Rules and Legislation Committee - Cancelled
May 18, 2023

Pages 1 - 12 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA Before The Honorable William H. Orrick, Judge DELPHINE ALLEN, et al., ) ) Plaintiffs, ) ) VS. ) NO. C 00-04599 WHO )CITY OF OAKLAND, et al., ) ) Defendants. )_______________________________) San Francisco, California Tuesday, January 24, 2023 TRANSCRIPT OF REMOTE ZOOM VIDEO CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS APPEARANCES VIA ZOOM: For the Plaintiffs: THE LAW OFFICES OF JOHN L. BURRIS Airport Corporate Centre 7677 Oakport Street, Suite 1120 Oakland, California 94621 BY: JOHN L. BURRIS, ATTORNEY AT LAW LAW OFFICES OF JAMES B. CHANIN 3050 Shattuck Avenue Berkeley, California 94705 BY: JAMES B. CHANIN, ATTORNEY AT LAW (APPEARANCES CONTINUED ON FOLLOWING PAGE) REPORTED REMOTELY BY: Ana Dub, RDR, RMR, CRR, CCRR, CRG, CCG CSR No. 7445, Official U.S. Reporter 2APPEARANCES VIA ZOOM: (CONTINUED) For the Defendants: OFFICE OF OAKLAND CITY ATTORNEY One Frank Ogawa Plaza, Sixth Floor Oakland, California 94612 BY: BRIGID S. MARTIN, DEPUTY CITY ATTORNEY For the Intervenor Oakland Police Officers Association: RAINS LUCIA STERN ST. PHALLE & SILVER, PC 2300 Contra Costa Boulevard, Suite 500 Pleasant Hill, California 94523 BY: ROCKNE A. LUCIA, JR., ATTORNEY AT LAW Also Present: Mayor Sheng Thao Assistant Chief Darren Allison 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 910111213141516171819202122232425
3Tuesday - January 24, 2023 3:29 p.m. P R O C E E D I N G S ---o0o--- THE CLERK: And we will get underway in CaseNumber 00-4599, Allen vs. City of Oakland. Counsel, if you would please state your appearance for therecord. MR. BURRIS: John Burris for the plaintiff.MR. CHANIN: James Chanin for plaintiff.MS. MARTIN: Brigid Martin, and I'm here with OaklandMayor Sheng Thao, for the City of Oakland.MR. LUCIA: And Rocky Lucia for OPOA, intervenor.THE COURT: Great. Good afternoon, everybody. And I'll also recognize Chief Allison, who's also on thescreen.Mayor Thao, welcome. Congratulations on your election.Your leadership here is going to be vital for the OaklandPolice Department to achieve its obligation to providelaw enforcement in a constitutional manner. It's going torequire your committed, consistent, accountable, andtransparent leadership and that you then hold the Departmentaccountable to those standards. So I wish you the best of luckin doing that.This is going to be a slightly -- or a lot different casemanagement conference than we've had. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 910111213141516171819202122232425
4I am profoundly disappointed by the evidence that resultedin the Monitor Compliance Director's conclusion that Task 5 isout of compliance. The report that was prepared by ClarenceDyer & Cohen demonstrates that significant cultural problemswithin the Department remain unaddressed.Prior to the next CMC, I expect the City to have adoptedeach of the recommendations in the report with respect to theInternal Affairs Division and Criminal Investigations Divisionor to explain why what it has done in the alternative is moreeffective, and I want the parties to address that in their nextjoint statement.This is the third time since I've been overseeing theimplementation of the NSA that the City has seemed to comeclose to full compliance with the NSA, only to have a seriousepisode arise that exposes rot within the Department.The City is out of compliance and will not emerge from thesustainability period under the NSA or supervision willcontinue until there's full compliance and then successfullycomplete the sustainability period.The question that I'm wrestling with, and I want you towrestle with, is how best to implement the provisions of theNSA in a way that ensures constitutional policing.The Riders litigation began 23 years ago. The monitorshipis 20 years old.OPD has created the policies called for by the NSA. It's 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 910111213141516171819202122232425
5implemented the technological improvements required by the NSA.It's achieved remarkable success in the critical area ofintelligence-led policing that's led to a dramatic reduction inthe number of stops in the City, which was a core problem thatled to the monitorship in the first place. The Department isfar more diverse than it was. Chief Warshaw and his team haveperformed a herculean public service over the last 13 years.There's no doubt in my mind that the monitorship hashelped make substantial positive improvements in policing inthe City of Oakland. Yet here we are: Even withthe monitorship, the Department has not resolved the ongoingintegrity, transparency, and accountability issues, issues thatkeep the Department from meeting the spirit and the letter ofthe NSA.So between now and the next CMC, Chief Warshaw and histeam will continue with its current scope of monitorshipcontemplated last year when we started the sustainabilityperiod.While the Department is working to implement therecommendations in the report, I want the parties to engage ina discussion of how to move forward in a way that finallyachieves compliance. And in this regard, I'm also interestedin the perspective of the Police Commission.I've read your submissions for the CMC, and I appreciatethe perspectives that you shared, and I particularly appreciate 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 910111213141516171819202122232425
