With the Federal Monitor Gone, Oakland's Civilian Police Watchdogs Say They Need More Staff

For the first time in 23 years, no federal judge is watching over the Oakland Police Department. That leaves a question the city now has to answer for itself: are its own civilian watchdogs equipped to do the job?

Last week, U.S. District Judge William Orrick released OPD from the court oversight that began after the "Riders" scandal of the early 2000s, when a group of officers was accused of beating people, planting drugs and falsifying reports. The department has completed 50 of the 51 tasks in its reform agreement, The Oaklandside reported. Robert Warshaw, the city's longtime federal monitor, cautioned city leaders that the celebration should be "tempered with humility."

Who takes over

With the monitor gone, more of the accountability work falls to three city bodies created by voters: the Police Commission, set up in 2016; the Community Police Review Agency (CPRA), which investigates misconduct complaints and recommends discipline; and the Office of the Inspector General, created in 2020 to audit police policies and practices.

Their resources are uneven. CPRA had only three investigators last year, according to its annual report, but its executive director, Antonio Lawson, told The Oaklandside the agency now has 12 employees, and its budget has risen to $5.3 million from $3.3 million two years ago. He still wants to hire at least four more investigators.

The inspector general's office is in a tighter spot. Inspector General Zurvohn Maloof said it has just three permanent employees, and its budget was cut to about $1.5 million from $2.5 million two years ago. He hopes to add five staffers, including three auditors. Combined, the three oversight bodies get $7.3 million this year, less than 2% of OPD's $410 million budget.

A divided city

Police Commission Chair Ricardo Garcia-Acosta said the end of federal oversight gives Oakland's own systems a chance to step up. He added that the department was once in compliance on paper in 2022 before a new scandal surfaced, and said commissioners will push to redirect money that used to pay the monitoring team toward local oversight.

Anne Janks of the Coalition for Police Accountability argued the city has underfunded those agencies for years and said the next test is whether the mayor and City Council restore the money. On the other side, former Councilmember Loren Taylor, now with the group Safe Oakland, described the federal oversight as a burden that complicated the department's chain of command, and said Oakland doesn't need to build a local replacement for the monitor.

Mayor Barbara Lee, who received loud applause when she mentioned the end of oversight in her State of the City address, has called it a "floor, not the ceiling." How the council funds the watchdogs in the next budget cycle will show how seriously that promise is taken.