The results are in.

The latest batch of data pertaining to the Negotiated Settlement mandated as a result of the civil lawsuit filed by victims of the Oakland Riders, aka Delphine Allen, et al., v. city of Oakland.

Observers may recall that the Negotiated Settlement resulted in the formation of an Independent Monitoring Team, or IMT, to report on OPD’s compliance level with regard to 22 tasks, as outlined by Judge Thomas Henderson in the wake of the Riders scandal.

The IMT submits quarterly reports detailing specific steps OPD has taken as far as compliance issues. In turn, OPD submits monthly reports detailing its progress to the City Administrator, which also are signed off on by the chief of Police and then forwarded to the Public Safety Committee.

In the Third Quarterly Report, submitted Oct. 8, 2010, the IMT’s findings were as follows: “The Team found the Department in compliance with 10 tasks, in partial compliance with seven tasks and not in compliance with three tasks; they deferred compliance findings for two tasks. The number of tasks in full compliance was reduced by one during the third quarter reporting period.”

According to the report, OPD fully complied with Task 25 (Use of Force Investigations and Report Responsibility), but fell out of compliance with Task 40 (Personnel Assessment System) and moved from full to partial compliance with Task 45 (Consistency of Discipline). Additionally, Task 34 (Vehicle Stops, Field Investigations and Detentions) was deferred because new policies and procedures were implemented in June 2010, near the end of the reporting period.

Though the IMT expressed concern about several areas where improvement is needed, it noted that OPD has improved in several key areas and has made “significant progress” overall in compliance issues. The December monthly report identified no new areas of concern, noting that the department has continued to improve its efforts to achieve full compliance, especially in the three areas identified in the Third Quarterly Report - namely technology, attention to detail and risk management.

Specifically, some cases referred to Internal Affairs are undergoing “additional levels of review … to ensure investigations of misconduct are properly conducted.” And, the Use of Force reporting policy is being revised “to improve efficiency.” Revisions to the Stop data, i.e. vehicle stops, also are underway, including additional training and the implementation of EVALIS - a comprehensive early warning system.

However, despite renewed efforts to address the concerns of the IMT, the report noted the existence of areas “that continue to challenge the Department” in terms of achieving full compliance, yet insisted OPD brass is committed to “the goal of policy compliance and institutional change.”

So what does this all mean?

Despite whispers of grumbling from rank-and file officers and rumors of low department morale, the reports suggest that Chief Anthony Batts has been at least partially effective in implementing reforms. As noted, “The Chief and his command staff continue to reinforce the importance of the reform efforts and are holding subordinates accountable for failures to comply with policy and directives.”

Still, being fully compliant on only 12 of the 22 court-ordered tasks is a failing grade in the eyes of many, and serious questions persist as to whether OPD will be able to achieve all those reforms within the eight-year period outlined by the Negotiated Settlement, which expires in January 2012.

If the changes are not instituted within that time span, outside intervention and possibly federal receivership of OPD could be the eventual outcome. At a hearing last September, Henderson appeared to be losing patience with OPD's progress and repeated promises of change, as opposed to actual reform. The department has already been granted two extensions of the deadline for compliance with the terms of the Negotiated Settlement.

If OPD is placed into receivership as a result of non-compliance, such an eventuality would undoubtedly leave a black mark on Batts’ resume.

Speculation has been rife that OPD’s perceived inability to reach full compliance within the time span allotted is the real reason for his flirtation with the top cop job in San Jose – not the election of Jean Quan, as some media observers initially suggested, before it was revealed that Batts had interviewed for the job several months before the election.

Recent revelations that Batts has decided not to take the San Jose position and will be staying - at least for the time being - as well as a lovey-dovey press conference he and Quan recently held, only add to the intrigue swirling around the OPD - which hasn’t been helped by Batts’ call for a federal investigation into his own department over the shooting death in November of Derrick Jones.

Interestingly, Oakland’s year-end crime statistics for 2010 suggest that the terms of the Negotiated Settlement, the existence of the IMT and, most tellingly, the reduction of the police force from 800 officers to 620, hasn’t had an adverse affect on curbing criminal activity. According to the report, crime is down in a number of key areas, specifically violent crimes. Murder, aggravated assault, rape, robbery, motor vehicle theft, larceny, carjacking and arson have all generally adhered to a four-year trend toward reduction.

Overall, crime is down 14 percent from 2009 - many say, an encouraging statistic.

However, there are two key statistics that buck this trend: residential robbery is up 43 percent over the past year, while residential burglary has risen 12 percent. Some neighborhood advocates insist that only reportage of crime, but not actual crimes, have declined. Presently, there are efforts underway in some of Oakland’s tonier neighborhoods to hire outside armed security patrols to bolster public safety.

Without detailed statistics encompassing demographic information, it’s hard to say whether increased police staffing would have been effective in preventing these types of crimes - typically, residential burglary and robbery are only investigated after the fact, except in instances when a crime-in-progress is reported. A stronger police presence in some neighborhoods might have made a difference ... or it might not.

About Eric K Arnold

Eric K. Arnold has been writing about urban music culture since the mid-1990s, when he was the Managing Editor of now-defunct 4080 Magazine. Since then, he’s been a columnist for such publications as The Source, XXL, Murder Dog, Africana.com, and the East Bay Express; his work has also appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, Vibe, Wax Poetics, SF Weekly, XLR8R, the Village Voice and Jamrock, as well as the academic anthologies Total Chaos and The Vinyl Ain’t Final. Eric began his journalistic career while DJing on college radio station KZSC, and remembers well the early days of hip-hop radio, before consolidation, and commercialization set in. He currently lives in Oakland, California.