Vallejo Police conduct a brilliant PR campaign to preserve their standing with the African-American community

While the Vallejo Police has knowingly allowed White Nationalists who engage in racist street executions against African Americans to remain protected and employed as Officers, the reputation of Vallejo Police has taken a nose-dive.
So, as a show of faith to the African-American community, they make sure the local newspaper prominently displays that, they are, in fact, there to protect the people which they terrorize every day...
2012-10-24 "Vallejo police offer reward in slaying of man, pregnant woman" by Lanz Christian Bañes from "Vallejo Times-Herald"
[http://www.timesheraldonline.com/ci_21842340/vallejo-police-offer-reward-slaying-man-pregnant-woman]:
Vallejo police announced a $10,000 reward Tuesday for information on last month's slayings of a Vallejo couple and the couple's unborn twins.
"They have to be caught. They have to be found and punished to the fullest. ... They don't deserve to be walking around on this earth freely. They don't have that right," said Felecia Johnson, whose son Dashoun Ramon Jones, 31, and his fiancée Ashley Shari Mills, 28, were gunned down Sept. 6 in the 100 block of Atherton Street.
Mills was six months pregnant with twins -- a boy and a girl -- when she was killed. They would have been born in December.
"We're following up on every lead we have ... but we need more leads," Vallejo Police Lt. Jim O'Connell said Tuesday as he was flanked by members of Jones' and Mills' families at a press conference.
Family members took turns describing the night of the shootings. Many appeared on the small Atherton Street block that night as word spread of the deaths.
Jones' sister Ashley Johnson, 17, recalled getting a call from her father that her mother had been hospitalized after fainting in front of the crime scene. Then her father told her that Jones was "gone."
"I didn't know what he meant by that. ... I was just screaming and crying and begging for it not to be true," the teenager said.
Meanwhile, Mills' parents received their phone call as they drove on Interstate 80 toward their daughter's home.
"She's a beautiful person. I miss her," father Wilson Mills said of his daughter, who was studying psychology at Solano Community College.
While Mills doesn't believe in the death penalty, he hopes the person or people who killed his daughter and her family have a "miserable life in jail."
"I know sooner or later, down in my heart, the police department will apprehend these people," Mills said.
Two black men wearing hoodies were seen by witnesses running from the scene after shots were fired, police said.
"These two people were targeted in this crime. Very specifically they were targeted," O'Connell said.
Family members said they don't know why the couple was attacked. Jones and Mills left behind three children. Jones' 12-year-old daughter is staying with her mother, while the Mills are caring for Ashley Mills' 8-year-old son and the 2-year-old son she and Jones had together.
The reward money is being funded by the city. The quadruple homicide has been hard on the officers working the case as well, O'Connell said.
"We're human. We have families ourselves. I have twins myself," O'Connell said.
O'Connell declined to give too many specifics on the case, citing a sensitive investigation. Jones' mother appealed to the community to help quell the violence in Vallejo.
"We all need to reach out to each other. The youth need to stop the killing. We need to come together as a community," Johnson said.

Felecia Johnson, second from left, and her daughter Ashley discuss Tuesday the shooting deaths of son Dashoun Jones and his fiancee Ashley Mills, who was pregnant with twins. Mills' father, Wilson Mills, comforts his wife, right. (Lanz Christian Banes / Times-Herald)

Ashley Mills, 28 (Lanz Christian Banes)

Deshoun Jones, 28 (Lanz Christian Banes / Times-Herald)

2012-10-21 "Vallejo police kill man during fiery rampage at home; Police say man shoved rifle barrel into officer's stomach"

