Oakland fires police chief for alleged misconduct cover-up

The Oakland Police Department has lost its seventh head of police in as many years over the alleged cover-up of an officer’s misconduct

The Oakland Police Department lost its seventh head of police in as many years Wednesday over the alleged cover-up of an officer’s misconduct in a scandal that threatens to extend two decades of federal oversight — the longest of any police department in the country.

Democratic Mayor Sheng Thao said at a news conference she was firing Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong after a probe concluded that the chief and the department failed to properly investigate and discipline a sergeant who was involved in a hit-and-run with his patrol car and, in a separate incident, fired his service weapon inside an elevator at police headquarters.

Thao, who took office in January, said she wants to be confident that the police chief in the city of 400,000 people will be effective “in making improvements that can be recognized by the federal monitor, the federal court and the people of Oakland.”

“I am no longer confident that Chief Armstrong can do the work needed to achieve the vision so, today I have decided to separate Chief LeRonne Armstrong from the city without cause,” she said.

Thao placed Armstrong on paid administrative leave last month to review investigations by the department’s federal monitor that found the police chief responsible for gross dereliction of duty.

The probes by the law firm of Clarence Dyer and Cohen concluded Armstrong failed to investigate and discipline a sergeant after he was involved in a hit-and-run with a parked car in 2021 at his apartment building in San Francisco, according to a report first obtained by KTVU-TV and made public by Oaklandside, a local news site.

The Oakland Police Department made national news in 2000, after a rookie officer came forward to report abuse of power by a group of officers known as the Oakland “Riders.” The four officers were charged with making false arrests, planting evidence, using excessive force, falsifying police reports and assaulting people in west Oakland, a predominantly Black area. Three of the officers were acquitted after two separate juries deadlocked on most of the charges. The fourth officer is a fugitive and is believed to have fled the country.

The case resulted in the department coming under federal oversight in 2003 and being required to enact 52 reform measures, and report its progress to an outside monitor and a federal judge.

Armstrong, a native of Oakland, was appointed in 2021 with promises of enacting all the reforms within a year. He has received the backing of some of the city's Black leaders, including John Burris, one of two attorneys who in 2000 filed the lawsuit against the police department on behalf of 119 plaintiffs.

Armstrong didn't immediately comment on Thao's decision.