Wednesday afternoon the Oakland Police Commission — a group of Oakland residents tasked with overseeing the policies and practices of the city’s police department — will convene a special meeting to determine how to discipline the city’s police chief.
The police commission has the power to fire or otherwise discipline Leronne Armstrong, if enough members are convinced that he violated his duty to hold his officers to account for misconduct.
Even if the police commission is unconvinced, though, Armstrong could be relieved from his post by the city’s current mayor, Sheng Thao, or by the federal monitor in charge of overseeing the Oakland Police Department.
While the city and its police chief await the final decisions of these three parties, an anonymous source has leaked confidential reports detailing the independent investigations into the Oakland Police Department’s handling of two instances of misconduct by Sergeant Michael Chung.
Monday, the news site The Oaklandside published one of those reports in its entirety to provide the public access to the same information currently being weighed by the police commission and the mayor.
According to the investigators responsible for the published report, Police Chief Armstrong and members of his staff did, in fact, violate their duties.
For more details about the situation, listen to Sunni Khalid's interview with Darwin BondGraham.
