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 86 1. Field Training Program (Task 42; S.A. VIII.) a. Settlement Agreement Requirements • By April 16, 2004, OPD must develop and implement a plan to enhance its Field Training Program. This plan must address: the criteria and method for selecting Field Training Officers (“FTOs”); the training provided to FTOs to perform their duty; the supervision and evaluation of FTOs; the length of time that trainee officers spend in the program; and the methods by which FTOs assess and evaluate trainee officers in field training. The Settlement Agreement sets forth extensive requirements that must be part of this new Field Training Program. b. Status of Compliance and Assessment The compliance deadline for this task occurred in April 2004. OPD published General Order B-8, Field Training Program, at the beginning of the seventh reporting period. The IMT reviewed the policy and found that it complies with the Settlement Agreement. During the seventh reporting period, OPD also 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 policy. During the seventh reporting period, the IMT evaluated whether OPD’s actual practice comply with Task 42. We determined that although OPD had not yet fully complied with the requirements of Task 42, it had made substantial and impressive progress. Moreover, throughout the course of our first review of Task 42, as shortcomings were identified OPD took immediate steps to remediate deficiencies. Based on our review, we made several additional recommendations to OPD focusing on improving the FTO selection process; ensuring anonymity for trainee evaluations; and improving supervisory review of FTO evaluations. A fuller description of this audit is included in our seventh status report. During the ninth reporting period, we conducted a second audit of the Field Training Program. A complete discussion of our audit findings is included in our ninth status report. We found that OPD had continued to make progress and was in compliance with nearly all of the task’s requirements. Our audit contained several recommendations to assist OPD in achieving full compliance with Task 42. A summary of this audit is contained in our ninth status report. During the tenth reporting period, some of the compliance standards for this task were lowered from 95% to 90% or modified to include a more subjective pass/fail assessment. During the tenth reporting period, we expressed concern about the Field Training Unit being provided the resources it needs to keep up with the significantly larger number of trainees