P ages 1 - 52
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
BEFORE THE HONORABLE WILLIAM H. ORRICK, JUDGE
DELPHINE ALLEN, et al., )
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Plaintiffs, )
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VS. ) No. C 00-4599 WHO
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CITY OF OAKLAND, et al., )
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Defendants. )
) San Francisco, California
Wednesday, January 5, 2022
TRANSCRIPT OF VIDEOCONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS
APPEARANCES: (via Zoom Video Conferencing)
For Plaintiffs:
THE LAW OFFICES OF JOHN L. BURRIS
Airport Corporate Centre
7677 Oakport Street, Suite 1120
Oakland, California 94621
BY: J OHN L. BURRIS, ESQUIRE
LAW OFFICES OF JAMES B. CHANIN
3050 Shattuck Avenue
Berkeley, California 94705
BY: JAMES B. CHANIN, ESQUIRE
For Defendant City of Oakland:
OAKLAND CITY ATTORNEY'S OFFICE
One Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, 6th Floor
Oakland, California 94612
BY: BRIGID S. MARTIN, SPECIAL COUNSEL
(Appearances continued on next page)
Reported By: Katherine Powell Sullivan, CSR #5812, RPR, CRR Official Reporter - U.S. District Court
Case 3:00-cv-04599-WHO Document 1503 Filed 01/28/22 Page 1 of 52 Attachment B
2 APPEARANCES (CONTINUED):
For Intervenor Oakland Police Officers Association:
RAINS LUCIA STERN ST. PHALLE & SILVER
2300 Contra Costa Boulevard, Suite 500
Pleasant Hill, California 94523
BY: ROCKNE ANTHONY LUCIA, JR., ESQUIRE
Also Present: Chief LeRonne Armstrong
Captain Wilson Lau
Assistant Chief Darren Allison
Acting Deputy Chief Clifford Wong
Deputy Chief Drennon Lindsey
Mayor Libby Schaaf
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3 Wednesday - January 5, 2022 3:33 p.m.
P R O C E E D I N G S
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THE CLERK: All right. I believe we are set to begin
now in case number 00-4599, Allen, et al. versus
City of Oakland, et al.
Counsel, if you would please state your appearance for the record.
MR. BURRIS: John Burris for plaintiff.
MR. CHANIN: Jim Chanin for plaintiff, Your Honor.
Good afternoon.
MR. BURRIS: Good afternoon, Your Honor.
MS. MARTIN: Good afternoon, Your Honor. Brigid
Martin for the City of Oakland. Mayor Libby Schaaf, City Administrator Ed Reiskin, and Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong, are also present, as well as members of the Department's Executive Team.
MR. LUCIA: Good afternoon, Your Honor. Rockne Lucia
for the Oakland POA Intervenor.
THE COURT: Great. Well, good afternoon to all of
you, and good afternoon to Mayor Schaaf and Chief Armstrong and everyone else.
I'm going to get to my questions in a moment, and after we do that I'm going to ask the City for its further thoughts and then go to the OPOA and then the plaintiffs. So please note 1 2
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4 that I've reviewed everything that you've filed.
At the last CMC, I expressed some high hopes that we were on the path to compliance with the NSA and the end to the Court's oversight, which is a goal that is shared by most people and particularly the hardworking, experienced, and wise monitor and compliance director and his staff in whom I have the greatest confidence.
Despite what I know have been the good-faith efforts and the hard work of the Chief of the command staff, there still remain important areas of noncompliance, and some of them seem to have straightforward fixes. And they need to be fixed in order to reach substantial compliance, and I'm, frankly, disappointed that they haven't been as of yet.
I'm going to name four identifiable, verifiable areas of noncompliance; IA timelines, use-of-force investigation timelines, activation of body-worn cameras, and completion of the policies that have been identified at the CMCs over time.
Now, I don't discount the critical positive achievements that the City has identified in the CMC statement: a remarkable decrease in nondispatch stops, the comprehensiveness of the use-of-force investigations, the reductions in disparity in discipline, and the success in recruiting diverse officers to the force. OPD is justified to be very proud of these
accomplishments which are core to the goals of the NSA and to this Court's oversight.
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5 I recognize, also, that given the detail in the NSA, it's hard to ensure that each part is always in compliance. And I also acknowledge that we live in challenging times and that Oakland has been challenged in the last -- since -- since I took over this case but certainly since the last CMC. But I don't see any of that as excuses or reasons to set aside the NSA or the prior orders of the Court.
The Instagram investigation spotlighted a number of
troubling problems, but the one that concerns me the most was the failure of the leadership of the Department to recognize the corrosive impact of that account and how it undermined everything that the NSA was intended to accomplish.
It evidences cultural rot and it undermines my confidence that the accomplishments that I was just referring to are durable accomplishments. And that's the whole purpose of the NSA in the first place.
So I'm going to start my questioning with the Chief.
And so, Chief Armstrong, it is good to see you.
CHIEF ARMSTRONG: Good to see you, Your Honor.
THE COURT: So, as you know, shortly after the last
CMC I released the comprehensive report of the outside
investigators in the Instagram case.
I expect the Department to implement the recommendations in the report by creating new policies on anti-discrimination and officer cell phone usage and social media participation. 1 2
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6 And so I'm interested in what the current status of those new policies is and what else the Department is doing to prevent the -- what occurred in this case will ever happen again.
CHIEF ARMSTRONG: Your Honor, I think, again, we
share, you know, the same sentiments you've expressed with, you know, extreme concern about the Instagram investigation and the behavior of some members of the Department.
We recognize that even though the incident was initiated by a nonOPD member, a former OPD member, it did impact some of our current members. And we have taken the recommendations in the investigation very serious.
We have already instituted some policies, our zero
tolerance policy for any connection to any extremist group or racist group or excessives group or any antisemitic behavior will be met with extreme discipline up to termination.
Every officer has been advised. We have pushed out
internal policies and practices as well as met with our staff regarding that.
I personally met with all of our supervisors and our
command staff as well as meeting with all of our officers in small groups to have this discussion about zero tolerance.
I think there's a clear understanding of what the
expectations are for our Department, the members of our Department, and I'm confident, moving forward, we will continue 1 2
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7 to see officers and members of our organization complying with those policies.
I think 2021 has been an example of that, Your Honor, with nothing -- a major scandal or any behavior that we would consider to be consistent with that type of investigation occurring over the last 12 months because the new command staff that has been put in place, as well as our focus on
accountability, I think, is beginning to shift the culture.
And so we have created those policies that are
recommended. We will be working with the Police Commission on our new anti-discrimination policy. We'll also be instituting a new policy regarding the use of cell phones both on and off duty and a new social media policy that we'll be working on with the Police Commission as well.