6the analysis that the City made of the racial disparities inthe stock data. That was very informative.I'm not going to hear from anybody today unless,Mayor Thao, you wanted to make any sort of a statement.But otherwise, what I want is to see the parties' proposalon how we get this job done. And that should be filed onApril 4th, one week before the CMC, which will be onApril 11th.So, Mayor Thao, if you would like to say anything, you'recertainly not -- I'm not calling on you; but if you'd like tosay something, I'd be happy to hear it.MAYOR THAO: Thank you. And good afternoon, Your Honor.I just feel privileged to be here representing theresidents of Oakland. And I'll skip any further preliminaries but just say thatI'm deeply disappointed by recent revelations about ourDepartment. At the same time, I'm prepared to take thoseactions that you speak of.My concern about the state of policing in Oakland, itstarted long before I took office as Mayor. I came into thisjob fully prepared and, actually, eager to work to improvepublic safety. And a few weeks in, not even a month, and Ialready have some specific deliverables stemming from theoutside investigation. And so to your point, absolutely, we're not -- you know, I 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 910111213141516171819202122232425
7will not sit here and somehow say that being under theoversight did not allow for the City to grow. It definitelyhas.And, first, my administration and I will make sure thatevery officer who engaged in misconduct is disciplinedappropriately.Second, we'll address the specific ways OPD's currentsystems failed. My goal is to be able to say to the public andto this Court that we've solved the problems, not just thatwe've mechanically implemented a list of recommendations.We're grateful to the investigators for their thoughtfulrecommendations which will help us prevent serious problemsfrom recurring again. I truly believe in that.And my third undertaking is the most significant, and it'sto reflect on ways we, as a city, can go beyond remedialmeasures and continue the difficult work of reimagining policeaccountability and police safety and public safety.As the leader of the City, I don't take lightly theresponsibility to engage in honest self-reflection and earnestself-improvement on behalf of our Police Department.Oaklanders demand it, and we owe it to them. And since I firmly believe that many of the problems thathave been exposed through Oakland's robust sworn and civilianoversight likely go unexposed in other police departments, Ialso believe that Oakland has an opportunity, a great and 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 910111213141516171819202122232425
8unique opportunity, responsibility to be a national leader inpolice reform. And so for me, it's -- reading through both the public andconfidential reports confirmed my belief that the investigationconducted outside the Department is critical.Many of the problems the investigation uncovered wererooted in officers who are friendly with the people they weresupposed to hold accountable and officers who are accustomed toreviewing and discussing cases in problematic ways. I'll behonest. So it's very interesting because when I read thesereports, I see case studies on the dangers of relying on policedepartments to exclusive police themselves and, simultaneously,case studies on benefits of having the outside and civilianexperts play a prominent role in police accountability.I definitely want to be clear that internal accountabilityat OPD will always be an absolute necessity and it can never bereplaced. But for one thing, no system of investigation andaccountability can work if problems are successfully sweptunder the rug before any investigator, internal or external,knows about them. And this type of misconduct is particularlyserious because it provides, as we all know, fertile groundsfor other misconduct to thrive. And so when it's discovered,the discipline has to be equally serious. Just as importantly, OPD's top executives have to make itculturally unacceptable through their words and their actions. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 910111213141516171819202122232425