by Irma Widjojo from "Vallejo Times-Herald" [http://www.timesheraldonline.com/news/ci_21823122]:
In a bizarre chain of events, Vallejo police shot and killed one man early Sunday and arrested another after one or both men apparently set their house on fire during a brief rampage.
Vallejo police Lt. Lee Horton said that a 29-year-old man was shot by an officer after he stuck a rifle in another officer's stomach in the burning house.
Police said the fiery incident began at about 1:28 a.m. when they received multiple reports that two men were involved in a loud argument in the 2500 block of Alameda Street and that the men were trying to burn their house down.
When police arrived they saw that several vehicles outside had shattered windows and a naked man running inside. When they went inside the house, where smoke was visible, they confronted the naked man.
At that time, a second naked man appeared from the back of the house with a rifle and placed its barrel directly against one officer's stomach. Another officer fired his weapon at the armed man and he dropped to the floor. He was pronounced dead later at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, Vallejo.
A neighbor told the Times-Herald hours later that she heard someone yell "Put the gun down!" numereous times before shots were fired.
The neighbor also said that the men had never caused any problems before, and were quiet.
Later inspection of the .22 long-barrel rifle revealed it had a round in the chamber, Horton said.
No officer was injured and the uninjured man, 28, was taken into custody. He was then taken to Sutter Solano Medical Center for observation, where he was still held as of noon Sunday, Lt. Sid DeJesus said.
"He was still hallucinating as of 8 a.m., and could not be questioned," DeJesus said.
Names of both men have not been released.
During the encounter the officers realized the two-story house was becoming engulfed in flames and called the Vallejo Fire Department. Officers had tried to search the house further but smoke and flames prevented them from doing so, Horton said. The extent of the damage to the house was not immediately clear as of Sunday afternoon.
Horton said other officers also followed a blood trail that started inside the house to the back yard where they found recently slaughtered animals. DeJesus later said the animals were three decapitated birds, two of which appeared to be canaries.
"It appeared that there was a ritualistic type of event at this place," DeJesus said. "It was an extremely bizarre situation."
Although the investigation is continuing, police said it appeared one or both men had shut the power to the house, shattered numerous windows in the house and in two or three of their own cars parked outside, and that one or both were under the influence of some sort of hallucinogenic.
DeJesus said police have not determined the exact type of hallucinogenic pending toxicology result, but he also said that "We've dealt with meth, PCP before. But this is something different ... based on their rabid behavior."
Horton said the officers involved in Sunday's shooting have been placed on administrative leave in accordance with department procedure. The shooting also will be investigated by the department and Solano County District Attorney's office.
Horton said that anyone with information about this case is asked to contact police at 1 800 488-9383.
It was the 10th officer-involved shooting in Vallejo this year, and the sixth fatal one. It also was the 20th homicide in Vallejo this year, and second this weekend. On Saturday, Mauricio Dominguez, 20, was fatally shot in what witnesses said was a drive-by shooting. The 20 homicides also include the shooting death of an alleged robber by a store owner and the deaths of unborn twins in a double homicide Sept. 6.

2012-10-19 "Why Firing a Bad Cop Is Damn Near Impossible; A brief history of the 'law enforcement bill of rights'"

