Report Blasts Oakland Police Over Discipline

SFBay
Apr. 23, 2015

Oakland police officers who are fired for misconduct are reinstated at arbitration hearings 75 percent of the time because department officials and the city attorney’s office do a poor job of handling the cases, a report says.

San Francisco attorney Ed Swanson compiled the report at the request of U.S. District Court Judge Thelton Henderson, who is supervising the Oakland Police Department’s slow progress in complying with a police misconduct lawsuit settlement in 2003 that requires the department to implement 51 reforms in a variety of areas.

Henderson appointed Swanson last year because he was troubled that the city was losing many arbitration hearings in police discipline cases. In appointing Swanson, Henderson said “Any reversal of appropriate discipline undermines the very objectives” of the reform program.

Swanson said that over the past five years, arbitrators have upheld the city’s decision to impose discipline in only 7 of 26 cases. And he said in 15 of those 26 cases, the suspension, demotion or termination of officers were reduced to written reprimands or no discipline at all.

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