A federal judge on Tuesday ended federal oversight of the Oakland Police Department after 23 years, concluding the longest-running federal monitoring of a police department in U.S. history.
Barbara Lee, the Oakland mayor, said in a statement that a court in California found that the department had “achieved substantial compliance” with a 2003 agreement that resolved civil rights litigation over police brutality and required sweeping changes that the department struggled for years to implement.
That litigation, filed in 2000, stemmed from allegations that four Oakland officers, nicknamed the “Riders,” had planted evidence, falsified reports, made false arrests and used excessive force against suspects. The city settled a class-action lawsuit involving 119 plaintiffs for nearly $11 million and agreed to 51 reforms covering the police department’s use of force, discipline, training and internal affairs investigations under the supervision of an independent monitor and a federal judge.
The 2003 agreement called for five years of oversight. Instead, the federal supervision stretched on for more than two decades. In 2012, the monitor reported “serious concerns” about the department’s handling of Occupy Oakland protests the previous year, and its capacity to “adopt and hold true to the best practices in American policing.” A judge said in 2012 that the department had not made sufficient changes.
There was more controversy. In 2016, a scandal rocked the department after a woman alleged that she had sex with several officers, some while she was a minor.
Oakland’s police department has repeatedly cycled through leaders. In 2016, the mayor at the time described the department as a “frat house.”
Jennifer L. Eberhardt, a psychology professor at Stanford University who served as a subject matter expert during the federal oversight, worked with the department on efforts to reduce racial disparities in police stops. By 2018, stops of Black drivers had fallen by 43 percent, while the city’s crime rate continued to decline, according to research by Eberhardt and other Stanford researchers.
The department had made progress in recent years. In May, the monitor reported that the department had complied with all 51 reforms set out in 2003. While a September report found that the department had fallen short of a requirement to complete serious misconduct investigations on time, the monitor wrote that it is “confident that the capacity to meet the mandates of this task is there” because the department had been previously compliant.
That report also credited Mayor Lee and her administration; James Beere, who was named permanent police chief in July; and the department’s executive team with having “worked diligently to foster a culture of accountability.”
At a news conference on Tuesday, Chief Beere called the ruling a “historic” day for the department and the community. “They’re getting their police department back. The oversight is going to belong to the people of Oakland,” he said.
Ms. Lee said in a statement that ending federal oversight “required stable leadership, accountability, breaking down silos, and a sustained commitment from the top of City government.”
While Oakland’s oversight arose from civil rights litigation brought by private plaintiffs, other American police departments have operated under monitoring imposed by consent decrees negotiated with the Justice Department.
Consent decrees are one of the federal government’s most powerful tools to overhaul troubled police departments. By and large, experts say, they are effective, at least for as long as the oversight is in effect.
In January 2025, in the final weeks of the Biden administration, the Justice Department reached an agreement with Minneapolis on a proposed consent decree requiring extensive changes to its police department. A federal investigation had found a pattern of excessive force and racial discrimination in the city, where George Floyd was killed by a police officer in 2020.
But President Trump has sought to curtail the use of such agreements. In his first term, the Justice Department opposed deals in Chicago and Baltimore. In May 2025, the department moved to dismiss agreements seeking consent decrees in Minneapolis and Louisville, Ky., and announced that it was closing six other Biden-era investigations of police departments.
The pullback has extended beyond policing. Last week, the Justice Department said more than 50 longstanding racial desegregation cases in schools had been dismissed, another shift away from forms of federal court supervision used to enforce civil rights laws.
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