Oakland Mayor Aims To Wrest Control Of Police From Federal Overseers
OAKLAND (KCBS) – Oakland Mayor Jean Quan has spent the last couple of days in Detroit, exploring ways to end a federal judge's control over her police department.
KCBS' Bob Melrose Reports:
Following the Riders scandal, where cops were accused of planting drugs and abusing suspects, the police department had to abide by certain conditions in an agreement with the Federal Department of Justice. However, because the police department's success has been spotty, the agreement is still in place over a decade later.
Quan said that one of her goals is to make the police department completely independent again. To do that, she visited Detroit, where the police department is under the same federal scrutiny.
One of the biggest lessons Quan said she took away from the visit was that Detroit uses far fewer sworn-officers in internal affairs, instead utilizing civilian employees.
"We have nearly 30 officers in our internal affairs, but Detroit uses more civilians and have been really successful in getting the numbers of violations down," said Quan.
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