I also have created an internal focus group so that our officers have an understanding of why some of these things need to take place and certain behavior shouldn't even occur both on and off duty in a social media realm.
So we are having conversations about cultural change,
expectation in values within the Department, and I'm confident, moving forward, that 2021 was not a year any different than what I expect moving forward from this organization.
I believe that the culture is changing. I believe this last 12 months has been an example of what we're about moving forward.
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8 THE COURT: Thank you. That's a -- that sounds great, and I hope that that is the case.
I will be asking both Ms. Martin and the Mayor, also, to just comment on their perspective of that report and where things stand, because I do think it's fundamental to everything that you are trying to accomplish.
So let me switch gears to something else that's pretty
fundamental, which is risk management. It seems to me that for the risk management meetings to be sustainable beyond the NSA the Department needs a policy that provides a framework for the meetings; what data should be reviewed, how often they should be run, who should be involved in the meetings, what the outcomes will be.
So I know that you've been working on this policy, Chief.
What's the -- what's the status of the policy and how are you going to ensure that these processes continue beyond the time of the NSA when the Department is no longer under federal court supervision?
CHIEF ARMSTRONG: Well, I think, Your Honor, we have
taken on a policy working group specifically to work on the risk management policy, and that includes members of the IMT team as well.
We initially presented a draft to the IMT team. They had some feedback. And so we then created a group where we could work directly with the IMT to make sure that the
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9 recommendations that the IMT brought forward were included in the draft that the Department is preparing.
I've also placed that at a very high level by assigning Assistant Chief Allison to lead that group, to be a part of those discussions to ensure that we're moving forward.
I think it is a complex policy that we want to create that will govern how we do risk management moving into the future and to make sure this Department is accountable beyond even the people that sit in the seats of command today.
But I will say that I think we have indoctrinated risk
management into our current culture. It is something that all of our command staff participates in. It is something that we use as a foundation for assessing risk on an ongoing basis.
And so what I think is more important than just policy is the idea that commanding supervisors actually understand the value of risk management.
While it's codified in policy, it's important that these drill-downs that we're asking them to do are being done without being told to do them, without a policy saying it's just the best practice of how you make sure that officers are not behaving or showing some type of at-risk behavior that might lead to potential misconduct.
And so we really are saying to supervisors and commanders it's a part of their leadership requirements that they are getting in front of these things and that that risk management 1 2
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10 meeting is just a conversation about how they're assessing their officers' behavior, using the data to make sure it supports the strategies that they come up with to intervene in potential at-risk behavior.
But I think as an organization we take it seriously. We worked closely with Stanford to try to create this risk management process that I believe is very strong and is innovative. It's one which nobody else in the country is using when it comes to the dashboards that we have that we use as a part of those risk management meetings.
And then with the inclusion of our data manager,
Dr. Grossman, she has been a tremendous help for the Department as she seeks to continue to push us by looking at data in different ways and doing thorough analysis regarding the data that's in our VISION system.
So we will, I believe, within the next 90 days, have a
completed risk management policy that's prepared to go before Police Commission for approval.
THE COURT: That is great to hear. You're taking a
little of my thunder away from me because I'm going to tell you that that's what I expect before the next case management conference.
All of these policies are -- they're paper. They provide structure. Much more important that it be built into the blood of the organization. But without that structure it's easy to 1 2
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11 forget it. And you have to live by it every day. And that's the whole purpose of the NSA. A lot of rules.
I think Ms. Martin was, when she was an Assistant U.S.
Attorney, involved in a drug court in Oakland, and I was the one who deals with that in San Francisco. We have a lot of rules for people who are addicted. And the important thing is, of course, that they stay sober. But in order to change their mindset, they have to hit all of the marks of the new structure that's being built for them.
And that's the same thing for OPD in a very different and equally complicated and challenging environment.
Let me ask you about the risk management meetings for a moment. I went to a couple prepandemic, which I was impressed by. My understanding, from everything that I've heard, is that they're even more robust and more effective now, which is great.
Can you give me specific examples of how individual
officer's behaviors have been changed as a result of the risk management meetings?
And I'm not talking about the sort of trends like the
decrease in stop data or those sorts of things, but individual officer's behaviors being modified and improved as a result of this.
CHIEF ARMSTRONG: Yes, Your Honor. I can think of
several examples. One example was an officer that was
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12 identified during the risk management that he was making stops outside of his particular beat.
He was going into an area where he believed that there
would be more likelihood that somebody may be selling or using narcotics and things like that, but he or she was leaving their beat in order to make those stops.
So during that risk management process we identified the officer stops and did a drill-down as to where those stops were occurring and then, you know, make sure we went and gave the officer new strategies to stay focused on his or her beat, to stop engaging in stops that were outside of where the officer was expected to be.
But I think the risk management meeting and the drill-down was allowing us to not just look at the stops but also look at where the stops were occurring, what they were for, and were they in line with the command's direction.
I think, also, what we've seen is an influx of supervisors that are now subject to monitoring as well. So what we've seen during the risk management process as well is that, as we assess officers, when we determine that an entire squad is showing some level of risk, it kicks in for us to do a
supervisor assessment.
And so we've put several supervisors on supervisory
monitoring and intervention as a result of the risk management process and looking at the performance of their teams and 1 2
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13 recognizing that their teams were showing risk because there was deficiencies with supervision. And then we were able to provide the supervisor some development to address that process.
I think, also, one of the things that we've done for the first time in the last two quarters is that we've actually included different areas.
Mr. Burris had asked us specifically about how are we
looking at the 148s, the resisting arrests, the obstruction of justice, and how that's being used, is that being used as a sole reason for charging.
We then, through the risk management process, were able to do an assessment on the entire Department's use of the 148 and being able to assess the officers who use them the most.
Out of that, we better understood that the highest number of 148 arrests were made during protests. But we also were able to look at the officers who had the most and actually look at every single arrest they made for 148 and see if it was appropriate to use that.
So I think we used that in so many different ways to
assess performance in multiple ways but also from a supervisor and command perspective as well.
THE COURT: That's great. That's good. Thank you.
So since the last CMC, you've made some personnel changes, I know, in the command staff. And I understand that the new 1 2
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14 Deputy Chief, who oversees the Bureau of Risk Management, had been the commander of the Office of Inspector General.
Is there a new Inspector General in the Department, and how has the work of that unit been affected by the absence of a commanding officer?
