{"id":465031,"date":"2026-09-16T00:54:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T00:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/465031\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T00:54:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T00:54:08","slug":"weeks-before-critical-hearing-oakland-police-department-out-of-compliance-report-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/465031\/","title":{"rendered":"Weeks before critical hearing, Oakland Police Department out of compliance, report says"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Oakland Police Department once again fell out of compliance on a key benchmark<\/a> for investigating complaints against its officers, injecting fresh uncertainty into whether the agency can finally escape decades of federal court oversight at a critical hearing later this month.<\/p>\n

During the first three months of 2026, the department completed 83% of its most serious internal affairs investigations within the required six-month timeframe, according to a report filed Tuesday by the department\u2019s federal monitor, Robert Warshaw. The mark was a couple percentage points shy of the 85% rate<\/a> mandated by the landmark Riders consent decree that has controlled the agency since 2003.<\/p>\n

The finding comes just weeks before a critical hearing on Sept. 29 in front of U.S. District Court Judge William Orrick, who had previously expressed optimism<\/a> that the city could finally end 20-plus years of oversight. The judge personally lauded Mayor Barbara Lee<\/a>, saying that no prior city leaders had \u201cdemonstrated an awareness and holistic understanding of what we need to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, the city\u2019s emergence from that decades-long mandate is in jeopardy..<\/p>\n

The lapse is \u201cextremely disappointing,\u201d said Jim Chanin, one of two attorneys who first litigated the Riders case in the early 2000s. He expressed frustration with the fact that Oakland was allowed to fail 15% percent of the time on that metric and remain in compliance, \u201cyet it\u2019s still not enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the same time, Chanin said he was still unsure whether he would oppose the end of court oversight.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is already the longest consent decree in the United States\u2019 history, and the question is: When is it time to turn this back to the people of Oakland?\u201d<\/p>\n

John Burris, who litigated the Riders case beside Chanin, also said he was \u201cdisappointed.\u201d Still, he did not consider the latest problem to be \u201cnecessarily fatal to the completion of the project.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope the court would not continue the NSA because of this,\u201d said Burris, using an acronym for the Negotiated Settlement Agreement that governs the department\u2019s reform efforts. \u201cI\u2019m hopeful that it\u2019s not significant in the court\u2019s mind, but the court may have a different view.\u201d<\/p>\n

A statement from OPD\u2019s communications team said the agency \u201cacknowledges the Independent Monitor\u2019s latest Sustainability Report and respects the court process,\u201d adding only that it would \u201cprovide any appropriate response following the court hearing later this month.\u201d<\/p>\n

A representatives for Mayor Lee did not immediately reply to a request by this news outlet for comment on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Oakland has been working for decades to emerge from under federal court oversight, which began with the notorious Riders scandal, when four officers were accused of going rogue, beating West Oakland residents and planting drugs on them, all while filing falsified police reports. A 2003 class-action lawsuit resulted in a $10.9 million payout to scores of people who claimed abuse at the hands of those Oakland cops.<\/p>\n

Since then, a federal judge has overseen the department through an appointed monitor, Robert Warshaw, who has long drawn the ire of a rotating cast of mayors and police chiefs who questioned his financial motivations for staying on the case. All of them fought unsuccessfully to end the oversight arrangement \u2014 coming close in 2016 and 2022, only to watch the department once again become embroiled in scandal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At a hearing in May, Orrick offered some of his greatest praise yet for the city and its work in completing dozens of required reforms, adding that \u201cNo one can say \u2018Mission accomplished.\u2019 But I do congratulate the city and OPD on getting this far.\u201d<\/p>\n

City leaders likewise struck a celebratory tone, with Lee framing the hearing as a \u201cmilestone,\u201d and City Council President Kevin Jenkins calling it \u201ca monumental occasion for the city of Oakland.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet the police department has again come under growing scrutiny in recent months.<\/p>\n

Police reform advocates raised alarms over the summer about the July 13 shooting<\/a> of a homeless man in the city\u2019s Fruitvale district, when video showed him being killed<\/a> roughly 90 seconds after most responding officers arrived. The man, tentatively identified by authorities as Jose Angel Castillo, was armed with knives fastened to long poles and was positioned about two parking spaces away from a cadre of officers when he was hit by a volley of at least 8 rounds.<\/p>\n

Multiple officers also have faced arrest in recent weeks.<\/p>\n

In late August, Alameda County prosecutors charged Kevin Arias<\/a> with a single felony count of grand theft of personal property after they say he logged an extra $38,000 in hours that he never worked for the department. Arias \u2014 who started working for the department in 2005 \u2014 is currently a sergeant, though he has on occasion been an acting lieutenant.<\/p>\n

Last week, officers Brandon Mart and David Mac were indicted<\/a> on federal conspiracy and fraud charges after authorities say they partnered with a then-Federal Aviation Administration safety inspector to obtain pilot certifications they didn\u2019t earn, allegedly circumventing required test flights. The case has forced the department to scale back flights<\/a> of its ARGUS helicopter unit from seven days a week to four \u2014 a problem that is expected to continue for at least six months.<\/p>\n

Jakob Rodgers is a senior breaking news reporter. Call, text or send him an encrypted message via Signal at 510-390-2351, or email him at jrodgers@bayareanewsgroup.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Oakland Police Department once again fell out of compliance on a key benchmark for investigating complaints against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":465032,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[3622,348,143,145,144,20278,236],"class_list":["post-465031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-court","tag-investigation","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-oversight","tag-police"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465031","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=465031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}