19th-quarterly-report.pdf

Nineteenth Quarterly Report of the Independent Monitor for the Oakland Police Department October 30, 2014 Page 50 each form field. If an officer fails to fill in the information in any field, the system does not allow the form to be completed. One of the more important data elements required by this Task is the capture of the reason or justification for the stop. This is essentially where any evaluation of the appropriateness of a stop commences. OIG periodically conducts internal reviews of Stop Data Forms to verify compliance with requirements, including the basis for stops. During this reporting period, we also focused on this important element in our review of 250 CAD entries and Field Contact Cards. Of the 250 stops, we eliminated 18 due to the lack of any narrative. Our analysis of the remaining 232 stops found seven to be questionable; accordingly, we determined that 97% of the stops in the sample were valid. This represents a continued improvement by OPD with its documentation of the stops. The Department is in compliance with Task 34.2. In addition, we randomly selected 10 stops that occurred during this time period, and requested that the Department provide PDRD footage to evaluate the recording of the stop in comparison to the narrative report prepared by the officer. Of the 10 incidents, seven were traffic violations that resulted in two citations, three warnings, and two field interviews; three were probable cause stops that resulted in two field interviews and one felony arrest. OPD located 27 videos taken by officers during these 10 stops. Our review found that all of the reports were consistent and in compliance with the narrative report prepared by the officers. Task 34.3.1 requires that OPD have a stop data database that can be summarized, searched, queried, and reported by personnel authorized by OPD (compliance standard: Yes/No). Special Order 9042 requires that officers “complete an electronic FBR [Field Based Reporting] Stop Data Collection Form (SDF) for certain arrests, every detention not resulting in an arrest (vehicle, walking, and bicycle stops), every consent search of a person conducted and any other investigative encounter.” Officers must also complete a SDF “for consensual encounters (contacts) where the member talks with a person to confirm or dispel a suspicion that the person may be involved in criminal activity, although the person is free to leave.” Data from the electronic Field Based Reporting system is automatically sent to the Department’s Forensic Logic Quicksearch program, which allows Department personnel to search for and query officers’ stop data. During our quarterly and technical assistance site visits, members of our Team meet with OPD personnel to follow the Department’s progress with data collection and analysis, and with the development of operational and intervention options. OPD organizes the data into tables and graphs depicting – both globally and by district – the breakdown of stops, the reasons for the stops, and any resulting action taken; including searches, the results of searches and arrests, and other actions. In the prior reporting period, OPD completed its first Stop Data Analysis Report covering the period of April through November 2013. OPD released this report to the public on March 24 with the caveat that the report was preliminary, and that it did not represent an academic or research level analysis of the data. Nevertheless, the data contained in the report provides the