The Oakland Police Department has been released from federal court oversight, ending the longest-running court-ordered reform program of a police agency in U.S. history.
During a hearing at the San Francisco federal courthouse Tuesday afternoon, U.S. District Judge William Orrick said he is dismissing the case that placed OPD under his watch. The police department and Oakland city leaders, the judge said, have demonstrated their commitment to constitutional policing and improvements in the department’s culture.
OPD was put under oversight in 2003 following the Riders scandal in which a squad of West Oakland patrol officers was accused of beating people, planting drugs, falsifying reports, and other crimes. The city settled that lawsuit by agreeing to a list of 51 reforms designed to prevent future police abuses of power. Achieving these goals proved difficult, and over the subsequent two decades, the department was engulfed in new controversies, from illegal strip searches and police shootings of unarmed people, to a sexual abuse scandal and botched internal affairs cases…