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 75 event that there are no known witnesses or where the author of the report is unable to obtain identifying information from witnesses. b. Status of Compliance and Assessment The compliance deadline for this task occurred in August 2003. OPD achieved policy compliance by publishing Special Order 8066, Use of Force-Witness Identification, on April 12, 2004. During the seventh reporting period, OPD provided the IMT with sufficiently reliable training data to enable us to confirm that OPD had trained 95% or more of relevant personnel on this task. The IMT interviewed officers on all three patrol shifts regarding their understanding of Task 35’s requirements. Based on our interviews, OPD officers appeared to have a solid grasp of the most important elements of this task. As a result, the IMT changed its conditional training compliance determination for this task to an unconditional in-compliance finding. During the eighth reporting period, OPD incorporated the provisions of the witness identification special order into General Order K-4. During the tenth reporting period, OPD negotiated several changes to the NSA’s use of force provisions and revised General Order K-4. Also during the tenth reporting period, all of the compliance standards for this task were lowered from 95% to 85% or 90%. During the eleventh reporting period, we continued to work with OPD in this area and completed a formal compliance assessment of Task 35. Task 35 requires use of force reports to include the name, telephone number, and address of witnesses to use of force incidents when such information is reasonably available to the members/employees on the scene. It also requires that use of force reports document when there are no known witnesses. The compliance standard for these requirements is 90%. OPD is not yet in compliance with this task but our review showed substantial improvement. Eighty-three percent of the cases we reviewed included all of the required contact information or sufficient information to contact the witnesses should it be necessary (e.g., if a phone number was missing but the name and address were documented, we considered the case compliant) and/or stated when there were no known witnesses to the incident. Task 35 also requires OPD to include in use of force reports the names of all OPD personnel who witness the incident. Our review found OPD in compliance with this requirement. Our assessment included recommendations to assist OPD in attaining full compliance with Task 35. We recommended that OPD reiterate to supervisors and to commanders who review use of force reports the requirement to document all witnesses to use of force incidents and the information that must be documented, including noting when there are no witnesses. We also recommended that OPD hold accountable officers, supervisors, and commanders who fail to ensure documentation related to witnesses to uses of force. During the twelfth reporting period, OIG conducted a review of Task 35 and reported that OPD was in compliance with all Task 35 requirements.