9It's a non-negotiable job requirement as far as I'm concerned.But I'm still convinced, more than ever, that robustcivilian investigations and auditing must be additional pillarsof any serious police accountability system in the 21stcentury. Some of the Department's biggest steps forwards,things like acknowledging and addressing the racial disparitiesin the traffic and pedestrian stops and the racial disparitiesin discipline, again, flow through partnerships with civilianslike Dr. Eberhardt, Mr. John Burris, and Mr. Jim Chanin. And one of the first things I did as Mayor was to reachout to Mr. Burris and Mr. Chanin because I want to make surethat my administration benefits from their years of experienceand their deep, deep dedication to our City.We also have a Police Commission that's doing anincredible job exercising civilian oversight. As a briefexample, during the public meeting last week, our City Counciland the committee of our Police Commission were decidingwhether to approve certain OPD policies in regards to militaryequipment. And during the discussion about whether OPD shoulduse sound canyons for crowd control, the commissioners revealedthat they actually raised the subject themselves for the soundcanyons before deciding a policy recommendation. And for me,that was an inspiring example of civilian oversight working forOakland and making all of us safer.I do believe that the next phase for civilian oversight in 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 910111213141516171819202122232425
10Oakland is to really deepen our investment in the teams ofprofessionals who work full-time to create policeaccountability. Those teams are the Community Police ReviewAgency and Office of the Civilian Inspector General, whoconduct outside independent investigations and audits. And,Your Honor, I have already been briefed by Inspector GeneralMichelle Phillips and offered my full support for her criticalwork.Inspector Phillips took office just about a year ago thismonth and has already built the foundation for a significantoversight structure. She's hired five staff members, has asixth member starting next month, and we expect to add fourmore members next quarter. Also, next quarter she anticipatesto publish an audit of the Department's compliance with the NSAtask force to help improve OPD's field training program.Fully resourcing civilian oversight is a top priority inmy administration. That is a conversation we had in depthabout how we move forward. I'll be making a number of appointments to the PoliceCommission in the coming months. I'll make sure the CPRA andthe Inspector General are able to fill any job vacancies asquickly as possible with people who understand the process andtake the process seriously.And finally, I'll work with the City Council during ourcurrent budget process to invest as much as possible in these 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 910111213141516171819202122232425
11two important offices because we know we can't move forward inan honest way if we're not willing to invest. And finally, Your Honor, I must recognize the overwhelmingmajority of officers who work hard to do their very best day inand day out. I imagine their hearts must break a little whenothers in our Department fails to live up to theirresponsibilities, as do mine.But please know that I will not tolerate toxic subculturesthat try to demonize or deter officers who do the right thing.To keep Oaklanders safe, we have to make sure officers who makegood choices, that they feel safe and they feel supported atOPD. And that is my North Star.I thank the Court for this opportunity to share, and Isincerely look forward to working to sustain the progressthe Department's made and to push it forward where it's hadsetbacks. I welcome any questions you may have. Thank you so much,Your Honor.THE COURT: All right. Well, thank you, Mayor Thao, andthank you for the spirit and the words that you've provided. And I look forward to what the City and the plaintiffs andthe Police Commission are able to come together on and presentat the next CMC.So the next CMC is going to be on April 11th. I'd like itto be in person. And the joint statement is on April 4th. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 910111213141516171819202122232425
12 And I would like -- I can't -- I'm not going to order, butI would like to have a representative of the Police Commissioncome also to express their perspectives on where we are andwhere we go to get this matter done.So thank you all for being here, and I will look forwardto seeing you in April.ALL: Thank you, Your Honor.THE CLERK: That concludes our conference. Thank you,all.(Proceedings adjourned at 3:43 p.m.) ---o0o--- CERTIFICATE OF REPORTER I certify that the foregoing is a correct transcript from the record of proceedings in the above-entitled matter. DATE: Monday, January 30, 2023 _______________________________________________________Ana Dub, CSR No. 7445, RDR, RMR, CRR, CCRR, CRG, CCG Official United States Reporter 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 910111213141516171819202122232425