CHIEF ARMSTRONG: So Acting Deputy Chief Cliff Wong,
who has been with the Department for over 24 years, was the Inspector General, and still is. He has stepped up in acting role as the acting deputy chief of the Bureau of Risk
Management while still maintaining the roles and
responsibilities related to the OIG.
He also has with him on his staff, Kristin Burgess, who is the manager of our OIG in our auditing area. Kristin Burgess is supporting Deputy Chief Wong in his role of both taking on OIG and the Bureau of Risk Management.
That is not a long-term position. It is my plan to fill the deputy chief's position, but I think the opening came as a result of holding people accountable at the highest level.
I've been clear from the beginning that misconduct, no
matter where it comes from, even at the executive level, if it violates policy, appropriate actions will be taken. And actions were taken which led to a vacancy in that position.
I wasn't in a rush to put somebody into that position
immediately. We've had discussion and we are providing Acting Deputy Chief Wong the support he needs through Assistant Chief 1 2
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15 Allison supporting him as well. But the plan is to move forward with the selection of a Deputy Chief.
I spoke to the IMT this week about it and we will be
having further discussion in the month of February about filling that position.
THE COURT: Okay. This is advice that you can ignore.
It's not a judicial command. But I have found in life that the longer people are in acting positions, the less attention that people pay to them. It really does matter to have the title.
So you have to have the right person.
CHIEF ARMSTRONG: Yes.
THE COURT: But it really does matter to have people
who are permanent. The people who are reporting to that person know this person counts for their life.
So then the final thing that I had for you is, I was quite pleased that the Department has made gains in attracting more diverse academy classes. I wish there were more women still, but I understand the difficulties in doing that. But in terms of gender, race, and ethnicity.
And so the next question is, what are you doing to retain those people?
CHIEF ARMSTRONG: Yeah, we've been having that
discussion. The Mayor and I have been having that discussion, as well, about things that we could do to help retain officers.
I appreciate the Mayor has taken on even coming into the 1 2
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16 Department to speak with officers as they exit as well as holding individual meetings to better understand why we see so many officers leaving the Department for other departments.
Obviously, Oakland is a very challenging city and,
obviously, being here today, you know, obviously we are under federal oversight and sometime the pressure can get to some people.
And so we're trying to reassure our officers within the Department that we're going to try new and innovative ways to continue our progress towards NSA compliance, particularly utilizing technology.
And I think, as you even mentioned earlier when you talked about the cameras, I believe that the new technology that the City invested $8 million in, which is the replacement of our body-worn cameras for automatic activation, will be a
tremendous help for our offices and will alleviate in some ways the need to avoid the mishap of human instinct sometime where you forget to activate, and have automatic activation.
I also think that, hopefully, we can eliminate some
reports by automatic activation from the holster when officers have to actually bring out their weapon. So I think we're going to use technology to help deal with some of the officers' concerns.
We have personally went to line-ups to hear directly from them about things that they are concerned about. The
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17 administrative tasks are some of the highest -- rank as some of their highest concerns about how administratively heavy we are.
So we're trying to achieve that through technology,
improving the technology that we have. And the City is upgrading our current communications. Our CAD system, our digital dispatch -- automated dispatch center will be getting a new system. That will be helpful.
And so I just think the City has invested a lot of money in helping us improve our technology, and I think that officers will see the benefit.
I think we're also talking to Police Commission about the potential of having some type of mediation when it comes to discipline. So maybe we can deal with some discipline issues by actually having mediation, where officers can meet with people who have filed complaints and just have a discussion about how our performance may have been able to be better or maybe what an officer's reasoning for certain action.
I do think that that is much more meaningful to the public if they're able to share their concerns with the officer. So we're going to explore some different ways to deal with some of the officers' concerns.
And I hope that as the City takes on a look at what might be from a financial retention plan, there are some
conversations about that as well, and we'll see what the City Council and others decide to do with that.
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18 But there are some conversations being made to make us competitive with other cities locally, who are giving officers significant bonuses to leave Oakland and come to their
departments, bonuses as high as $30,000.
Those are challenges that we have to and the
City of Oakland have to manage. But the first thing is creating a comfortable work environment for our staff and make them feel appreciated.
And I've expressed that to our City Council, the need for more appreciation for the hard-working men and women of this Department that are dealing with challenging times in a pandemic. But, also, we're asking a lot of a very small Department where we've seen significant increases in violence.
So it is a lot, but I think we are happy with where we're moving.
And we thank the Mayor because she's personally taken a lot of time to meet with the POA, meet with the officers as well as our staff, to hear their concerns.
THE COURT: Well, thank you, Chief. And thank you for
the -- your hard work and your efforts in all manners, from what I can see across the Bay, and particularly what I am seeing within the Department. So thank you for that.
Let me go to Captain Lau.
Good afternoon, Captain Lau.
CAPTAIN LAU: Good afternoon, Your Honor.
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19 THE COURT: I'm confident you have no idea what I'm
going to ask you about.
CAPTAIN LAU: Let me try to predict.
THE COURT: So I have to tell you one of my colleagues
in Arizona, a federal district judge in Arizona, I understand right now has contempt proceedings going on involving the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office because they are violating their 85-day time limit for Internal Affairs investigations.
The NSA gives Oakland 180 days. You've been struggling with getting to the requirements of the NSA. And I know that you understand that delayed investigations are a disservice to the public and also the employees of the Department.
So in the last -- since the last time we met, what changes have you made to meet the timeliness requirements, and how are you holding investigators accountable for meeting the required 180-day deadline?
CAPTAIN LAU: Your Honor, 85 days in Arizona seems
pretty short. I'd like to see how those investigations look if that's done in 85 days.
But I assure you I was just as disappointed, but I
remained optimistic, because this was the closest that we've got for Task 2.1. We're 2 percent shy from Class 1, we're 83, and we're 91 percent for Class 2.
Everything we've put in place has been working. It just takes a little bit of time for everything to go, as we have a 1 2
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20 big organization. But I am very confident that, with everything that we've put into place, that we'll remain consistent, because in the 2021 fourth quarter I believe, using the methodology that we have, that I went over with the IMT, that we are projecting compliance for the fourth quarter.
And I think everything we have in place, it's continuing to improve and now we're there. And I think as long as -- and this is all owed to the leadership of the organization from the top on down. That's everyone's attention to detail.
So, Your Honor, I hope the next CMC we will -- I'm keeping track of the 2021 fourth quarter numbers. As you know, the fourth quarter ended, and I'm very confident that we're there, sir.
THE COURT: All right. Well, so that -- I take you at
your expectation, and I'm pleased to the extent that it turns out to be correct.
