By Matthew Artz Oakland Tribune
OAKLAND -- The city's
police force got another jolt Wednesday when a federal judge fired his
hand-picked official overseeing the Oakland Police Department, citing a lack of
progress in completing a decade-old reform drive.
In ousting former Baltimore
Police Commissioner Thomas Frazier from the powerful post of compliance
director, U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson turned full day-to-day
authority over the reform effort to Robert Warshaw, a former Rochester, N.Y.,
police chief, who has been monitoring the department's sputtering reform effort
for several years.
The move, which came as a
surprise to city leaders, will cut down the cost to taxpayers of what had
become an increasingly Byzantine oversight regime. But it leaves the department
firmly in the grasp of Warshaw, who has had strained relations with city
officials.
Henderson appointed Frazier
last March and gave him unprecedented power over the department in order to
finally get police to satisfy court-mandated reforms stemming from the 1999 Riders
police brutality scandal.
But in a three-page order
released late Wednesday, Henderson wrote that the arrangement of having both a
compliance director and a monitor had been "unnecessarily
duplicative" and "less efficient and more expensive than the court
contemplated."
Henderson chose to keep
Warshaw and dispatch Frazier, whose annual compensation topped $330,000, along
with his paid staff. Warshaw will assume Frazier's powers, which include the
ability to spend city funds and overrule top commanders. He also will receive
up to $150,000 on top of his firm's current two-year, $1.78 million contract
with the city.
Mayor Jean Quan had no
comment about the sudden shake-up Wednesday. Police spokeswoman Johnna Watson
said, "We're going to continue to do what we need to do and we will certainly
continue our efforts for full compliance."
John Burris, who
represented the plaintiffs in the Riders case and has remain involved in the
reform effort, said he hoped that giving more authority to Warshaw would speed
up progress but was concerned that without Frazier, there would be no
compliance official stationed in Oakland.
"To me there was a lot
of value in having someone like (Frazier) on the scene here," Burris said.
Warshaw's consulting firm,
Police Performance Solutions, is based in Dover, N.H. ¿Henderson in his order
contemplated providing funds for Warshaw to have a greater presence in Oakland.
Frazier raised eyebrows by
using his power not only to direct the reform effort, but to try to improve the
department. He pushed for the city to replace broken radios, devote more
resources to police recruitment and spend more on technology upgrades and
training.
Frazier also sided with the
police union, by overruling a City Council directive to transfer the intake of
complaints against officers outside the Police Department.
Frazier's actions made him
popular with the rank and file but raised questions about whether he had lost
his primary focus when last month Warshaw released a report finding that the
reform effort had regressed.
"There certainly was a
view that Frazier had gone outside the four corners of the (reform drive), and
I think the judge probably felt that as well," Burris said.
The reform effort was
launched in 2003 to help the department better police itself and prevent racial
profiling. The eight reform tasks still not fully completed include
investigation of the use of force by officers and tracking officers with a
history of high-risk behavior.
Oakland officials had
initially wanted Warshaw to monitor the reform effort, but relations with him
have been strained. Two years ago, the city sought to remove Warshaw after City
Administrator Deanna Santana accused him of sexual harassment. Henderson had
the complaint investigated but allowed Warshaw to continue in the post without
releasing the investigator's findings.
