their commitment to the body’s oversight mandate by delivering meaningful work product despite funding levels that do not provide the institutional resources the work demands.”

The Coalition for Police Accountability, an activist group that pushed for the creation of the Police Commission in 2016, filed a letter with Orrick saying they too believe the Police Commission is “underfunded”  — and for this reason they argue that the city isn’t ready to take full control of OPD.

“We urge the Court to either postpone termination and to retain jurisdiction of the case or, alternatively, to make termination conditional on a stipulation by the parties that sufficient funding will be made available for effective independent civilian oversight that is ready to take over the work the federal monitor has been performing,” the coalition wrote.

The next hearing in OPD’s federal oversight case is 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 29, before Judge Orrick at the Phillip Burton Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse in San Francisco. The hearing is open to members of the public.

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