Update: Armstrong blasts firing from position as chief, calls it 'fundamentally wrong'
OAKLAND -- Former Oakland Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong maintained his innocence Wednesday after being firing from the position by Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao.
Armstrong released the below statement regarding the mayor's action:
"I am deeply disappointed in the Mayor's decision. After the relevant facts are fully evaluated by weighing evidence instead of pulling soundbites from strategically leaked, inaccurate reports, it will be clear I was a loyal and effective reformer of the Oakland Police Department. It will be equally clear that I committed no misconduct, and my termination is fundamentally wrong, unjustified, and unfair. I anticipate releasing a more detailed statement soon once I have the chance to fully digest the Mayor's remarks."
Oakland Police Officers' Association President Barry Donelan also issued a statement Wednesday. It read in part, "Despite the turmoil surrounding the leadership of the police department, Oakland residents can be assured that Oakland's hard working police officers have remained on duty throughout; responding to 911 calls, investigating crime, and will continue with their dedicated service to our city."
Armstrong was suspended for nearly a month over his actions in regards to an officer misconduct investigation before the mayor announced his firing Wednesday.
He was the seventh person to hold the position in the last seven years.
In an afternoon press conference at City Hall, Mayor Sheng Thao referenced a recent report detailing Armstrong's actions following a hit-and-run collision involving a police sergeant and the alleged obstruction of the investigation. That report that led to his suspension on January 19. The report concluded that Armstrong had signed off on the findings without reviewing them or even fully discussing the incident, an account Armstrong disputes.
"Within days of being notified of that the city needed time to carefully review the findings and the evidence in these very serious cases, Chief Armstrong made a number of statements that troubled me. In response to a public report that concluded that OPD had repeatedly failed to rigorously investigate misconduct and hold officers accountable, Chief Armstrong said these were not incidents where officers behaved poorly. He stated that he did not believe these incidents reflected system problems. Chief Armstrong described the underlying incident as a 'minor vehicle collision.' He said, 'officers make mistakes.'"
In one of her first moves as mayor, Thao put Armstrong on administrative leave following the investigative report written by the law firm Clarence Dyer & Cohen LLP, which was hired last year by the city of Oakland. On Wednesday, nearly a month after the report, Armstrong was relieved of his duties.
Current Acting Police Chief Darren Allison will continue to lead the department until a permanent replacement is named.
"The chief does serve at the will of the mayor and again, I've lost confidence in Chief LeRonne Armstrong," said Thao. "I want to be clear this is not a disciplinary action. I have lost confidence in Chief Armstrong to ensure that we move forward and impact the vision for the city of Oakland"
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Armstrong has maintained he has done nothing wrong and had formally requested to be reinstated.
According to the report, OPD officers, including an internal affairs captain and a lieutenant, helped obstruct an investigation into a police sergeant's involvement in a hit-and-run collision with a parked vehicle.
The report that led to his suspension concluded that Armstrong had signed off on the findings without reviewing them or even fully discussing the incident. But Armstrong demanded his job back, claiming that his suspension was not supported by evidence.
Thao said Wednesday the report reinforces the belief that the police department needs to continue with its court-ordered reforms with someone else at the helm.
"I personally believe this report shows the absolute necessity of continued reforms to address the issues that have come to light and as Oakland continues to improve our police department we need to be confident that our chief will be effective in making sustainable improvements that can be recognized by the federal monitor, the federal court, and the people of Oakland," said Thao.
Federal Judge William Orrick last year put Oakland Police Department on a one-year probationary period that was set to end by June and finally free it from federal oversight, saying the agency had achieved "substantial compliance." But last month, he made public a portion of the law firm reports, prompting the mayor to place Armstrong on paid leave.
"The report … demonstrates that the significant cultural problems within the department remain unaddressed," he said during a virtual hearing in January.
Orrick ordered the city to present a plan by April 4 on how it plans to come into compliance.
Armstrong, the 13th person to head the embattled police department in 20 years, 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.
Burris said he was disappointed that Thao based her decision on what he considers to be "not very strong evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Mr. Armstrong."
Burris, who has been meeting on a regular basis with the police department and federal monitor for the last 20 years, said the police department has made great strides and positive changes on how it deals with the community, which largely supported Armstrong.
"We don't have the beating that we used to have. We don't have people being stopped because of their race at the same level we had before. We don't have the shooting and the use of deadly force that we had before. We don't have the mistreatment of the mentally impaired in the same way we did," Burris said.
"But this is a (police) culture question and the disappointing part is it hasn't changed," he added.
Armstrong told KPIX last week that when he first heard about the report, he was shocked.
"It was shocking that someone would do an investigation like this that in my opinion was so biased and so focused on trying to create a crisis," he said. "It really was surprising."
Armstrong has admitted to not reading some release of information reports before signing them.
"That is common practice amongst major chiefs in America," he said explaining his actions. "There is not one chief of a major police department in America that actually reads every report. We are talking over 200 reports."
But he pointed out that he does reads the really important reports.
"When we are talking about officer-involved shootings, excessive force cases, and when we are talking about cases where officers will be terminated -- those are cases for sure that I would read," he said. "But in this case, the evidence that was brought to me was about a vehicle collision that was not reported."