City Government

Oaklanders Fight for the Right to Watch their Watchmen

Published

6 years ago

April 12, 2019

Oakland residents are fighting for more power to oversee the actions of the Oakland Police Department (OPD).

On April 2, 2019, attorneys for the Coalition for Police Accountability (CPA) filed a motion to intervene in the ongoing federal oversight of OPD, established in 2003 by a Negotiated Settlement Agreement in a major police misconduct case.

This settlement required OPD to make 51 improvements, and granted some authorities to the plaintiffs and lawyers in the case to oversee OPD’s fulfillment of the required tasks.

Many in the CPA resent that after 16 years and over $30 million in public funds, the NSA still isn’t complete and the public’s role in the process is minimal.

If approved, the motion would allow CPA to attend and participate in meetings related to police policy and practice that are currently closed off to them. CPA members feel that intervening in the case would make it easier for Oakland residents to influence and change police policy.

“We would file our own reports and be able to do our own investigating because we’d have access to the same information as the other parties in the case,” said CPA member Rashidah Grinage. CPA wants the authority to hold police accountable that was granted in the settlement of the 2003 police misconduct case to plaintiffs and their lawyers James B. Chanin and John Burris, to extend to them.

CPA member Pamela Drake said they need that access and can be of service because they have deep and broad connections to people in Oakland. They represent about 25 local organizations.

“You need people on the ground who have a broad base and spend their time doing outreach in order to make a difference,” said Drake. “We have the outreach and access to political pressure of a kind that Burris and Chanin don’t because we represent so many people and we have people who are living it.”

Chanin said public oversight is important and he advised CPA in its push to pass Measure LL, a bill which resulted in the creation of Oakland’s Police Commission, a portion of the city government that provides civilian oversight to OPD policy and practice. But Chanin disagrees with CPA’s motion.

Chanin and Burris currently have authority to participate in the oversight of required improvements as representatives of the community’s interest. The 2003 NSA required a set of improvements, which the court calls “tasks.” They were to be fulfilled in five years. Sixteen years later, of the original 51 tasks, four tasks remain incomplete.

“It might have been a good idea for CPA in intervene in the case in 2003,” said Chanin. “But we have so few tasks left and there’s so much time that’s gone by that I don’t think their participation at this point would shorten the NSA.”

Members of CPA insist that, though only four tasks remain, those tasks involve some of the most important issues for both the public and OPD.

The most recent report by independent monitor Judge Robert S. Warsaw shows task numbers 26 and 30 still incomplete. These tasks relate to use of force. Task number 34 is also still incomplete. It deals with racial discrimination against Black people.

While Chanin and Burris both have suggested that the CPA focus their attention on collaborating with the Police Commission instead of intervening in the case, CPA members already regularly attend their meetings but see the commission as limited in what they can control and do.

By intervening in the case, they hope to obtain more resources and control for the commission which would allow for more public oversight of OPD. The City of Oakland and OPD originally planned for the publicly funded NSA process to last only five years.

Many in the CPA resent that after 16 years and over $30 million in public funds, the NSA still isn’t complete and the public’s role in the process is minimal. “We’re paying a huge amount of money for this process and we’re not getting the results that we need,” said Grinage.

Zack Haber

Posts by Zack Haber

Up Next

In Sept. 11 Related Tweet, Trump Targets Another Black Woman in Congress

Don't Miss

Who controls the fate of Oakland schools?

Zack Haber

Click to comment

Activism

Oakland Post: Week of October 30 – November 5, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of October 30 – November 5, 2024

Published

22 hours ago

November 1, 2024

Oakland Post

To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Bay Area

Evidence Appears to Show Cover-Up of Previous Charges of Discrimination Against Jewish and Black Jurors, D.A. Says

Today, District Attorney Pamela Price announced that attorneys assigned to review the office’s death penalty cases found evidence revealing that instead of investigating claims of prosecutorial misconduct—excluding Jewish and Black residents from juries — a former senior Alameda County District Attorney’s Office prosecutor who is now a sitting judge in Alameda County, Morris Jacobson, and a team of investigators appeared to have taken part in covering it up.

Published

5 days ago

October 28, 2024

Oakland Post

A handwritten note by an employee under a previous administration appears to show plans for a cover-up of jury discrimination in a death penalty case. Courtesy image.

Special to The Post

During a press conference, Price presented a copy of a handwritten note by a former DA office employee who attended a meeting with employees from the office.

Jacobson, a deputy district attorney at the time, led the meeting in preparation for an evidentiary hearing ordered in the Fred Freeman case.

That hearing was ordered after former capital trial prosecutor Jack Quatman, the prosecutor in People v. Freeman, signed a declaration revealing that he and other capital case prosecutors routinely struck Black women and Jewish jurors in death penalty cases.