And when we meet again, we'll not only -- we will have
finished the first quarter in 2022, and I am -- I want to see both -- or I hope that I see the fourth quarter the way that you expect it, and I need to see the first quarter in the way that you can deliver it.
So thank you for making those changes and for making sure that that happens.
CAPTAIN LAU: No problem, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Okay. Thank you.
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21 Assistant Chief Allison.
ASSISTANT CHIEF ALLISON: Good afternoon, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Good afternoon. You have the same
enviable position of knowing exactly what I'm going to ask you.
So the -- and I hear the Chief on the technological
potential for the new cameras, which sounds great. Technology still is going to be as good as the officers.
And I don't really understand why this has continued to be a problem even with the technology that you do have. So I'm interested in what you have learned about why supervisors aren't catching what they ought to be catching with respect to the use of these -- of the body-worn cameras and what you're doing to address it.
ASSISTANT CHIEF ALLISON: Thank you, Your Honor.
So, you know, I've obviously had a lot of time to spend on looking at the body-worn camera activation issue, and it kind of prompted the move to Axon, which I will say that, as the Chief indicated, we have our first shipment of 150 body-worn cameras here before the end of the year, and we're going to continue to get them through the first quarter of this year.
When I look at the culture of activation in the Police
Department, I think back very far where we were and how far we've come. And I remember just a few short years ago our issues were really around not activating at all. We had a lot of incidents of no activation, and those were concerning. 1 2
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22 As we've progressed forward with training and direction, and trying to shore up policy, we've seen that gap close. I'll tell you that when we look at the numbers, even in the last three assessments, on use-of-force feedback, when you look at the universe of incidents, I think there were around 340 or so use-of-force incidents that were assessed involving about 741 officers.
There were 75 determined late activations, a little less than half that were not caught by supervisors. So we're in about the 90th percentile of actual either activations or activations if they did not occur were actually caught by the supervisor.
We did our own independent inspection of non-use-of-force instances, since, obviously, we have to activate in other occasions other than use-of-force occurrences. Fifty incidents of 216 officers, and we found 15 late activations. And so we're about 93 percent officers activating appropriately.
And so I think that's that way. We are in the 90s when it comes to activation or activation that was found by
supervisors, because we have pushed on that accountability, that high scrutiny and that level of review.
I know that when we look at use-of-force investigations, particularly our Levels 2s and our Levels 3s, which are the more serious use-of-force incidents, it's very rare that we can go through those and not find some type of training point. 1 2
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23 Some cases it's body-worn cameras and some cases it's tactical issues or demeanor issues, whatever the case may be.
And, again, I think that's, as an organization, paying close attention and focusing on it.
I think, with the body-worn camera upgrades with the new equipment, we won't really be talking about the delays in activation because they will be activated by automatic intent.
But we'll be talking about incidences where we are requiring people to deactivate it for whatever the various reasons are.
So I think that we will overcome our hurdle with not only equipment, but, again, accountability. And I'm just, again, coming back from where I saw issues of zero accountability, we're seeing, again, that culture of activation.
And I also want to -- just know, Your Honor, that in all our body-worn cameras and use-of-force encounters, there weren't any incidences where we found either use of force was missed or where there was any issue of a zero activation.
And, again, I do believe the reviews that we've done, the risk management meetings that we've had, and the messaging we pushed on to our supervisors has really kind of closed that gap from years ago to where we are today.
I think there's one other thing that we need to keep
pushing on, and that is really how we develop our new
sergeants.
I know you mentioned and discussed with the Chief
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24 retention. Not only do we see officers leaving for various reasons, but we also see folks entering into retirement, which we are losing a cadre of seasoned officers and supervisors and commanders.
So there is a new learning curve for individuals, so
shoring up our transition course, our development course, will help better reviews for our supervisors as we move into the future.
THE COURT: Okay. Good. Well, so that's all very
positive. I look forward to hearing how the -- how the new cameras are working at the next session. Thank you.
ASSISTANT CHIEF ALLISON: Sure.
THE COURT: Now, how about Acting Deputy Chief Wong,
who would have to turn on his camera and -- there. Something is happening. There we go.
ACTING DEPUTY CHIEF WONG: How are you, sir? I
apologize for that. I couldn't get my mask off in time.
THE COURT: Not a problem.
So I'm interested in learning about -- a little bit more about how the supervisors are using the data dashboards.
A couple of years ago I visited the Department and
attended a presentation by a vendor who was developing those dashboards.
Are all of the supervisors using them? And what sort of feedback are you getting from their use?
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25 ACTING DEPUTY CHIEF WONG: Well, the vendor you're
talking about is Slalom. And I can't say that every single supervisor is using them, but they are being used by, at the very least, the command staff and the area captains.
And they're using those to do drill-downs into their
individual squads and officers. And they use that to
supplemental the products created by Dr. Grossman. So she produces the data, they can use that to look up the line item details.
THE COURT: And so is that -- is that the plan?
Is that as low as the dashboards were going to be used in the -- by rank?
ACTING DEPUTY CHIEF WONG: By "low," you mean at the
captain level?
THE COURT: Yes. Weren't the dashboards going to be
accessible by more than just the command staff that you mentioned?
ACTING DEPUTY CHIEF WONG: Oh, no, they are accessible
all the way down to the supervisor. I'm saying that for sure I can tell you the captains are using them and the lieutenants are using them.
I couldn't speak for every single sergeant out there, but we know they're being used. And we're getting feedback that it's become one of their steps that they use to gather data to look at details.
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26 THE COURT: And so any constructive criticism of the dashboards, or is it all enthusiasm?
What kind of feedback are you getting?
ACTING DEPUTY CHIEF WONG: Well, with any complicated
system, you don't have all enthusiasm. So when there's issues, they come to us. And, you know, Dr. Grossman and Sergeant Dinh and their crew can walk them through on how to better use those tools, so that that occurs regularly.
THE COURT: So, all right. Well, you have an
exceptionally important and difficult task, and I recognize that. And so I -- I hope that you grasp it and make it your own, and make sure that everything is working in compliance with the NSA and the directions that we've been making.
ACTING DEPUTY CHIEF WONG: Thank you. Yes, sir.
THE COURT: Thank you.
And how about Deputy Chief Lindsey?
I can't hear you, but good afternoon.
DEPUTY CHIEF LINDSEY: There we are. Can you hear me
now?
THE COURT: I can.
DEPUTY CHIEF LINDSEY: Good afternoon, sir.
THE COURT: Good afternoon.
So I'm interested in how the Department, in the wake of the Hillard Heintze study, is doing with respect to training and promotional process and disciplinary procedures that 1 2
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27 address racial disparities.