by Mike Riggs [http://reason.com/archives/2012/10/19/how-special-rights-for-law-enforcement-m]:
Over the summer, a still from a surveillance camera showing a police officer kicking a handcuffed woman in the head went viral on Facebook and email. The text below the picture read, "Rhode Island police officer Edward Krawetz received no jail time for this brutal assault on this seated and handcuffed woman. Now he wants his job back. Share if you don't want this to happen." The allegation was wild enough to pique the interest of the rumor-debunking site Snopes.com, which determined that the story was, in fact, true [http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/krawetz.asp].
In 2009, Officer Edward Krawetz of the Lincoln Police Department arrested Donna Levesque for unruly behavior at a casino in Lincoln, Rhode Island. While seated on the ground with her hands cuffed behind her, Levesque kicked Krawetz in the shin. Krawetz responded by cocking back his right leg and nailing Levesque in the side of the head, knocking her over. In March 2012, Krawetz was convicted of felony battery [http://articles.nydailynews.com/2012-07-12/news/32652065_1_cuffed-woman-edward-krawetz-disciplinary-hearing] despite his claim that he kicked Levesque in "self defense." The 10-year sentence he received was immediately suspended, and Krawetz was ordered to attend anger management classes.
But he wasn't fired from the Lincoln Police Department. Under Rhode Island law, the fate of Krawetz's job as a cop rested not with a criminal court, or even his commanding officer, but in the hands of a three-person panel composed of fellow police officers—one of whom Krawetz would get to choose. That panel would conduct the investigation into Krawetz's behavior, oversee a cross-examination, and judge whether Krawetz could keep his job. The entire incident, in other words, would be kept in the family.
The same was true for Rhode Island Police Officer Alfred Ferretti after he followed two women home while in uniform and exposed himself; for Officers Robert Neri and Robert Lobianco after they were found having a threesome while on duty; and for Officer Nichalas Laprade after two women reported that he stared at them while masturbating as he drove down I-95 in his personal vehicle.
 All of these Rhode Island cops, and many more like them across the county, were able to keep their jobs and benefits—sometimes only temporarily, but always longer than they should have—thanks to model legislation written and lobbied for by well-funded police unions [http://www2.turnto10.com/news/2012/feb/14/bill-rights-protects-officers-accused-crimes-ar-932389/]. That piece of legislation is called the "law enforcement bill of rights," and its sole purpose is to shield cops from the laws they're paid to enforce.
The inspiration for this legislation and its similarly named cousins across the country is the Police Officers’ Bill of Rights, introduced in 1971 by New York Rep. Mario Biaggi (D), at the behest of the Police Benevolent Association. Having once been the most decorated police officer in the country, Biaggi didn't need much convincing to put forward the union-friendly bill.
Biaggi pushed for the POBOR until March 1987, when he received two indictments back-to-back. The first was for accepting a paid vacation from Brooklyn Democratic Leader Meade H. Esposito in exchange for using federal funds to bail out a company in Esposito's neighborhood. A second indictment handed down three months later charged Biaggi with extorting $3.6 million in cash and stock options from a small Bronx machine shop called Wedtech. Both charges resulted in convictions and Biaggi's resignation from Congress.
While Biaggi's bill never made it through Congress, police unions didn't wait for city managers or police department higher-ups to write their own. Benevolent associations in Maryland successfully pushed for the passage of a police bill of rights in 1972; Florida, Rhode Island, Virginia, New Mexico, and California followed suit before the 70s were over. The 1980s, 90s, and 2000s saw still more states adopt police bill of rights at the behest of police unions.
The rights created by these bills differ from state to state, but here's how a typical police misconduct investigation works in states that have a law enforcement bill of rights in place:
A complaint is filed against an officer by a member of the public or a fellow officer. Police department leadership reviews the complaint and decides whether to investigate. If the department decides to pursue the complaint, it must inform the officer and his union. That's where the special treatment begins, but it doesn't end there.
