Oakland Mayor Schaaf’s Office Says Racist, Sexist Social Media Accounts Made By Several Oakland Police Officers

Oakland, CA –  The City of Oakland released the pursuing connection regarding the findings of an probe into usage of societal media accounts by Oakland constabulary officers:

In January, the Oakland Police Department became alert of an Instagram relationship that hosted profoundly violative contented that was sexist, racist, and wholly unacceptable to the standards of our community. The relationship besides elevated subversive memes that criticized the policies and taste changes that person made OPD a nationally recognized person successful progressive, law policing. The creator of the violative relationship appeared to beryllium intimately acquainted with the department, and specifically the transgression simplification teams, oregon CRTs. Since it was wide determination was a anticipation that the relationship had been created by a existent employee, the concern warranted an contiguous investigation.

Due to the relationship holder’s familiarity with CRTs, the probe began with each serviceman who served successful those units, individuals located successful specialized units, and each serviceman successful patrol and investigative units who intersected with those officers. Investigators took the unannounced enactment to prehend much than 140 enactment phones from these Oakland constabulary officers. Investigators scraped the contented and online histories from each of those phones.

To guarantee the integrity of the inquiry, Mayor Libby Schaaf and City Administrator Ed Reiskin took contiguous enactment to prosecute a third-party autarkic investigator. The investigator’s directives were to exposure the account’s creator done IT records and find if immoderate existent Oakland employees had engaged with the violative contented and/or had different violated immoderate section policies.

The effect was an unprecedented probe successful its size and scope. The autarkic investigators formed a nett arsenic wide arsenic legally and constitutionally allowable.

Oakland’s Community Police Review Agency, overseen by Oakland’s Citizen Police Commission, besides conducted a abstracted autarkic investigation. The findings and subject announced contiguous were the effect of afloat concurrence betwixt the Oakland Police Department and the autarkic Community Police Review Agency.

This wide and heavy probe revealed violations of OPD argumentation related to the violative Instagram page, arsenic good arsenic respective different unrelated violations that were discovered during the people of examining each contented and online histories of the much than 140 department-issued compartment phones.

Of the hundreds of online histories studied, 9 officers were recovered to person violated section policy. Violations included:

·       Accessing inappropriate worldly connected department-issued instrumentality (including materials unrelated to the Instagram page)

·       Conduct that brings disrepute to OPD

·       Sexual harassment oregon different behaviour successful usurpation of Oakland’s workplace standards

·       Failure to execute duties and responsibilities

·       Failure to study violations

The probe determined that the violative relationship was created by a erstwhile Oakland constabulary serviceman soon aft helium was terminated for violating section policy. Of the 9 officers sustained for violating section policies, 2 person since taken positions with different instrumentality enforcement agencies. Oakland has notified those 2 agencies of the investigation’s findings.

The 9 officers who were recovered to person violated section argumentation ranged successful fertile from serviceman to Lieutenant.  The subject issued to them ranged from an 3-day unpaid suspension to a 25-day unpaid suspension.

In an effort to guarantee this ne'er happens again, the Oakland section will:

·       Review and fortify existing policies for each department-issued technology

·       Create further grooming for the due usage of section compartment phones

·       Develop robust grooming to guarantee nary violations of the zero-tolerance radical argumentation that forbids immoderate engagement with racist, extremist, oregon achromatic supremacy groups

·       Require section employees to study each work-related societal media accounts to the OPD Office of Inspector General

·       Require mandatory postulation of each section societal media relationship names and passwords by the Office of Inspector General

·       Audit contented of department-issued exertion astatine immoderate clip by the Office of Inspector General to guarantee it is appropriate, enactment related, contains nary inappropriate images oregon contented and that the worldly does not interruption section policy

·       Require that employees shall person nary work-related societal media accounts attached to their idiosyncratic phones nor usage idiosyncratic phones for OPD business

·       Require that employees shall person nary idiosyncratic societal media accounts attached to their department-issued technology

·       Require the OPD Office of Inspector General to clasp each work-related societal media accounts and passwords

·       Develop cultural-competency grooming with Stanford University and present to each applicable staff

·       Provide extracurricular adept to behaviour further intersexual harassment and inappropriate behaviour trainings successful the workplace

“Sexist and racist behaviors are acold excessively prevalent successful our civilization and person nary spot successful our nationalist information institutions,” Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said. “I wholeheartedly and powerfully condemn immoderate behavior, including online communications, that supports oregon engages with sexist oregon racist tropes. I’m heartened by the unprecedented size, scope, and thoroughness of this autarkic investigation, which held officers accountable and created caller policies that rise our standards and expectations.”

The last probe study was submitted to the national tribunal overseeing Allen v. City of Oakland. The Court volition find which parts of the investigation, if any, it volition marque publically available.