The Oakland police are facing a new public records lawsuit.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On Monday, Robbie Powelson, a homeless advocate, filed a lawsuit in state court alleging OPD violated the Public Records Act by refusing to disclose information about a recent fatal police shooting.<\/p>\n
Two OPD officers shot and killed a man on July 13<\/a> near 40th Avenue and International Boulevard. The police department has kept a tight lid on the case since then, releasing few details.<\/p>\n Powelson accused OPD of \u201cshowing contempt for the rule of law by withholding records without justification.\u201d<\/p>\n The department did not respond to questions from The Oaklandside about Powelson\u2019s lawsuit or the shooting. The city attorney also did not immediately respond to a request for more information.<\/p>\n Six days after the shooting, Powelson filed a public records request<\/a> with OPD asking for a wide range of records, including incident reports, photos, videos, and witness statements. Powelson also asked for policies, general orders, and training materials that generally govern how OPD officers are supposed to use deadly force.<\/p>\n The Public Records Act, a decades-old state law that provides the public with access to government information, gives cities 10 days to respond to a request.<\/p>\n OPD responded in nine days to Powelson, on July 28, with a blanket denial, telling him that all of the records he is seeking are \u201ccurrently part of an active investigation\u201d and therefore don\u2019t have to be made public.<\/p>\n Powelson said he believes the department\u2019s response falls short of the law in several respects. The justification of not handing over records because there\u2019s an \u201cactive investigation\u201d contradicts the law\u2019s requirements, he said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIf there\u2019s an investigation, the department has to set forth records and facts about why there\u2019s a public interest in withholding records,\u201d he said. \u201cTheir response doesn\u2019t do that.\u201d<\/p>\n The department\u2019s response, visible to everyone on the city\u2019s public records portal, is a terse three sentences, stating the internal affairs case number for the shooting investigation and explaining, in the department\u2019s view, that \u201cAt this time, there are no responsive, disclosable records.\u201d<\/p>\n One key piece of information the department has repeatedly refused to make public is the name of the man who was killed.<\/p>\n When The Oaklandside asked OPD to identify the deceased man, the department responded on July 28, \u201cWe are not releasing the individual\u2019s information until we notify next of kin.\u201d<\/p>\n The county coroner\u2019s office, which helps investigate police shootings and is under the authority of the sheriff, has also refused to identify the man. A technician with the coroner\u2019s office told The Oaklandside last week that there is a \u201cpress hold\u201d on the case and declined to provide further information.<\/p>\n Powelson said part of the reason he\u2019s suing OPD for records in this case is that the person who was shot appears to have been homeless.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you\u2019re dealing with people who are unhoused, by the police withholding that information, it\u2019s almost menacing,\u201d said Powelson. \u201cSo many people unhoused have been ostracized and alienated, and it\u2019s hard to find their loved ones and next of kin.\u201d<\/p>\n What\u2019s known about the shooting<\/p>\n According to the police, CHP officers attempted to stop a man near a homeless camp<\/a> in Fruitvale on July 13 around 2 p.m. The man fled, and CHP called OPD to help find him. According to OPD, when they located the man near 40th and International, he was holding \u201cdangerous weapons.\u201d Some media outlets, citing OPD, described the weapon as a knife or \u201cbladed weapons<\/a>.\u201d In a statement after the shooting, OPD Chief James Beere said<\/a> officers attempted to de-escalate the situation, but the man \u201cattacked\u201d them. The officers responded with less-lethal and lethal force.<\/p>\n When interviewed the day of the shooting, Beere declined to provide details about the incident, saying he didn\u2019t want to prejudice the statements the police officers would give about the shooting when they\u2019re interviewed by homicide investigators and internal affairs.<\/p>\n Some community members and advocates, including the Anti Police-Terror Project, have protested<\/a> outside OPD headquarters, saying the police haven\u2019t provided enough information to the public about the shooting. A vigil<\/a> was also held on July 18 where activists criticized OPD for withholding records.<\/p>\n OPD said in a statement on social media<\/a> last week that they plan to allow the public to see a \u201ccontextual critical incident video and supporting audio and video\u201d related to the shooting before the end of August.<\/p>\n Under the state law known as AB 748<\/a>, police are required to allow the public to obtain copies of and view videos of \u201ccritical incidents,\u201d which include police shootings, no later than 45 days after the incident took place.<\/p>\n Oakland police initially refused<\/a> to hand over video of former NFL player Doug Martin\u2019s death during an October incident in which he was detained by several officers. But OPD changed its mind in March, releasing portions of body camera video. Martin\u2019s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit<\/a> against the city in June.<\/p>\n Oakland has faced several lawsuits over its violations of the Public Records Act in recent years. Six years ago, a group of investigative journalists sued<\/a> the Oakland police for failing to hand over public records. To settle the case, Oakland agreed to a list of reforms and paid $127,000 in attorneys\u2019 fees, but the attorney for the journalists has recently said OPD is violating this agreement<\/a>. <\/p>\n Last year, the city settled a lawsuit by the Alameda County Taxpayers Association and attorney Marleen Sacks that included allegations Oakland violated the Public Records Act. And earlier in 2025, Oakland settled a separate lawsuit by Sacks, also over alleged violations of state transparency laws. (Oaklandside News Editor Darwin BondGraham also was a party to a lawsuit against Oakland and won a court ruling in 2021<\/a>, forcing the city to disclose decades of police misconduct records.)<\/p>\n Roselyn Romero contributed reporting to this story.<\/p>\n “*” indicates required fields<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Oakland police are facing a new public records lawsuit.\u00a0 On Monday, Robbie Powelson, a homeless advocate, filed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423796,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144,407,408,5548,8553],"class_list":["post-423795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-oakland-police-department","tag-police-accountability","tag-police-shootings","tag-public-records-act"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}