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 38 15. Reviewing Findings and Disciplinary Recommendations (Task 15; S.A. III.N.) a. Settlement Agreement Requirements • Except upon written authorization from the Chief of Police, the investigator’s first-level commander/manager and the IAD Commander or designee shall be responsible for reviewing recommended findings. The Discipline Officer shall be responsible for making disciplinary recommendations in sustained internal investigations. b. Status of Compliance and Assessment During the seventh and eighth reporting periods, OPD completed the policies incorporating this Settlement Agreement task and trained its personnel on these policies. The policies are General Order M-3, Complaints Against Departmental Personnel or Procedures, and Training Bulletin V-T.1, Internal Investigation Procedure Manual. This task was modified by stipulation in January 2007 to reflect changes to OPD’s disciplinary process. 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. As discussed above, during the eleventh reporting period, the IMT worked closely with the Department to revise these policies. Also during the eleventh reporting period, the Parties modified this task by stipulation so that investigative findings are reviewed by the investigator’s first-level commander/manager and the IAD commander or designee. The new language is reflected in the iteration of Task 15 above. This change should streamline the internal investigation review process. 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 15 contains two distinct requirements. The first requires that the appropriate chain of review reviews recommended findings. We found OPD in conditional compliance with this portion of Task 15 pending the completion of a stipulation to modify the NSA to reflect the review process set out in OPD’s policies. As noted above, during the tenth reporting period, OPD completed an appropriate stipulation. We also found OPD in compliance with the second requirement of Task 15 which requires that the Discipline Officer make disciplinary recommendations in sustained internal investigations. During the tenth reporting period, the compliance standard for this task was lowered from 95% to 90%. During the thirteenth reporting period, we conducted another actual practice assessment of OPD’s disciplinary system. As part of this assessment, we evaluated the recommendations made by the Discipline Officer. We found that OPD remained in compliance with the Task 15 requirement that the Discipline Officer make disciplinary recommendations in all sustained