Unlike a member of the public, the officer gets a "cooling off" period before he has to respond to any questions. Unlike a member of the public, the officer under investigation is privy to the names of his complainants and their testimony against him before he is ever interrogated. Unlike a member of the public, the officer under investigation is to be interrogated "at a reasonable hour," with a union member present. Unlike a member of the public, the officer can only be questioned by one person during his interrogation. Unlike a member of the public, the officer can be interrogated only "for reasonable periods," which "shall be timed to allow for such personal necessities and rest periods as are reasonably necessary." Unlike a member of the public, the officer under investigation cannot be "threatened with disciplinary action" at any point during his interrogation. If he is threatened with punishment, whatever he says following the threat cannot be used against him.
What happens after the interrogation again varies from state to state. But under nearly every law enforcement bill of rights, the following additional privileges are granted to officers: Their departments cannot publicly acknowledge that the officer is under investigation; if the officer is cleared of wrongdoing or the charges are dropped, the department may not publicly acknowledge that the investigation ever took place, or reveal the nature of the complaint. The officer cannot be questioned or investigated by "non-government agents," which  means no civilian review boards [http://www.apbweb.com/featured-articles/1321-cops-have-due-process-rights-too.html]. If the officer is suspended as a result of the investigation, he must continue to receive full pay and benefits until his case is resolved. In most states, the charging department must subsidize the accused officer's legal defense.
A violation of any of the above rights can result in dismissal—not of the officer, but of the charges against him.
Because of these special due process privileges, there's little incentive for police departments to discipline officers. In most cases, it's more financially prudent to let a District Attorney or outside law enforcement agency do the heavy lifting, and then fire the officer if he's convicted. This is the only "easy" way, under police bills of rights, for departments to get rid of bad cops--which essentially means the only way to get rid of bad cops is if some other law enforcement agency can make a felony charge stick. This is the biggest problem with law enforcement bills of rights--they encourage police departments to let external forces determine what behavior is unacceptable. That's eventually why Rhode Island's Krawetz resigned his post.
But Rhode Island is by no means an outlier.
In the last year, a Florida narcotics detective was charged with a slew of crimes ranging from rape and torture, to embezzlement and forgery; a Virginia police officer shot a retired Sunday school teacher in the back of the head and throat as she drove out of a church parking lot; six California cops beat a homeless man into a life-ending coma; a Milwaukee police officer was arrested for sodomizing suspects; a drunk man slapped a Philadelphia cop, and the cop responded by beating the drunk man's face bloody with his baton.
What do they all have in common? They were all known by their colleagues and employers to be bad cops long before they came to the public's attention.
Major Joseph Floyd was a problem cop at departments across Florida before  beginning his two-year reign of terror in Crestview, Florida [http://reason.com/blog/2012/03/13/meet-maj-joseph-floyd-the-most-crooked-c].
Daniel Harmon-Wright was hired at the Culpeper Police Department despite a known drinking problem, and kept on the force despite  complaints that he illegally entered a home [http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/culpeper-va-police-officer-charged-with-murder-was-hired-despite-objections/2012/06/08/gJQAqGyjOV_story.html] and threatened its residents at gunpoint. 
At least one of the Fullerton PD officers who beat Kelly Thomas into a coma from which he never woke was accused of brutality the year before [http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/09/16/california.fullerton.police.brutality/].
Michael Vagnini's superiors in Milwaukee  knew "for a couple years" that he'd been conducting illegal rectal searches [http://reason.com/blog/2012/10/10/meet-michael-vagnini-the-milwaukee-cop-c].
Before William J. Gress beat a drunk and unruly Oktoberfest reveler, he  broke a woman's nose and spat on her outside a restaurant [http://articles.philly.com/2012-10-17/news/34500498_1_officer-strikes-officer-william-j-gress-police-officer].
Additionally, all of those officers were working in states with a law enforcement bill of rights, and when they were all eventually disciplined, it was by a law enforcement agency other than the one they worked for.
While it's possible—maybe even likely, depending on the department—that these officers would have faced no internal discipline even if their states did not have law enforcement bills of rights, such laws discourage discipline and make it nearly impossible for the public to hold bad cops accountable.

