Oakland’s Black police chief could lose job amid controversy

Oakland’s Black police chief may be fired after being placed on administrative leave following a report that identified “systemic deficiencies” while looking into claims of misconduct inside the California city’s police department.

Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong has been actively and loudly defending his position, but Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao has yet to decide whether he will keep it, the East Bay Times reported.

Thao might, however, delegate the decision-making to someone else. The Oakland Police Commission will meet Wednesday night to consider possible consequences against Armstrong, who allegedly failed to reprimand OPD officers for misconduct.

While Thao can terminate Armstrong’s employment without cause, the nine-member commission must justify such a decision.

The commissioners have previously voiced their displeasure over the delay in receiving documents that would shed additional light on any involvement by Armstrong in the misconduct controversy, evidence Thao has pledged the public will use to guide her next move.

Some of those records have now become public, and they may have significantly impacted Armstrong’s decision to try to remain in his position after he enlisted the help of the Oakland NAACP and engaged a crisis adviser.

The publication by the news outlet The Oaklandside of a 57-page confidential report by the San Francisco law firm Clarence, Dyer and Cohen — which concluded that Armstrong was “not credible” when he denied knowing the scope of wrongdoing by an officer at the center of the controversy — poses the biggest challenge for the embattled police chief.

According to the report, Armstrong asserted he was not a part of an internal affairs inquiry into an elevator gun-firing incident, but the evidence of his subordinates contradicted that claim. They contended the chief received regular briefings regarding the department’s second internal affairs investigation.

Assistant Chief Darren Allison, the Oakland Police Department’s second-highest-ranked employee, has been filling in during Armstrong’s absence, theGrio previously reported.

Armstrong, who became chief in February 2021 after two decades as an Oakland police officer, faced scrutiny for department-wide failures to analyze the wrongdoing of a sergeant involved in a hit-and-run accident.

In a different incident more than a year later, the sergeant involved in the accident admitted to discharging his service weapon in an OPD building’s elevator and trying to cover it up by throwing the shell case over the Bay Bridge, prompting an independent report.

Armstrong, the law firm’s subsequent probe contended, approved the findings of a diluted internal affairs investigation without even reading them.

The Police Commission’s Discipline Committee has scheduled a meeting for 8 p.m. Wednesday to examine the possible “Discipline/Dismissal/Release” of Armstrong, the East Bay Times reported.

“Chief Armstrong’s stated lack of awareness of the facts of the case lacks credibility,” the report states, according to the Times, “as much as it suggests a lack of attention to the (internal affairs) process under his ultimate command.”

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