NCPC

MAJOR INCIDENT BOARD OF REVIEW
OAKLAND POLICE DEPARTMENT
10 Jul 98

In accordance with Departmental General Order G-6, a Major Incident Board of Review was convened on 7 Jul 98 to review the circumstances surrounding a civil disturbance
at Dimond Park on 27 Jun 98.

The following persons were in attendance

and comprised the Board of Review:

Chairman

Captain B. Kearns

Board members

Lieutenant E. Poulson

Lieutenant C. Vierra

Lieutenant R. Davis

Lieutenant F. Lowe

Sergeant D. Kozicki

Sergeant T. Slade

Sergeant D. Walsh

Sergeant A. Rachal

Officer M. Bermudez

Officer J. Quintela

Ranger J. Learn

Ranger K. Savage

PCD M. Hattoon

NSC T. Corcran

Additionally, the following citizens were invited

to attend and participate in the review

OPR Zone Manager

Mr. Joseph Newman, Sr.

City Council representative

Mr. Shawn Stark

Area residents

Ms. Karen Schroeder

Mr. Jim Hill

Florence Milton

Joe Milton

Malcolm Higdon

Tim Chapman

Janet Broughton

CIRCUMSTANCES LEADING UP TO THE EVENT
On Wednesday, 24 Jun 98, a park use permit was issued by Dimond Park Director Mark Zinns to Larry Dawson of AWOL Records for a special event. Mr. Dawson informed Mr. Zinns the event was a company picnic that would be attended by about 50 people. Mr. Dawson was informed of all the usual rules associated with the issuance of a permit.

Later that week Mr. Zinns received unconfirmed information the event may be a “rapper party” with music amplification. Mr. Zinns attempted to contact Mr. Dawson to confirm or deny the rumors; however, he wasn’t able to contact him using the telephone number on the permit. On Friday, 26 Jun 98, at approximately 1650 hours, Mr. Zinns advised the Oakland Park Ranger secretary of his concerns and faxed a copy of the permit to her. Mr. Zinns also left an advisory message for the park staff member who was scheduled to work on Saturday. The secretary made copies of the permit, placed an advisory note on it, and placed the copies in the “in baskets” of rangers who were scheduled to work 2nd watch on Saturday, 27 Jun 98.

On Saturday, 27 Jun 98, when Ranger K. Savage arrived to work at 1000 hours, she reviewed the information left in her “in-basket”. This is the first time she became aware of the event at Dimond Park. She was one of three rangers scheduled to work as the remainder has been allowed to take the day off, or lose a floating holiday benefit. This leave was allowed, as the rangers were unaware of any events occurring in the parks, with the exception of a special event at Sanborne Park on Fruitvale Avenue, which they were committed to assisting. The rangers did not have a supervisor on duty, thus they contacted Patrol Sergeant D. Kozicki, who was the District Supervisor, and advised him of the information.

Sergeant Kozicki advised the on-duty rangers to monitor and assess the event, and make periodic security checks of the park. In addition, Sergeant Kozicki checked on the park about every 1_ hours. Ranger Savage contacted the park staff member during her shift and was told that everything was fine.

Throughout the day, the crowds for the event became increasingly larger, with associated traffic and crowd control issues becoming problematic. Citizens began contacting the Ranger Station and the Police Department in the early to mid-afternoon expressing their concerns regarding negative behavior, including cruising, drinking in public, loud music, urination in public, illegal parking, drug use, and other related issues. Rangers and officers continued to make periodic security checks of the area, noting that there was a larger than usual amount of foot and vehicular traffic. They also observed residents of the area, flagging officers down to express their concerns.

Citizens relayed they were calling the police because of a prior situation about three years ago, and were concerned about a predictable outcome. Many residents expressed their worries this would lead to another riot type of situation, and wanted the police to gain control of the situation prior to it getting out of control. Many citizens expressed their frustrations, both at a public meeting and at the Board of Review, at what they perceived to be a lack of response from the Rangers and the Police Department. Citizens were observing obvious violations of the law, but they felt the police were not confronting violators.