Oakland Police enagage in political hostility

Oakland Police are a renegade security agency engaged in hostile gestures against the Oakland city government, who are unaccountable for their Officer's prevalent White-Nationalism and who allow officers to be directed into open warfare against political dissent (as seen through 2011)...

2012-10-10 "Disturbing New Evidence About OPD: Court documents reveal that some Oakland police commanders believe cops could avoid shooting suspects if they were allowed to "rough" people up" by Ali Winston from "Eastbay Express" newspaper
[http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/disturbing-new-evidence-about-opd/Content?oid=3359413]:
Correction: The original version of this story mistakenly stated that private investigator Jan Gilbrecht had been hired by civil rights attorneys John Burris and Jim Chanin.
---
The official request last week to put the Oakland Police Department in federal receivership grabbed much media attention. But overlooked in the voluminous documents filed by civil rights attorneys John Burris and Jim Chanin was disturbing new evidence that raises significant questions not only as to whether the City of Oakland can stave off receivership, but also whether OPD's dysfunctional culture has changed at all in the past decade or if it's doomed to remain that way for years to come. Among other things, the new evidence shows that department trainers and commanders have been telling city residents, and possibly new police recruits, that Oakland cops shoot suspects because they're no longer allowed to beat them up.
According to a sworn deposition from Jan Gilbrecht, a private investigator who attended an Oakland Citizens' Police Academy on May 21, OPD Sergeant Randy Pope told attendees of the academy that Oakland was traditionally a "blue-collar kind of town," with a "blue-collar police force that maybe in the past was a little 'hands on' with folks, liked to put their hands on people and maybe got rough sometimes, but did not have that many officer-involved shootings."
According to Gilbrecht, Pope then talked about the federal consent decree that mandated reforms of OPD following The Riders scandal early last decade: "Some city lawyers came in and said, 'We want a white-collar kind of force now,'" and the city agreed to the reforms. Pope then added that he believes Oakland cops have become less inclined to use physical force on suspects, resulting in fewer complaints, but that they fire their weapons more frequently at suspects. "What do I know, I just look at the situation and do the math. It's more physical-use-of-force complaints but more live bad guys on the other hand, versus the NSA and more shootings on the other hand. What do you choose?" Pope asked the audience.
The Citizens' Police Academy is designed to enlist city residents to help police combat crime in Oakland. Even more alarming is the fact that Sergeant Pope, who lives in the far-East Bay suburb of Oakley, is a firearms and use-of-force instructor at OPD's training academy for new police recruits. His comments to the citizens' academy thus raise concerns as to whether he's repeating the same statements to new police officers, telling them that the federal consent decree leaves them little choice but to shoot suspects. Pope's comments also are in stark contrast to official statements from OPD brass that the consent decree is not hampering police work. "It's telling that they'll say this in a room full of citizens in the Eastmont substation — and it's completely opposite to what they say in court," Chanin said in an interview.
The evidence uncovered by Burris and Chanin also offers insight into the contempt that some OPD line officers have for federal Judge Thelton Henderson, a civil rights hero and Carter administration appointee who oversees the consent decree and was responsible for reforming the state's troubled prison health care system. Henderson will decide whether OPD is put in federal receivership. According to a sworn deposition from Nancy Appel, an associate director at the Anti-Defamation League who also attended the spring 2012 Citizens' Police Academy, Sergeant Greg Porritt told attendees that Judge Henderson "has an agenda," was "in the SLA [Symbionese Liberation Army]" or represented them in court. Both are false assertions.
Racially insensitive, defaced photos of Henderson and Mayor Jean Quan that had been posted at OPD headquarters were also included in the court filings. The one of Henderson depicts him with enlarged eyes and exaggerated lips, and one of the images of Quan shows her standing alone by a police car with dragon wings, horns, and slitted eyes drawn on her by a blue pen. There's also a photo of Quan and former Mayor Ron Dellums that looks as if it was used for a dartboard. The caption stated: "If you thought Ron Dellums was a good Mayor...YOU'LL LOVE JEAN QUAN."

