On December 17, 2000 Delphine Allen filed a § 1983 class action lawsuit against the City of Oakland and its police department [OPD] in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The suit alleged that plaintiffs were victimized by a group of rogue police officers within the OPD known as “the Riders.” The alleged misconduct included kidnapping, beating and planting drugs on the plaintiffs.

On March 26, 2001 the District Court (Judge Charles A. Legge) ordered that several other civil rights cases pending against the OPD be consolidated with the Allen case under the consolidated case number C00-4599 TEH (JL). These cases were sometimes referred to as the “Riders” cases and involved some 119 plaintiffs. Following consolidation, plaintiffs’ complaint was amended three times.

The case was eventually transferred to District Judge Thelton E. Henderson. The parties engaged in protracted settlement negotiations and participated in numerous court ordered settlement conferences before Magistrate Judge James Larson. After about eighteen months of negotiations, a settlement was reached in early 2003.

On March 14, 2003, the District Court (Judge Thelton E. Henderson) approved the settlement agreement and dismissal of the claims by the plaintiffs/putative class members. The settlement called for the monetary payment of $10.9 million to plaintiffs and the implementation of numerous reforms to OPD polices and procedures over a five year monitoring period. Reforms were to be made in the following core areas:

1. Internal Affairs Investigations
2. Discipline
3. Field Supervision
4. Management Oversight
5. Use of Force Reporting
6. Personnel Information Management System (PIMS)
7. Training
8. Auditing and Review Systems

On March 24, 2003 the District Court granted the motion for limited intervention by the Oakland Police Officers' Association.

On August 20, 2003 the District Court appointed Rachel Burgess, Kelli Evans, Charles Gruber and Christy Lopez to serve as the Independent Monitoring Team [IMT] to oversee the reform implementation process. As of the date of this summary, the IMT had issued eight semi-annual monitoring reports.

Separate state criminal charges were brought against four OPD officers for alleged crimes stemming from the Riders scandal. After a nine month criminal trial, three OPD officers were acquitted of most charges, with the jury deadlocking on other charges. The alleged ringleader of the Riders fled to escape prosecution.




Dan Dalton - 01/18/2007

compress summary