CIRCUMSTANCES SURROUNDING THE EVENT
During the time span of 1600-1800, which coincides with the department’s watch change, the crowds continued to build, along with traffic related problems. Citizens continued to call in, speaking to dispatchers, Patrol desk officers, and others to voice their concerns. Sergeant T. Slade reported on-duty at 1600 hours, but was unaware of this event when he went on-duty. His first call was a shooting on 7th Avenue, but another field supervisor took that call and Sergeant Slade responded to Dimond Park. At about the same time, Officer M. Roca heard that Officer M. Sivila was dispatched to Dimond Park, and he decided to provide cover and assistance. Officer J. Quintela also responded to the park, and upon Sergeant Slade’s arrival, was placed at the corner of Fruitvale and Lyman to direct vehicular traffic away from the park. Both Sergeant Slade and Officer Quintela estimated the crowd to consist of approximately 400-500 young adults. Sergeant Slade described the area as “total chaos”, and advised Lieutenant Poulson that police intervention was going to be necessary to mitigate crowd and traffic control problems.

As Sergeant Slade and responding officers were beginning to attempt to mitigate traffic and crowd control issues, the crowd began throwing rocks, bottles, pieces of concrete and other items at Officer Quintela and his vehicle. Officer Quintela was forced to seek protection in his vehicle, and as he did, the barrage continued, eventually breaking out the rear window of his vehicle with a “12x12” piece of concrete.

Officer Quintela attempted to start his vehicle, but the damage to the rear window caused the vehicle to automatically shut off the gasoline supply, and he was unable to start the vehicle. Officer Quintela advised radio of his predicament, and Sergeant Slade issued a 940B to rescue Officer Quintela.

Units from throughout the City responded, and Lieutenant E. Poulson assumed command of the incident upon his arrival.

RESTORING ORDER AND CONTROL
Lieutenant Poulson was on his police motorcycle and responded from the Oakland Coliseum. He advised that he heard the 940B and while enroute ordered units to back out of the area in order to coordinate a controlled response. Lieutenant Poulson observed that Fruitvale Avenue was totally congested, and large crowds were milling about the Safeway store. Lieutenant Poulson instructed Sergeant A. Rachal to manage traffic control points, effecting a traffic plan that forced vehicles away from the park and toward the freeway. He also instructed Sergeant D. Walsh to form a skirmish line and slowly sweep Fruitvale Avenue from north to south. Lieutenant Poulson was adamant about not allowing his officers to become the focus of the rock throwers, and wanted units to move slowly to restore order to the area.

Sergeant Rachal set up a traffic plan that moved vehicles off of Fruitvale Avenue and MacArthur, and forced them onto the freeway. His plan also made it difficult for vehicles to backtrack into the area. Sergeant Rachal set up his command post at the 7/11 Store at Champion and MacArthur, and was able to gauge vehicular traffic and dispatch units from his vantagepoint.

Sergeant Walsh used his squad of CPU Officers and formed a skirmish line across Fruitvale Avenue. They moved slowly and deliberately in a southerly direction, gaining voluntary compliance from citizens to move on. Sergeant Rachal and Walsh concurred the crowd was not confrontational at this point, and were complying with their requests to leave the area. No arrests were made nor injuries suffered by officers or citizens during this phase of the incident. The Safeway store closed during the incident as it was overrun with shoplifters.

Officer remained in the area until approximately 1935 hours ensuring order was maintained, securing from their posts at that time.

AFTER-ACTION FOLLOW-UP
On Wednesday, 1 Jul 98, a community meeting was held at the Dimond Library to discuss citizen concerns regarding the incident. Several Police Department and City Government representatives were present, including the City Manager Robert Bobb, Mayor Elihu Harris, Park Director Mark Zinns, Chief Joseph Samuels, Captain Greg Lowe, Captain Brad Kearns, Ranger Keona Savage, Lieutenant Ed Poulson, and Councilmember Dick Spees.

After explaining the event and subsequent response, there were numerous questions and comments, which included: the permit issuance process, the lack of enforcement from rangers and police, the failure to take action until an officer was in trouble, and the overall process which allowed another riot to occur at Dimond Park after the event three years ago. The majority of the comments revealed the anger and frustration from area residents, and their concern about the upcoming 4th of July weekend.

Attendees were advised that extra patrol would be placed at the park and rangers would be addressing violations in a more active manner. Chief Samuels extended an invitation for members of the community to attend the Major Incident Board of Review.

BOARD FINDINGS/RECOMMENDATIONS
The Board, including community members, discussed several issues along with recommendations for improvement, as outlined below.