The Express previously reported about a flyer posted on a bulletin board at OPD's basement training range in winter 2010. According to police sources, the flyer, which superimposed a picture of a World War II fighter pilot over derogatory language about anti-war liberals, was still posted there until August.
The several hundred pages of evidence filed by Burris and Chanin trace the past ten years of stop-and-start reform, including the department's questionable history of uses of force, lax supervision, failure to rein in problem officers, and poor leadership that have combined to lead OPD astray in a manner unique in American law enforcement. Burris and Chanin contend that OPD's progress on reforms has ground to a halt, and their assertions are supported by reports from the court-appointed monitor that indicate the department has made virtually no progress since January 2010.
Reading through old monitoring reports and court transcripts filed with the receivership motion elicits a sense of déjà vu. Judge Henderson's response to a negative monitor's report in February 2005, two years after the consent decree began, reads like his comments from last fall: "I'm not given to overstatement, but I haven't seen anything like this in 25 years. This is so unacceptable that I've been spending my time deciding what I can do to get the attention of the defendant [the city and OPD]. This is contemptuous. I'm so angry at the slap in the face, the ignoring of this decree that my question is who's responsible and how can I get them in front of me?"
As this newspaper noted in January (see "Will OPD End Up in Receivership?" 1/25), OPD's response to Occupy Oakland also is playing a major role in the case, as is the review conducted by Frazier Group, LLC, of the October 25 raid on Occupy Oakland and its aftermath. In a sworn deposition in the consent decree case, Thomas Frazier, the former Baltimore police commissioner and longtime member of the San Jose Police Department, heavily criticized OPD's internal affairs and criminal investigation divisions' handling of the incident in which war veteran Scott Olsen was seriously injured by a cop. Portions of Frazier's deposition also reveal that Sergeant Jim Rullamas was the officer in charge of the criminal investigation into Olsen's wounding, which this reporter revealed had been "compromised" in June (see "OPD Screws Up Scott Olsen Investigation?" 6/13). It was Rullamas' decision to prematurely close the criminal probe that led the Frazier Group to voice concern and advise OPD to re-open the file. Frazier also said in his deposition that his staff questioned OPD's accounting of the videotaped beating of Kayvan Sabehgi by OPD Officer Frank Uu on November 2, stating that Uu's report of the incident and a video of it "did not jibe." (See "Cop Identified in Kayvan Sabehgi Beating?" 4/11.)
The evidence filed by Burris and Chanin also confirm and clarify City Administrator Deanna Santana's attempts to hide many of the Frazier report's key revelations, including the botched Olsen case (see "Santana Tried to Alter Damning Report," 9/19). Frazier's deposition includes a succinct response to questions about Santana's requests to have the report sent to her personal email in Microsoft Word format so that she could easily redact key portions of it.
"Chanin: Did she want to remove your findings?
Frazier: Yes."
The new evidence also confirms that former Police Chief Anthony Batts did nothing to reform the department and meet the requirements of the consent decree, also known as the Negotiated Settlement Agreement, or the NSA. In a deposition, current Police Chief Howard Jordan said Batts "didn't understand the tenets of the NSA, the history," and that the reforms were "too much for him to absorb." OPD's stagnation on reform efforts began during Batts' tenure, which lasted from 2009 to 2011.
Portions of Frazier's deposition also indicate that members of Jordan's own command staff do not have confidence in the integrity of OPD's internal affairs or criminal investigations division when it comes to probing allegations of police officer misconduct. "I have little faith that IA can get it right and have even less faith that CID will do the case right. The CID investigation would be a waste of time," a commander who court documents identify as one of Jordan's deputy chiefs, told one of Frazier's staffers. Jordan's deposition revealed that he was unaware of the unrest among his ranking subordinates over shoddy internal investigations into incidents such as the October 25 raid on Occupy Oakland and Scott Olsen's wounding.
In his deposition, Jordan also acknowledged the existing problems concerning police officers' use of lethal force. "There is a propensity in our organization for officers to point their firearms in cases when it's not necessary," said Jordan. However, the chief also claimed that scrutinizing uses of force "takes away from their [supervisors'] ability to supervise their officers."
Last week, Oakland police union attorney Michael Rains told the Oakland Tribune that the department's rank-and-file wasn't necessarily opposed to receivership in light of the "absolute lack of meaningful leadership in the department for the last decade," including from Chief Jordan. The city has until November 8 to respond to Burris and Chanin's receivership motion in court. The receivership hearing is scheduled for December 13.

Oakland Police Dept. actually gets scarier and more repressive

Oakland PD visits Israel to study counterterrorism, and has been found by investigators to be increasing its human rights abuses of people.


2012-10-17 "US police visit Israel to study counterterrorism" by BEN HARTMAN from "Jerusalem Post"[http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=288283]
Jerusalem hosting week-long seminar for US experts, plan to share tactics on high-risk combat.
 Counterterrorism experts from some of the biggest police departments in the United States are in Israel for a week-long seminar with representatives of the Border Police, where they plan to share tactics on high-risk combat.
The 10-member delegation includes officers from police departments in New York; Los Angeles; Austin, Texas; Oakland, California; and Houston, Texas.
They are visiting Israel as part of the American Jewish Committee’s “Project Interchange,” and organizers said the week-long meeting “will showcase Israeli technological and operational advances in counterterrorism tactics,” and allow the US participants to “exchange information on best practices with their Israeli counterparts,” in a press release issued on Wednesday.
During the visit, the attendees will also visit Megiddo Prison, where Israel houses well over a thousand security prisoners. The visit’s delegates will also take part in briefings on Israel’s handling of Palestinian terrorism and cooperation between Israeli and PA security agencies.
The program is the 10th such meeting held by the organization. In the press statement, Los Angeles Police Department Commander Richard Webb is quoted as saying that Israelis “are considered world leaders and innovators in counterterrorism and security. My experiences in meeting with the various experts and leaders confirm they not only are experts, they are pragmatic and collaborative.”
Webb also vowed to take what he learns from his Israeli counterpart back to Los Angeles, and made mention of “multi-level security measures at an international airport.”
Montgomery County Police Department Assistant-Chief Russell E. Hamill says that so far on the trip he has learned “not only the importance of hardening the country against terror attacks but also of the community in refusing to be terrorized. The Israeli people live that; they refuse to be terrorized.
In the battle against terrorism, that’s how you win and the Israelis are winning. They are not victims but survivors.”


