fourteenth-report.pdf

Independent Monitoring Team Fourteenth Status Report of the Independent Monitor Delphine Allen, et al., v. City of Oakland, et al. July 31, 2009 to January 13, 2010 Page 35 OPD is in compliance with Task 11. This task will not be actively monitored under the MOU. If the Monitor observes material non-compliance with this task, the Monitor may conduct reviews as necessary to determine whether the City has fallen out of substantial compliance and the extent and nature of the alleged deficiency. (MOU, paragraph 11.) 12. Disclosure of Possible Investigator Bias (Task 12; S.A. III.K.) a. Settlement Agreement Requirements • By June 15, 2004, OPD must develop and, by October 1, 2004, implement, a policy requiring that investigators (IAD and field) disclose relationships that might lead to a perception of bias regarding the subject(s) of any investigation, including family relationships, outside business relationships, romantic relationships and close work or personal friendships. The Settlement Agreement sets forth certain criteria regarding when and how investigators and their supervisors must act on these disclosures. b. Status of Compliance and Assessment The implementation deadline for this task occurred in October 2004. During the seventh and eighth reporting periods, OPD completed the policies incorporating this Settlement Agreement task and trained its personnel on the policies. The policies are General Order M-3, Complaints Against Departmental Personnel or Procedures, and Training Bulletin V-T.1, Internal Investigation Procedure Manual. As discussed above, during the tenth reporting period, OPD proposed a series of changes to General Order M-3 and to its Internal Investigations and Internal Affairs policies and procedures manuals. During the eleventh reporting period, the IMT worked closely with the Department to revise these policies. During the ninth reporting period, the IMT audited OPD’s actual practice compliance with this task. A complete discussion of our audit findings is included in our ninth status report. Task 12 requires OPD complaint investigators to disclose relationships that might lead to bias or a perception of bias. OPD was not yet in compliance with this task. Following our audit, OPD began to make more routine use of recusal forms and trained its personnel that recusal decisions must be made before an investigation is initiated or at the time a potential conflict arises not at the completion of investigations. During the tenth reporting period, all but one of the compliance standards for this task were lowered from 95% to 90%. During the thirteenth reporting period, we conducted another actual practice assessment of Task 12. We observed significant improvement but found that OPD was not yet in compliance with Task 12 based on the cases we reviewed. Because of the improvements we observed in more recent cases, we expanded the date parameters of our review and intend to report our formal compliance findings in the detailed report we will provide to the parties.