Jacobson was assigned by former district attorneys Tom Orloff and Nancy O’Malley to coordinate the ACDAO’s response during the evidentiary hearing.

In that capacity, he and others assigned to the capital case team went to great lengths to distract the courts from the substantive legal allegations by besmirching the whistleblower Quatman’s character and credibility—a strategy that succeeded.

Key sections of the note include, “left it w/ Morris saying he would give us direction. Wants to find dirt on Quatman,” and “How good are your memories? His point was he doesn’t want any documentation of what we do unless it is agreed upon???”

“This note provides the public some of the missing clues regarding who appeared to be involved during previous administrations in covering up prosecutorial misconduct at the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office,” said Price. “The note from this meeting in 2004 gives insight into why prosecutors’ notes containing evidence of discrimination against potential Jewish and Black jurors may not have been subjected to a comprehensive review and were not disclosed to the Court in most of the cases until my office was ordered by Honorable Judge Vince Chhabria to review death penalty cases.

“What the public should know is that prosecutors have special duties as ministers of justice to uphold the Constitution, which guarantees the right to a fair trial and to be judged by a jury of one’s peers, regardless of race, religion, or sexual orientation,” she said.

United States District Court Judge Chhabria determined earlier this year that there was “strong evidence that, in prior decades, prosecutors from the office were … excluding Jewish and African American jurors in death penalty cases.”

He subsequently issued an order directing ACDAO to disclose jury selection files in all Alameda County cases which resulted in a death sentence.

The Alameda County District Attorney’s Office is the source of this story.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Bay Area

In the City Attorney Race, Ryan Richardson Is Better for Oakland

It’s been two years since negotiations broke down between the City of Oakland and a developer who wants to build a coal terminal here, and the issue has reappeared, quietly, in the upcoming race for Oakland City attorney. Two candidates are running for the position of Oakland City Attorney in November: current Assistant Chief City Attorney Ryan Richardson and retired judge Brenda Harbin-Forte.

Published

5 days ago

October 28, 2024

Oakland Post

Members of Oaklanders Defending Democracy political action committee with Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, center. Courtesy photo.

By Margaret Rossoff

Special to The Post

OPINION

Two candidates are running for the position of Oakland City Attorney in November: current Assistant Chief City Attorney Ryan Richardson and retired judge Brenda Harbin-Forte.

Richardson has worked in the Office of the City Attorney since 2014 and is likely to continue current City Attorney Barbara Parker’s policies managing the department. He has committed not to accept campaign contributions from developers who want to store and handle coal at a proposed marine terminal in Oakland.

Retired Judge Harbin-Forte launched and has played a leading role in the campaign to recall Mayor Sheng Thao, which is also on the November ballot. She has stepped back from the recall campaign to focus on her candidacy. The East Bay Times noted, “Harbin-Forte’s decision to lead the recall campaign against a potential future client is … troubling — and is likely to undermine her ability, if she were to win, to work effectively.”

Harbin-Forte has refused to rule out accepting campaign support from coal terminal interests or their agents. Coal terminal lobbyist Greg McConnell’s Independent Expenditure Committee “SOS Oakland” is backing her campaign.

In the 2022 mayor’s race, parties hoping to build a coal terminal made $600,000 in contributions to another of McConnell’s Independent Expenditure Committees.

In a recent interview, Harbin-Forte said she is open to “listening to both sides” and will be “fair.” However, the City Attorney’s job is not to judge fairly between the City and its legal opponents – it is to represent the City against its opponents.

She thought that the 2022 settlement negotiations ended because the City “rejected a ‘no coal’ settlement.” This is lobbyist McConnell’s narrative, in contrast to the report by City Attorney Barbara Parker. Parker has explained that the City continued to negotiate in good faith for a settlement with no “loopholes” that could have allowed coal to ship through Oakland – until would-be coal developer Phil Tagami broke off negotiations.

One of Harbin-Forte’s main priorities, listed on her website, is “reducing reliance on outside law firms,” and instead use the lawyers working in the City Attorney’s office.

However, sometimes this office doesn’t have the extensive expertise available that outside firms can provide in major litigation. In the ongoing, high stakes coal litigation, the City has benefited from collaborating with experienced, specialized attorneys who could take on the nationally prominent firms representing the City’s opponents.

The City will continue to need this expertise as it pursues an appeal of the judge’s decision that restored the developer’s lease and defends against a billion-dollar lawsuit brought by the hedge fund operator who holds the sublease on the property.

Harbin-Forte’s unwillingness to refuse campaign contributions from coal terminal interests, her opposition to using outside resources when needed, as well as her uncritical repetition of coal lobbyist McConnell’s claim that the City sabotaged the settlement talks of 2022 all raise serious concerns about how well she would represent the best interests of Oakland and Oaklanders if she is elected City Attorney.