19th-quarterly-report.pdf

Nineteenth Quarterly Report of the Independent Monitor for the Oakland Police Department October 30, 2014 Page 56 compliance in our last report. The problems with the automatic import of arrest data into the County’s data system were resolved. This solution was first explored as a pilot program and was fully implemented across all officers. The Department reports that automatic import of arrest data has continued. The Department continues to audit the process, as it does data from other sources, and makes corrections as needed. This is an important process with regard to identifying and rectifying any problems that might arise. Data problems are not uncommon in complex data entry systems and this audit process will continue to be important. The development of a new risk management database has also continued. The complete redesign of this system and its links to other Department data has proceeded with a highly qualified vendor selected and a sound management process successfully coordinated by another vendor. The project now rests with City government, which is managing the contract. General Order D-17, Personnel Assessment Program, which incorporates the requirements of Tasks 40 and 41 was approved and signed off on by the Chief on November 20, 2013. As noted previously, the policy altered the PAS review procedures to incorporate an initial internal review by the PAS Unit when officers meet thresholds. Reviews, including any recommendations for monitoring or intervention are then forwarded to first line supervisors for review and comment. This is a change from the original process that moved directly to reviews up the chain of command. Under the current practice supervisors are more directly involved and have a chance to raise issues of their concern at an early stage. The Risk Management Unit sees the new process as beneficial. It also maintains an appropriate and desirable role for first line supervisors in the process. PAS records for the quarter of April 1, through June 30, 2014 indicate that data were entered for all of the fields required by Task 40 – including the arrest data. The required data for the quarter included reports of 299 uses of force. This is a decline of 48% from the previous quarter that then showed a reversal of a downward trend. The current change is largely due to decreases in Level 4 uses of force that are at their lowest level reported under this monitorship. Arrests data also show that these declines are not accounted for by reductions in arrests that are consistent with earlier periods at over 4000. The only unexpected finding in the data, once again, is the level of O.C. checkout during the quarter. This is also explained as related to the outfitting of the new class of officers. A further breakdown of the types of use of force shows that, for this reporting period, there were no Level 1 uses of force. There were seven Level 2, 14 Level 3, and 276 Level 4 uses of force. The use of force figures show significant changes other than the reduction on Level 4 uses of force. Internal Affairs Complaints also show low numbers compared with earlier trends, although, at 192, those complaints are up slightly from the past several reports. Data counts for the current reporting period and the seven prior reporting periods is presented in the table below.