A new report from the Oakland Police Beat, a news outlet seeking to empower the people of Oakland, Calif., by publishing investigative journalism pieces about the city’s controversial police department, revealed that the city’s officers who received the most medals were also involved in the most shootings and lawsuits alleging police brutality.
The report specifically stated that after reviewing records from the police department itself, reports from the Alameda County District Attorney, Oakland City Attorney lawsuit data and hundreds of federal and state court records, the top 35 most decorated officers actually had the worst records when it came to police brutality.
For example, 40 percent, or 14, of the 35 most decorated officers were involved in one or more officer-involved shootings, 61 percent had been named in civil rights-related lawsuits, 14 were named in at least two civil rights lawsuits, and at least four of the officers used chemical agents, beanbags and other explosive projectiles during Occupy Oakland demonstrations.
As many media organizations reported in 2011 and 2012, Occupy Oakland saw several violent clashes with police officers during protests, and as a result, Oakland has spent more than $6 million settling lawsuits related to police brutality incidents from those protests.
“There is a grim parallel between our findings and what independent commissions created to investigate high-profile scandals at police departments in New York City and Los Angeles, as well as at the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, all found: the officers with a history of violent behavior were also the officers that earned some of the most praise and the most awards,” the report said.
“The question remains whether top officers with violent pasts are a minority who legally push the boundaries in how they use force — or whether they’re an indicator that the Oakland Police Department rewards officers for brutality and that the culture that lead to the Riders scandal is still part of the department today.”
The 35 officers with arguably the worst reputations despite all of their medals, served in a variety of roles with the police department — from gang and drug task forces, to traffic investigation units, to training. This shows that they were not involved in more shootings because they were working the most dangerous parts of the city.
As the Oakland Police Beat report noted, an analysis of the top 100 officers who haven’t received as many awards as the top 35 had much “cleaner” records. About 15 out of the top 100 officers had been involved in a police shooting, compared to 14 out of the top 35, and 30 of the top 100 officers were named in lawsuits alleging police brutality, compared to about 21 out of the top 35.
The findings could have been even more startling if the journalists would have been given access to police records from before 2007. But the Oakland Police Department reportedly said it no longer has any records for individual officers prior to that year.
In the report, three police officers were singled out for the type of police brutality behavior they engaged in and for which they were later rewarded. “Over the course of their careers, Sgt. Randolph Brandwood, Eric Milina and Robert Roche were involved in a total of five police shootings, all of which had killed or injured someone.”
According to the Oakland Police Beat report, all three officers had been named in lawsuits accusing them of brutality, as well. In one of those lawsuits, the parents of Jose Luis Buenrostro, a 15-year-old who was shot and killed by the officers, accused the officers of “attempting to hide evidence by moving shell casings and cleaning up blood before police technicians arrived at the shooting scene.”
As the report found, “The department’s top brass saw the officers’ actions in a different way. In December 2008, they awarded Brandwood, Milina and Roche the Medal of Valor — the department’s highest honor for bravery — for the shooting.
“It was second Medal of Valor Roche earned for an officer-involved shooting.”
Due to rampant claims of police abuse, the Oakland Police Department has been monitored by an independent monitor since 2003. However, as Barbara Armacost, a professor at University of Virginia School of Law, said, it is going to take more than a court order to change the way police officers behave — there needs to be a cultural change.
“The only way that individual cops will change is if the organizational culture changes, and the only way that the organization will change is if high-level officials are held accountable for the actions of their subordinates,” she said.
John Burris, an Oakland-based civil rights attorney known for high-profile Oakland Police Department brutality cases, agreed with Armacost, saying some departments have created a culture in which excessive use of force is rationalized or ignored, and as a result, those officers who are aggressive are awarded or promoted because no one is held responsible.
“If you don’t hold [officers] accountable, there’s no fear and if there’s no fear they’ll continue to do what they’re doing,” Burris said. “The command staff has to set forth an attitude and a mindset [the] conduct is not acceptable — and that can be done.”