19th-quarterly-report.pdf

Nineteenth Quarterly Report of the Independent Monitor for the Oakland Police Department October 30, 2014 Page 77 arbitration hearing resulted in an order that the officer be reinstated. The system clearly failed to produce a proper result and it cannot be said that discipline is consistently imposed. Until these two cases emerged from the OPD discipline process, OPD had made progress in its reform of its disciplinary process. Now in one case, an inexplicable result favors a senior officer where a subordinate would likely face a more severe penalty and in another case a failed arbitration process undermines consistent discipline. We note that both cases were appropriately handled within the Department. The City of Oakland, however, failed in both. In one, it failed to adequately defend its termination in the arbitration; and in the other, the City Administrator over-ruled the chief without stating a sufficient justification for his action. In light of these two serious deficiencies, and the Court’s Order of August 14, 2014, discussed above, we are placing OPD in deferred compliance status with Task 45. Compliance Status: Phase 1: In compliance Phase 2: Deferred