All parties believe police have made improvements since ‘Riders’ scandal
Two decades of federal oversight of Oakland police may end if the department can show it can continue to implement reforms effectively.
In a hearing before U.S. District Judge William Orrick, police, city officials, and attorneys involved in a lawsuit that led to the reforms agreed the police department had made progress in its reform efforts, according to the East Bay Times.
“I will be an extraordinarily happy person if a year and a bit from now, we’ll be able to close out this part of Oakland’s history,” Orrick said, according to the Times.
The case Orrick referred to involved the so-called Riders scandal that exploded in 2000. A rookie police officer told his supervisors that the Riders — four veteran officers — engaged in misconduct that included writing reports, planting drugs on suspects, and beating suspects.
One of the officers named in the case left the county. The other three faced dozens of criminal charges, including obstruction of justice, but none were convicted of a crime.
Following the criminal trial, a group in 2002 filed a civil lawsuit, Delphine Allen et al. v. City of Oakland, alleging misconduct by the four cops. Within a year, today!
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