2012-10-15 "Monitor finds Oakland police regressing" by Matthai Kuruvila from "San Francisco Chronicle"[http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Monitor-finds-Oakland-police-regressing-3951368.php]:
A court-appointed monitor overseeing Oakland police reforms said in a report released Monday that he was "dismayed" by the department's lack of progress, citing a "stubborn resistance to compliance." Robert Warshaw found that the Oakland Police Department actually took a step back, falling out of compliance with one of its tasks, which involves the creation of a monitoring system to track officers engaging in potentially problematic behavior.
The report is Warshaw's last before the federal judge who appointed him hears arguments in December about whether to place the department under federal control. Oakland city and police leaders have been eager to show that they are making progress. Oakland's department would become the first police department in the nation to be placed in federal receivership.
Warshaw made a point of recognizing "the challenges that the brave men and women of the agency face on a daily basis" but said the department's leadership "lacks consistency of message and a unanimity of purpose."
The department was ordered to make reforms after four officers, who called themselves the Riders, were accused in 2000 of systematically beating and framing suspects in West Oakland. A federal consent decree listing the reforms began in 2003, and the city was expected to comply within five to seven years.
There are 22 reforms still being monitored, with 12 in compliance, seven in partial compliance, one not in compliance, and two being deferred until a later date.
The report evaluated the reforms from April 1 through June 30.
 Officers who engage in at-risk behaviors - such as unusually high numbers of arrests, use of force or pointing of weapons - are tracked. If they reach a certain threshold, they are recommended for additional training or supervision. It is not a disciplinary system, but a corrective system.
Warshaw, however, said commanders and deputy chiefs have a high tolerance for at-risk behaviors by officers.
In his last report, Warshaw said the department was "almost stagnant" in its efforts to comply. Three months later, Warshaw said the department showed "regression."
John Burris, a civil rights attorney who is advocating for the department to be put in receivership, called Warshaw's latest description of the department "damning."
"For us, it's just another point in consideration that led us to filing a motion for the appointment of receivership," Burris said. "The system is not working."
The union representing the city's police officers and sergeants noted that Warshaw repeatedly pointed to department leadership as the problem. The reform task that fell out of compliance, for example, is completely out of the hands of rank-and-file officers, said Sgt. Barry Donelan, president of the Oakland Police Officers Association.
Warshaw also raised other concerns. His report said officers routinely violate policy by not turning on their lapel cameras in required circumstances, and their supervisors do not discipline them for it. Warshaw also said he was troubled that officers use confidential informants - who he said often have credibility issues - to justify stops and the pointing of weapons.
Despite the criticisms, Oakland Mayor Jean Quan said the department had made progress over the past year. She said she will be pushing the City Council to spend more money on the reform effort.
"We're either going to be done, or we're going to have a very specific timeline (for compliance) by the end of the year," she said.
Quan said Police Chief Howard Jordan has been caught between two difficult forces - a monitor who wants change and a police union that thinks he's disciplining officers too harshly.
Last week, Jordan announced that he was seeking to fire two officers, demote one and suspend 15 more for their handling of Occupy Oakland protesters.
The union denounced the move as scapegoating, but Quan said it was an example of Jordan's ability to make tough decisions.
"He worked very hard to create a report that was very fair and balanced," she said.