Official: Oakland mayor bungled police probe
SAN FRANCISCO — From the mayor on down, a court-appointed investigator said Wednesday that Oakland city officials mishandled and downplayed sexual misconduct allegations about the city’s police department that turned into a far-reaching scandal.
In a court filing, investigator Ed Swanson put most of the blame for the bungled probe on former police chief Sean Whent, who resigned under pressure last year. Swanson said Whent’s disinterest in the case set the tone for the department.
But Swanson also singled out Mayor Libby Schaaf for failing to monitor the case after she vowed dramatic reforms in the police department.
Schaaf declared in 2016 that her job was to run a “police department, not a frat house” after the teenage daughter of a police dispatcher said several officers exploited her while she was working as a prostitute. Swanson credited the mayor with acting quickly when she was first informed of the scandal and a federal judge ordered an in-depth investigation.
“But after the investigation concluded, the mayor and city administrator did not do enough to determine why the department had not investigated the case more thoroughly before the court got involved,” Swanson wrote. “Although they took the appropriate step of hiring an outside attorney to investigate this issue many months passed with no investigative progress, and there is no evidence city leaders pressed to ensure this troubling and important question was being answered.”
Schaaf said at a press conference Wednesday afternoon that she accepts the report’s conclusions.
She said a Dec. 2 fire that killed three dozen people in a warehouse and the search for a new police chief distracted from the sex misconduct investigation in December and January.
“We agree that tone comes from the top,” said Schaaf, who recently said she’ll seek a second four-year term as mayor in 2018. “That’s why we set out to find a new chief.”
Schaaf swore in Anne Kirkpatrick as chief on March 1 out of 30 candidates. Kirkpatrick was the second-incommand and in charge of reforming the Chicago Police Department when hired in Oakland.