DEPUTY CHIEF LINDSEY: So we've been moving forward
quite well. As you probably have read, we're wrapping up all of the recommendations and implemented them from the Hillard Heintze study.
The last portion is the implementation of the workshop
series which we call Project Reset. That has been received quite well. We're in the Module 1 where we're doing the Train The Trainer. And the trainers are very enthused about it.
I actually have had people reach out asking if they could be a part of the training team, which, in this climate, with all that we have to do and how busy we are, is very, very fulfilling to see that type of response.
A portion of the Project Reset, in conjunction with the Stanford researchers, is that we have to write Modules 2 and 3.
So we actually have to work with Stanford to come up with the additional curriculum.
But it's been great. We're actually, also, again, working with the director from the Race and Equity Department, Darlene Flynn. She's assisting us with writing a policy for the Oakland Police Department as it relates to race in equity.
So we're going to adopt the City's race and equity policy, and then we're also going to implement an informational bulletin that just covers the comprehensive report of the actual Hillard Heintze study, everything that we've done just 1 2
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28 to further educate the Department on what we've done and some of the impacts, such as the IAD process, where we've anonymized the demographics of the individual as we're going through the discipline process and also as we go through sustained cases.
So it's been pretty good so far, yeah.
THE COURT: You're getting the support you need?
DEPUTY CHIEF LINDSEY: Yes, absolutely.
We have a great team assembled from Captain Lau,
Lieutenant Turner, who's been helping us out with policy and procedures.
We have two new managers that's joined the Department, who are actually doctorate students, and they're assisting with just finishing out the workshop series and just the
coordination between the completion of the additional policies with Director Flynn and just making sure that we're hitting the mark from the recommendations that came out of the study.
So we've got a pretty good committee working towards the project, and just hopefully grow our internal race and equity team. So that's been pretty positive.
THE COURT: That's great. All right. Thank you.
DEPUTY CHIEF LINDSEY: Thank you.
THE COURT: So, Mayor Schaaf, I'm interested in your
reaction and response to the Instagram investigation, but anything else that you wanted to -- that you would like to share I would be very interested in.
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29 MAYOR SCHAAF: Well, I'm happy to start there.
Everyone on this call felt the heat of my wrath when that ungodly, embarrassing, horrific Instagram account was
discovered.
I appreciate that no one made excuses even though it was a very chaotic time in our city. I appreciate that people were appropriately horrified. I -- I was sharing recently that one of the command staff I actually thought was -- came to tears because it was so just antithetical to everything that not just this Department has been working on but our City stands for.
I think we come to Oakland with a particular love for our city and pride that this is a city that stands for values. And those values include inclusive diversity, equity, justice, respect. And that account literally vomited on every one of those values.
I do appreciate the contrition that I believe was
sincerely felt by each and every one of you, and you are all on this call right now, who had that email in your inbox but did not open it up or look at it or process the information that was in it.
I do appreciate the efforts of the independent analysis and the recommendations that have been made, and I am pleased that the primary perpetrator is someone we fired. And, obviously, several other people have left the Department since this all came to light. And that is all appropriate.
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30 And, you know, Your Honor, I've lived my life as a woman.
Much of what I discovered in the detailed investigation was highly disappointing but not entirely surprising nor unique to police departments.
And so I appreciate that this was an opportunity that shed light on things that were unrelated to the Instagram case, that allowed us to address those as well. And we will remain ever vigilant to improve not just the culture of the Police
Department but of the entire City of Oakland.
Every workplace needs to be dignified and be equitable.
And so I believe the recommendations of the report will put us on that path, are well-taken and have been embraced.
And I appreciate the -- to the extent that it was horrific that we went through it, I believe that we will come out better because of it.
I do not have much else to add, Your Honor. I think you know that this has been a very difficult year not just because of the pandemic, but because we lost 134 lives to homicides.
And that was an all-time high of homicides for at least a decade.
And we also had an all-time low in this last decade of the lowest police staffing that we've had. I believe the force got down to 676 officers. And I, for one, believe that police reform and excellent performance and professionalism and culture change requires an adequately staffed Department where 1 2
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31 officers are not overworked. And I am feeling much better about our path to correcting that deficiency.
I'm pleased the City council has authorized additional
training academy and is even looking for creative ways to incentivize addressing the staffing challenges.
And I appreciate, Chief, your recognition that I'm trying to invest as much of my own personal time to really digging into why officers are leaving our Department and how we can address having adequate staffing and the highest professional standards.
I am very pleased about our new -- both the class that
just graduated and our new class that just started the academy.
And I also want to acknowledge it's not just that the
recruitment efforts have improved, but the retention efforts, the actual retention through the academy and through the field training process.
We've actually had much higher retention rates during
those processes in this recent year. So, Chief, kudos to you for that.
I also want to acknowledge that we welcomed Oakland's
first Inspector General for the Oakland Police Commission, Michelle Phillips. And so that is yet another partner and amazing talent that will help in our collective work.
Your Honor, I'm available for any questions that you have.
I acknowledge the deficiencies that you listed at the beginning 1 2
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32 of this hearing, and we will absolutely focus on providing those things that you very reasonably expect of us.
THE COURT: Well, thank you, Mayor Schaaf.
And I just -- I want to acknowledge your, at least, more public -- and it's probably taking more of your time, too, but the energy and efforts that you've put in that have been particularly evident to me over the last year and a half or so on these very difficult and important issues. Your leadership has been very valuable, and so thank you for that.
MAYOR SCHAAF: Thank you, Judge.
THE COURT: Ms. Martin, do you have anything that you
would like to add?
MS. MARTIN: Yes, Your Honor.
I'm going to echo what Mayor Schaaf just said about the City and the Department coming out better after the Instagram investigation.
Now, the report does not indicate that the Department's executive leadership actually saw the Instagram memes before January 8th. And when they did, to be fair, the Interim Chief and the IAD captain did immediately recognize the absolute corrosive nature and how objectionable these memes were and a full-scale investigation ensued.
In very short order, they did confiscate cell phones from more than 140 officers, not only those officers who appeared to have followed the Instagram page but also officers who were 1 2
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33 assigned to the OPD crime reduction team in the past or other proximate units. And that was in an effort to find and eradicate bigoted members or members who harbor or encourage bigots.
We absolutely understand that the Department will remain under court supervision until we root out officers who do not respect the people they serve and treat them equally. That is absolutely fair.
As part of the City's commitment to exactly that, the
Department is trying to take more proactive approaches and implement more proactive measures to get ahead of that.
One of those, which is included in the new
implementations, is figuring out and making sure that there is not only the possibility that officers' cell phones may be confiscated and reviewed, but that that is actually happening in real time as far as, you know, having officers' phones actually being looked at on a regular basis so that those reviews will be happening; there's not just the specter or the fear that it could happen.
