Oakland Police Department

OAKLAND - It was a quiet evening by this city's standards, and still the police emergency lines were lighting up. As screams rang out behind her, a caller said her neighbor was being beaten. A woman reported that a front door down the street had been bashed in by a possible intruder. Another said a family member with a knife and supply of methamphetamine was threatening to kill herself. By 7:30 p.m. there were 40 calls requiring squad cars on the eastern half of town but no officers available to respond.

OAKLAND - It was a quiet evening by this city's standards, and still the police emergency lines were lighting up. As screams rang out behind her, a caller said her neighbor was being beaten. A woman reported that a front door down the street had been bashed in by a possible intruder. Another said a family member with a knife and supply of methamphetamine was threatening to kill herself. By 7:30 p.m. there were 40 calls requiring squad cars on the eastern half of town but no officers available to respond.

Four veteran cops who worked the midnight shift in this city's tough northwest corner, they called themselves the "Riders"--peacekeepers on some mythic outlaw frontier. But their romantic nickname is now shorthand for the worst police scandal in Oakland's recent history, as the Riders face criminal charges and a federal civil rights lawsuit alleging that they fabricated evidence, planted drugs and wantonly beat suspects bloody.

OAKLAND - A federal judge has placed Oakland Police Department reform efforts under his direct control, citing nearly a decade of inadequate attempts to comply with a legal settlement in a case that unmasked systemic police brutality and racial profiling. U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson on Wednesday signed off on an 11th-hour agreement reached last week between the city and plaintiffs' attorneys under which he will appoint a full-time "compliance director" with sweeping powers to dictate changes related to the case.

The Oakland Police Department is disbanding its mounted patrol, citing the need to assign more officers to deal with "sideshows" -- illegal car races that often turn violent. Residents say they will be sorry to see the end of the equestrian unit after nearly 25 years. Police recommended to the city administrator that the two full-time officers in the mounted unit be reassigned. A spokeswoman for the administrator said Friday that the recommendation has been approved.

Nearly 800 citizen complaints filed against the Oakland Police Department have not been investigated, according to a report by a court-appointed monitoring team. At least 775 entries in the Internal Affairs Division's database, some dating to January 2003, were not assigned case numbers or investigated, the report released this week said. Some complaints were not investigated because the department would not take the complaint over the phone.

Several City Council members are calling for a public hearing along with an independent investigation into the Oakland Police Department's use of force against antiwar demonstrators Monday at the Port of Oakland. Vice Mayor Nancy Nadal said she wants police to develop plans to better respond to "nonviolent demonstrations." Officers fired beanbag projectiles, wooden dowels and sting-ball grenades at protesters, injuring some of them.

OAKLAND - A federal judge has placed Oakland Police Department reform efforts under his direct control, citing nearly a decade of inadequate attempts to comply with a legal settlement in a case that unmasked systemic police brutality and racial profiling. U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson on Wednesday signed off on an 11th-hour agreement reached last week between the city and plaintiffs' attorneys under which he will appoint a full-time "compliance director" with sweeping powers to dictate changes related to the case.

The Oakland Police Department has failed to fulfill reforms spelled out in a consent decree, according to a report by an independent monitoring team. Police were ordered to make several changes as part of a February 2003 civil settlement by the city and the department with 119 plaintiffs stemming from the "Riders" case, which involved alleged rogue cops. A report issued Monday found that the department did not complete half of the changes it was directed to make by court order.

His words delivered in a soft-spoken dirge, Jervis Muwwakkil says he can appreciate the pain that Rodney King's parents must have felt. His son Jamil Wheatfall, 36, the fourth of 11 children, was also beaten by a phalanx of police officers after a high-speed car chase. The unarmed bank robbery suspect was bashed repeatedly with a baton and overwhelmed by officers after he resisted arrest in April.

In a basketball arena filled with uniformed officers from across the continent, four members of the Oakland Police Department were remembered Friday as eager servants of the city where -- six days earlier, in a single afternoon of horrific gun violence -- they paid for their dedication with their lives. "When duty called, they did not hesitate to answer," said U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), one of a handful of elected officials who spoke at the three-hour service in Oracle Arena.

The family of a 22-year-old man shot to death by a transit police officer on New Year's Day urged Oakland residents Thursday to remain calm and deplored the violence that erupted during a protest over the shooting a day earlier. The city bristled with anger and sorrow as store owners cleaned up the debris from the vandalism during Wednesday night's protest and officials announced that the Oakland Police Department would join in the investigation of Oscar J. Grant III's death.

SAN FRANCISCO -- A 19-year-old man who confessed to the execution-style slaying of an Oakland journalist last week did not act alone, Oakland police said Monday. Devaughndre Broussard, a handyman at Your Black Muslim Bakery, told investigators that he shot Chauncey Bailey, 57, with a shotgun because he was worried that the Oakland Post editor was working on a story that would be critical of the group that runs the bakery and of its leaders. Authorities believe that others were involved.

The editor of a weekly newspaper in Oakland was gunned down as he walked to work Thursday morning in what police called a contract killing. Chauncey Bailey, 57, recently promoted to editor of the Oakland Post, was shot at 7:30 a.m. not far from his office. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Witnesses told police that a gunman in dark clothing approached Bailey and shot him multiple times before fleeing. He was shot in the back and in the head.

A week before the primary election and nearly three weeks after a critical campaign commercial began airing, the Oakland police officers union demanded Tuesday that attorney general candidate Rocky Delgadillo yank the ad. Delgadillo's commercial, the centerpiece of his $2-million final TV push against rival Democrat Jerry Brown -- Oakland's mayor and former California governor -- blames Brown for a murder spike in the San Francisco Bay Area city this year.

A jury Thursday acquitted three fired Oakland policemen of several charges but deadlocked on 13 others in a case alleging the officers assaulted and framed suspects and then conspired to hide the evidence. The trial was the second in an incendiary case that angered Oakland's poorest black neighborhoods and prompted a series of court-mandated police reforms. The first jury, impaneled for more than a year, was also unable to reach a verdict in the fall of 2003 on most counts.

Scores of Oakland Raider fans went on an ugly rampage Sunday night after their team's loss in the Super Bowl, setting cars on fire and throwing rocks and bottles at passing vehicles. About 500 police officers in riot gear responded by using tear gas in running skirmishes with crowds in downtown, East Oakland and other areas. By 11 p.m., officers said the violence had subsided significantly. Thirty-two people were arrested, mostly for public intoxication.

Nearly 800 citizen complaints filed against the Oakland Police Department have not been investigated, according to a report by a court-appointed monitoring team. At least 775 entries in the Internal Affairs Division's database, some dating to January 2003, were not assigned case numbers or investigated, the report released this week said. Some complaints were not investigated because the department would not take the complaint over the phone.