PERMITS

• All in attendance agreed the application/permit process needs to be revamped. The application is supposed to be submitted 20 days prior to the event to ensure proper review. Captain Lowe advised this is not currently occurring. Mr. Newman advised they are currently meeting with the Police Department to coordinate the process.
• The application for a permit needs to have information included that identifies who is solely responsible for the event. This would minimally include proper identification, a bonding type component, references, etc.
• The permits need to be strictly adhered to. The ranger and/or the park staff member needs to make periodic visual checks of the event and take corrective action as necessary. Violations of the permit should be cause for cancellation of the event.
• Any application that hints it may include music and/or attract large crowds should be denied and referred to the Police Department’s Special Event Unit. City parks are not equipped to handle these events, and no commercial type events should be allowed.
• The application and permit must be filled in completely. The permit for this event did not include the number of people anticipated.
• If the Parks Department is going to continue to grant use permits, the Police Department must be notified 2 weeks in advance of the event for proper planning and inclusion in the weekend Special Events Calendar.
• The person to whom the permit was issued should be held financially, and possibly criminally, liable should there be a deliberate intention to falsify the permit application. Captain Lowe and Lieutenant Poulson are currently investigating costs and accountability associated with this event.
• The After-Action report portion of the use permit must be filled out, with a copy routed to the Special Events Unit.

  The permitting process is currently the subject of continuing talks between the Police Department, the Office of the City Manager, and the Parks Department. All of the above issues and recommendations will be referred to Captain Lowe, Captain Lacer, and the Office of the City Manager.

LAW ENFORCEMENT RESPONSE

• All in attendance agreed that in events such as these, responding officers need to take enforcement action from the start to quell further problems.
• Rangers and other officers should address all violations of the law in parks to create a climate of safety. Violations of the law should be addressed, whether it occurs during a special event or during normal park activities.
• Rangers and other officers need to work with park directors to ensure compliance with issued permits. Rangers should immediately investigate and handle anticipated problem permitees, and cancel scheduled events if necessary prior to the event becoming problematic.
• Supervisors in the field and in Communications Division need to coordinate their response to these events. As dispatchers start to receive multiple calls from citizens about an event, the Communications Division supervisor needs to contact the field supervisor to handle the event. Field supervisors need to assemble necessary staff to deal with events such as these.
• The Ranger Unit needs to be staffed, especially in the summer months, and need to be on-duty well past park closing. Although staffing was minimal during this event due to a holiday day off issue, vacancies within the unit has caused rangers to be stretched thin. Proper staffing will allow the unit to be deployed to parks where problems are anticipated.
• Prior warnings of possible problems need to be addressed immediately. In this event, neither park staff members nor law enforcement officers contacted the person who was issued the permit once the rumor of a “rap concert” became known. These rumors need to be tracked down, confirmed or denied, and dealt with appropriately.
• Communications within the Department and between City agencies needs to be improved. Ideally, when it became rumored that this event was not what it had been proposed, an action plan should have been developed to deal with the rumor. Contacts needed to be made, contingency plans adopted, and close monitoring of the situation needed to occur.
• Supervision of the Rangers during shifts when the actual supervisor is off-duty needs to fall under district sergeant. This may necessitate having rangers report and participate in Patrol Division line-ups with patrol officers to facilitate chain of command and communication related issues.
• Command officers need to participate in crowd and traffic control training. The Training Section is currently hosting a course in late July.All of the above issues and recommendations have been or will be discussed with staff who were involved in the incident, and a draft copy of this report will be shared with the Training Section for possible inclusion in the upcoming training. Upon final approval of this report by the Chief of Police, it will be distributed to field supervisors and the Ranger Section.

CONCLUSION
Overall, the community and the responding officers were fortunate this event didn’t have a worse toll than it did. Property loss was minimal, no injuries were reported, and no complaints were made to Professional Standards Division. However, based on the above observations and recommendations, all participants learned valuable lessons from this incident, as outlined above.

The command and supervisors who responded to this event did an excellent job of restoring order. The officers acted professionally and mitigated this event, and there were comments from citizens that reflected positively on our response.

It should be noted this was the first Major Incident Board of Review that included citizens as part of the board. The involvement of citizens on this particular board was a positive aspect, and may be a valid consideration for some future boards of review. Additionally, being immediately available and accountable to the area residents was extremely important and was well received by the majority of the neighborhood. I plan to report back to the area residents at a future community meeting.

Brad D. Kearns
Captain of Police
Patrol Division

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