And the other is that as Chief Armstrong went around and spoke to different groups of officers he is also encouraging if you hear something or see something, do not remain silent.
It's important to the future of this Department and to the Department's values that those folks that hear things do not remain silent but that they speak up and let their supervisors 1 2
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34 or let the Executive Team know when they hear or see objectionable things.
And I will say, without getting into specifics, that that is happening. That is happening in the Department. So I am hopeful that we will come out of this stronger and we will root out some of the problem officers.
With that said, I also wanted to turn and speak briefly about risk management and note that when we talk about risk management, we're not just talking about risk management meetings. We're talking about every facet of the Department's work.
Risk management is not something that occurs only at
meetings with that title. It really occurs daily throughout the Department. It's kind of fair to say that risk management runs through the Department's veins.
The monthly risk management report that we previously
previewed with the Court in a prior filing, that's really just the metaphorical tip of the iceberg, a really easily digestible report that a supervisor can see and identify particular areas that they want to dig further into.
What comes with that as a supplement created by the risk analysis unit are a number of trend lines that sort of look like dashboards or come from the dashboard side of the house and will show trend lines typically going back about 18 months.
But we have to be careful because the -- given the number 1 2
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35 of policy changes and reporting changes that have occurred in the last couple of years, some of that does affect what those numbers might be.
So that adds an additional layer of complexity to that, that the supervisors have to navigate around. And they do often go back and ask the risk analysis unit for additional deeper dives into certain -- certain statistics. And some of that is presented at risk management meetings, but some of it's not, even though it's all useful.
Additionally, we have seen some really significant risk mitigation impacts that have come out of the Department's risk management processes. One is the lowest ever African American stop rate sustained for two consecutive quarters. A second is a huge reduction in handcuffing people without arrest or citation, a huge reduction in racial disparities in that handcuffing.
From -- I think, the 2014-to-2015 data showed that 1 in 4 African Americans who were stopped without arresting citation were handcuffed versus 1 in 15 whites. Fast-forward to 2020 and our data shows that for every one -- it's 1 in 3.3
African Americans in that situation are handcuffed versus 1 in
3.7 whites. So that is a huge reduction in disparity there.
Our risk mitigation really is also evident in the
Department's use of force. The Department is in compliance with its force review boards and executive force review board's 1 2
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36 tasks. And the monitoring team has agreed with OPD's use-of force determinations for nearly all uses of force at every level since it reactivated its review of Task 25.
And we also acknowledge that body-worn cameras are
risk-related. We understand and agree that failure to properly activate a body-worn camera could result in the loss of critical information regarding community contacts.
But it is significant that, in fact, none of the delayed activations or other deficiencies have actually impacted the Department's ability to rigorously and appropriately
investigate any uses of force. And I think that is because there has been overall improvement.
The type of delays that we're seeing are a matter of
seconds, and I think that that's important because it does tend to show that these activations are unintentional human error.
These are not officers who are trying to hide what's going on or obscure uses of force.
It's not to say -- this is absolutely not to say that the Department will every stop trying to correct behavior to minimize any and every one of these deficiencies, but reducing that human error in a Department with several hundred officers and hundreds of thousands of activations every year to an amount that doesn't interfere with the Department's ability to conduct use-of-force investigations is at least a critical benchmark, and that is a benchmark that the Department has 1 2
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37 achieved at this point.
THE COURT: All right. Thank you. Thank you,
Ms. Martin.
MS. MARTIN: Thank you, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Mr. Lucia.
MR. LUCIA: Good afternoon, Your Honor.
I just want to just say that, you know, I just first want to commend Chief Armstrong and Mayor Schaaf. Throughout the last few, I'd say six, seven, eight, nine, months, they have repeatedly asked the community, the elected officials, to support their need for increased staffing.
And, as you read in our CMC statement, the staffing
levels, I think, really impact a lot of what you're hearing today. You know, comparing the turnaround time on
investigations, you know, in Maricopa County 85 days sounds crazy low. I mean, it's just incredible. I don't know how they do that. But I'm just thinking in my mind that that's got to be a function of staffing.
And so, you know, the Mayor and the Chief, you know, have a very difficult job. They've got to control crime in Oakland.
At the same time, you know -- and Mayor Schaaf just said it -- we have to be cognizant of the impact that this is having on rank and file; the workload, not the NSA requirements and all of that.
And I just want to say to you that, you know, when I
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38 prepare the CMC statements, you know, we're the intervenors and we've basically tried to stay in our lane through the duration of this, but this time, when I was canvassing members of the OPOA, I just sensed this general need on their part to just say to you, through the CMC and right now, that, you know, they're facing very daunting tasks out there on the street and they're doing their best, you know, to serve the citizens of Oakland.
I will tell you, the Instagram case, all the recent
mishaps, if you will, that does not represent the vast majority of Oakland police officers who are out there doing their best, you know, to comply with the NSA, to be respectful, change culture, but, most importantly, to protect the citizens of Oakland. And it's got nothing to do with the NSA per se, but I think staffing morale is part of a cultural process that needs to continue.
And, again, I want to commend Mayor Shaaf because she
stood up, along with the Chief, and demanded, you know, that the community embrace greater staffing levels so they can serve the community better.
So I just want to thank you for giving me the opportunity, if you have any questions. But I also want to commend all of the members of the command staff that have spoken. You see the professionalism, the effort. You know, it's just remarkable to me.
John and Jim and I have been here from the beginning, and 1 2
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39 the Department's come a long way, a very long way.
THE COURT: Thank you, Mr. Lucia.
MR. LUCIA: Thank you, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Mr. Chanin.
MR. CHANIN: Good afternoon, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Good afternoon.
MR. CHANIN: I would like to start by just commenting
briefly on two things that I heard.
One is the absence of mediations. And I know OPD used to have mediations at some point because I remember going up to the City Attorney's Office long ago, for some reason, and the officers and people were in the same elevator I was in, and you could cut the tension with a knife. It was, like, really noticeable even to a guy like me who was focusing on the deposition or whatever it was I was going up there for.
And I asked them what -- when I got up there, I asked some City attorney or some staff person what was going on, and they told me it was a mediation.
And when I came down, just by coincidence, I saw the same people in the elevator, including the officer, and they were all, like, laughing and talking, and it obviously was
successful.
And, frankly, I'm shocked and I don't understand why these mediations are no longer done. I think they're a great idea.
