OAKLAND -- A recent study found that Oakland police officers drew their guns and pointed them at individuals who did not present a threat 28 percent of the time.
The analysis came from Robert Warshaw, the federal monitor assigned to oversee the Oakland Police Department in the wake of the Riders federal corruption case, which settled in 2003. When officers draw their guns, they are required to file a use-of-force report explaining why. Warshaw's analysis looked at reports of 80 incidents in which 215 officers had drawn their guns between Jan. 1 and March this year.
"In each instance where there was a question as to whether an officer's action was appropriate, we gave any benefit of doubt to the involved officers," Warshaw wrote, "and we saw many examples of fine, proactive police work, and officers making good arrests. ... We are, however, troubled by the high number of instances where the officers' pointing of a firearm was not necessary or appropriate, given the documentation we reviewed."
Warshaw said he found in 56 percent of the cases, an officer appropriately pointed a gun at someone. In 16 percent of the cases, he said there wasn't enough information in the use-of-force reports to determine if the officers had acted appropriately.
In the rest of the cases, there was no indication that the officer or anyone else "faced imminent threat of harm" from the person at whom the gun was pointed.
Warshaw wrote that officers are escalating their use of force with no information that supports their belief a person is armed, using a tactic that could quickly prove deadly while bypassing less dangerous methods, such as drawing a stun gun or using a hands-on technique.
"In a few instances," Warshaw wrote, "it seemed that the only offense that a subject 'committed' was running from the police. While it is reasonable to assume that someone may be running because (he or she) is wanted or guilty of an offense, running is not, in and of itself, against the law; and it does not serve as justification for pointing a firearm."
Jim Chanin, a civil rights attorney who successfully sued the city in the Riders case, said the report highlights a major problem with policing in Oakland.
"We all know that it's dangerous for police out there, and we don't want to do anything to jeopardize officer safety," Chanin said. "On the other hand, if you are doing nothing and you have a gun pointed at you by a police officer, it leaves an indelible impression and can alienate someone from the police forever, particularly if they're a minority."
Warshaw broke down the bad-draw cases by race and found that 78 percent were black, 17 percent were Hispanic, and 5 percent were other ethnicities.
"That's unacceptable," Chanin said. "I realize sometimes that will happen, but it's so disproportionate to one community that it backfires. Then you want them to be a witness in a crime, or cooperate with police, and all they remember is having a gun pointed at them."
Oakland's population is about 27 percent black, according to the 2010 census. In 2010, 74 percent of shooting suspects and 84 percent of armed or strong-arm robbery suspects were identified or described by a witness as being black. Those proportions so far this year are 66 percent and 83 percent, respectively.
Of 656 Oakland police officers, 43 percent are white, 21 percent are black, 20 percent are Latino and 13 percent are Asian, with 3 percent declining to state.
The victims of violent crime are also disproportionately black. According to Assistant Chief Howard Jordan, "73 percent or so of our murder victims are African-American."
Harry Stern, a former Berkeley police officer and an attorney whose firm represents the police union in the Riders settlement, said, "OPD consciously places a great deal of their resources in the African-American community, and the reason for that is to protect the good folks that live there. Consequently, if you look at the statistics cited in the monitors' report, the issue of drawing and pointing weapons could appear skewed."
Jordan said the monitors sat down this week with top police brass to explain the methods they used in evaluating when an officer drew a gun. Commanders are now reviewing those cases, he said, and if they come to the same conclusions, they will address problematic officer behavior "through retraining, better supervision or policy revision, or all of the above."
Jordan said the current policy allows officers to draw their guns "when they feel their lives or the lives of others are in danger."
Dom Arotzarena, president of the police officers union, said he could not comment on anything related to the Riders settlement. He said, however, "We will work with our union attorneys and the city to figure out what this means for the police department."
Stern said he has some concerns about the report.
"Police officers draw their guns to protect themselves. I'm concerned some might read this report as suggesting they wait until attacked before being allowed to defend themselves," he said.
"One of the nuances that isn't discussed is that there's a significant lag time between when a threat is perceived and when an officer is able to draw his or her firearm; in other words, if their gun hasn't already been drawn when they're attacked, it's usually too late for them to return fire. And then we're all attending yet another police funeral."
Author: Sean Maher, Oakland Tribune
