This interview aired in the June 11, 2026 episode of Crosscurrents.
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Oakland’s Police Department has been under federal oversight since 2003. The oversight began after a civil rights lawsuit was filed on behalf of 119 residents, most of them Black men, who alleged that multiple Oakland police officers had beaten and planted evidence on them.
Yesterday we heard from Darwin BondGraham, news editor at The Oaklandside and co-author of the book, "The Riders Come Out At Night," an exhaustive history of decades of corruption inside the OPD.
Today, we hear from John Burris, one of the civil rights attorneys who represented those residents and spearheaded the legal fight to reform the Oakland Police Department. Burris says the department has been reformed.