And, obviously, you have to have the consent of the -- of both 1 2
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40 parties, but, you know, I think it's a good idea. Sometimes it doesn't work, but, you know, you can't hit a home run every time you're at bat. So I would like to echo that.
The second thing I want to say is what Assistant Chief
Allison said, and that is that we've come a long way on the activation of body-worn cameras.
I remember a meeting where we were at, John and I or
whatever, it was a long time ago, but we heard that they'd had eight executive force review boards and in seven of them the camera wasn't turned on.
And I said, you know, the people of Oakland spent money on this, and I think that maybe I'll go ask Judge Henderson to shift the burden of proof so when an officer doesn't use his or her camera, that they'll -- they'll have the burden of proof of proving they didn't do it rather than the other way around.
So everyone said no, no, we'll take care of it and so on and so forth. And I know the president of the OPOA and others went to every lineup and told them there would be -- at least the quote, I was given -- bone-crushing discipline if the cameras weren't used.
And I think there's been a remarkable improvement since then. We still have a way to go, but we're getting there. And I support the Department's efforts to the extent we've gotten this far.
So let me say what I was going to say, which was, I want 1 2
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41 to begin by thanking the men and women of the Oakland Police Department for staying on the job during this very difficult period for them and their families.
Unlike us, they do not have the prerogative of working on Zoom. And we appreciate their efforts. And none of the concerns I'm going to raise today diminishes that.
The Instagram investigation is now concluded. I think the fact that we had a scandal like this in 2021, over 20 years after this case started, is depressing.
We agree with Clarence Dyer's conclusion, which is set
forth, in part, on page 7 of our brief, that this conducts speaks, at best, to an absence of processes within OPD to ensure a safe and discrimination-free workplace committed to court-ordered reforms, and, at worst, bespeaks a culture so hostile to women and minorities and so wedded to a discredited model of policing that it cannot identify discrimination and antireform messaging when it sees it.
I sometimes wonder if Mr. BondGraham, a reporter, had not discovered these memes, that they would have ever become public. I wonder why this case was not referred to Internal Affairs nearly four months after nearly every member of OPD was tipped off by email that the Instagram site had been discovered by outsiders.
Now, I don't know how many people opened that email, and we'll never know, but at least some of them did, that's for 1 2
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42 sure.
This email was written by an OPD officer who did not
report this misconduct to Internal Affairs as required by OPD regulations. In fact, as set forth by the -- in the Clarence Dyer report on pages 9 and 10, the case was not referred to Internal Affairs until a former -- until the former police chief found out that I knew about the case. This is obviously unacceptable, especially at this stage of the negotiated settlement agreement.
One could argue that this is a "boys will be boys" case and I am taking it too seriously. However, after representing women police officers from Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda,
San Francisco, and other places throughout the Bay Area, I have come to the conclusion that there is real harm when these jokes and cartoons are allowed to be distributed around the Police Department with no consequences.
Moreover, the failure of OPD to develop a social media
policy since this incident was made public is simply
unacceptable.
The same can be said for OPD's failure to finalize a risk management policy, the A171 policy, and a cell phone policy as to what is permissible on OPD phones.
The Instagram case bears an uncanny resemblance to the sex scandal of 2015-2016. That case was also covered up by an unknown but large number of Oakland police officers, some of 1 2
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43 whom had sex with an underage girl.
The case was not uncovered until former councilmember
Desley Brooks and I raised concerns about some details of a police officer suicide and the IMT discovered his suicide note which implicated other OPD officers' contact with the minor.
Plaintiffs' attorneys would like to have OPD in compliance and begin the sustainability period sometime this year; however, there are some things that must happen before that time.
We cannot have a scandal like in -- in 2022, particularly not one that is not brought forth by the OPD itself.
Finalizing the risk management policy and the social media policy also must be done.
The Department is still out of compliance with Task 25, as you said, Your Honor. The noncompliance appears to be focused on supervisors' failure to note late activation of body-worn cameras and supervisors' delay in finalizing use-of-force investigations within stated OPD policy.
The OPD will be acquiring new cameras this year which will automatically activate when the patrol lights are turned on or some other form of self-activation. Hopefully, this will solve the problem of delayed activations going forward.
The issue with supervisors must be resolved by the IMT and officers working together to come up with a doable commonsense solution.
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44 I've had officers tell me that there is so much paperwork for them to do that they are often delayed in arriving at their next call. If that is true, it's only a matter of time before someone gets hurt or worse.
On the other hand, the supervisors' failure to complete investigations in time can create significant risk management problems if use-of-force outliers are not identified in a timely way so the ways to remedy this conduct can be discussed at a risk management meeting.
There must also be compliance with Task 2. OPD was in
compliance with Task 2 as recently as 2019. At that time plaintiffs' attorneys long ago sided with the OPD over the opposition of the first monitor in agreeing to their requests that they be given 180 days to complete an investigation and have a compliance rate of only 85 percent.
And, Your Honor, we just heard what's going on in
Maricopa, and so this is a generous concession that we stand behind to this day, but it has to be complied with.
OPD and CPRA need to talk to each other and see if the
CPRA investigations that take longer than 180 days can be minimized to the point where OPD can be in compliance with Task 2 and the CPRA can feel they are pursuing an investigation in a professional manner as they see fit.
My review of recent Police Commission tapes where this
issue was discussed leads me to believe that this issue can be 1 2
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45 resolved to everybody's satisfaction. If not, we would suggest that the Court get involved in this issue.
I discussed Task 34, stop data vehicle stops, field
investigations and detentions at the last case management conference and will only dwell on it briefly at this time.
Barring an unforeseen discovery by the IMT, I believe they should give serious consideration to finding OPD in compliance with this important task.
Not only have African American stops plummeted in recent years, but Campaign Zero, an organization advocating criminal justice reform, who uses data to measure progress, has not only found Oakland leads comparable-size cities in the low number of officer-involved shootings but also rank first in reducing black/white disparities and has actually lowered the rate of African American stops in addition to the raw number of stops.
These charts appear in both plaintiffs' and defendant's portions of the last case management conference statement. The chart and the City's portion of the CMC statement on page 24 details these developments further. However, the same chart also shows the stops of Hispanics since 2014 has almost doubled, from 17 percent to 33 percent, by 2021.
Now, Your Honor, this case does not specifically cover
stops of Latinos; however, someone in OPD needs to look at these figures so that, as our case concludes, there is not another case involving the OPD and Latinos.
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46 Mr. Burris will now discuss Task 45 and other issues of concern. Thank you.
THE COURT: Thank you, Mr. Chanin.
Mr. Burris.
MR. BURRIS: Let me say -- I won't go long on this,
but I will say that I think that the issue that the Court raised earlier, and one which I have talked about my entire efforts in police work, is the culture of the Department and that that culture really carries over into all the other issues that we make reference to, whether it's stop data disparities, disrespect, all those areas, seem to me, flow from the culture that the Department has and how they treat a citizen and the mindset of the individual officers.
And so the Instagram issue and how that's been dealt with has been very instructive at least as it relates to a mindset that, I think, exists.
The question is how pervasive is it, and that's the part that's troubling, because when you look at what's going on around the country in some of these various groups, you know, protest groups, particularly Republican-type protest groups, a lot of those are law enforcement people. They've been in the military and law enforcement, and the question is whether that's the mindset that's also carried over here in OPD.
And we've identified -- at least certain ones
identified -- not we, but it's been identified through
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47 Instagram that there was a significant mindset of disrespect that was taking place. And, to me, that represented a culture in the Department because it was viewed as okay, it was acceptable amongst these officers.
And so for us as we go forward the question is, do we have things in place that will identify before it becomes a problem that culture or that mindset within the Department?
Because what we're talking about here -- and I know the Chief and the Mayor and everyone supports this, and Rockne, as well -- that we're talking about stainability. And we want to know that whatever we do here will have a lasting impact in the future beyond us.
So that's what I want to see, you know, what -- how has the culture really changed? I mean, I know we got things perhaps in place and how we can count on them being sustainable in the future.
It is not -- it is easy to identify that there will be
problems. I mean, it's just the way it is. Guys do things, girls do things. The issue is, do you have a mechanism in place to identify this before it becomes pervasive and take appropriate action and send a clear message to the other officers that that type of conduct is unacceptable.
To me, those are questions of how do you deal with a
culture that's within the Department, because they go, to me, to the whole question of is it an issue of disparities, is that 1 2
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48 sustainable what we try to get done here? Issue in terms of the employment questions, which I think that Lindsey -- Chief Lindsey has done a real great job. I talked to her about the future of it, and I'm pleased that there's some real efforts being made to identify what the problems were and how to prevent them in the future.
The question then becomes, what is the audit? How do we know and who gets to decide in the future whether or not the data -- that the data is being interpreted in such a way that allows us to identify the existence of problem; and, if so, who's going to be held accountable? Who holds people
accountable for it?
And, to me, these are mechanisms that we need to have in place as we go forward, because I do believe -- and I think Jim has made reference -- that, yeah, we should end sometime in the near future, you know.
And so what are we leaving in place? And that's the part that I'm more concerned about is what mechanism of
sustainability has been identified for each of these tasks that we can look to, to say that we can measure and evaluate the success or failure of these various tasks as we go on to the next phase.
Right now I'm certainly optimistic. There's a lot that's been done. The Chief and the staff, I think that we have some reliability. But, at the same time, I have concerns about the 1 2
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49 next day. And I mean literally the next day, the future. And so that's what I'm interested in seeing as we go forward here.
But, certainly, I think real progress has been made. I certainly appreciate the numbers that have gone down in the disparity study and the stop data.
I think Jim has raised a significant point. And a point that he and I talked about, the numbers that have gone down for the African Americans, is that a function of the policing or is that a function of the demographics?
The demographics means that African Americans have left the community and have moved, so there's fewer of them. And I don't know if that's true or not, but that, to me, would raise a question about whether or not we can rely upon the stop data that we have as being accurate as it relates to
African Americans if, in fact, we have not looked to see how much of that is a function of a demographics change. That's just something that I've been thinking about as we go along.
But, on balance, I'm ready for the next CMC that we've got to do, and the light that I have behind me.
THE COURT: So the next CMC is going to be on
April 27th at 3:30.
By that time I expect to learn that all of the
identifiable problems that I listed at the beginning of this CMC have been resolved and that OPD has completed and adopted the risk management, social media, cell phone,
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50 anti-discrimination, and Special Order 9208 regarding the Type 32 force reporting policies; they're all done by that date.
And to the point that Mr. Burris was just making, that I made at the beginning, that the Mayor spoke to, that everybody in some way or another has spoken to, which is the cultural issues which are not identifiable within the NSA but infuse almost all of the issues in the NSA, I want to hear from each of the parties on what they think we ought to be -- what they think the Court's oversight should be going forward.
Because I'm going to assume that everything -- all of the structures of the NSA will have been in place and complied with by April 27th. And I want to know how the Court can be helpful to assure the permanence of the impressive accomplishments that have been made thus far and the ultimate substantial compliance with the NSA. So I want everybody to be thinking about what that is.
I want to see in the joint case management statement what you think about the best way forward for the Court's oversight of the NSA and OPD is. You know, are we in a place of
substantial compliance? Is the Court's oversight still required and valuable? And, if so, in what ways?
And so I'm very interested in having you grapple with that in addition to getting from the 10-yard line across the goal line with respect to all of the matters within the NSA.
So thank you, all. I'm glad to see everybody as healthy 1 2
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51 as you seem to be. And I hope that -- I have every hope and expectation that this year is going to exceed last year in so many ways but particularly in this way.
And, again, Chief Armstrong, I want to thank you for the efforts that you are making to ensure that that happens.
So I'll be interested in everybody's input for the next session.
MR. LUCIA: Your Honor.
THE COURT: Yes.
MR. LUCIA: Judge Orrick, if I may, the process that
you just referred to in terms of reporting out, you used the term "parties." Technically, the OPOA is not a party.
THE COURT: I am very interested in hearing from the
OPOA.
MR. LUCIA: All right.
THE COURT: I consider you integral to making all of
this work in the long term. So I'm very interested in that.
And if it's not clear to the members of your organization, I have the greatest respect for the men and women who serve the people of Oakland in the Oakland Police Department. I am impressed every day with the valor that they show and their commitment to public service.
And I think I mentioned a couple years ago I had the
opportunity to talk with some of the newer members of the force during a seminar in Berkeley for a couple of hours. They're 1 2
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52 very impressive people, so -- and that's what I expect from everybody.
So I will look forward to your input.
MR. LUCIA: All right. Thank you, Your Honor.
THE COURT: All right.
All right, everybody. Thank you very much. I will see you in April.
(Counsel thank the Court.)
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Thank you, Your Honor. Happy
New Year.
THE COURT: Happy New Year.
(At 4:54 p.m. the proceedings were adjourned.)
- - - - -
CERTIFICATE OF REPORTER
I certify that the foregoing is a correct transcript
from the record of proceedings in the above-entitled matter.
DATE: Thursday, January 20, 2022
______________________________________________
Katherine Powell Sullivan, CSR #5812, RMR, CRR
U.S. Court Reporter
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