Deal: Feds to acquire sweeping power over Oakland Police

They aren’t calling it a federal takeover, but the difference may be semantics. Oakland has reached a deal with the feds to surrender sweeping authority of the police department’s command staff to a court appointed director—in what the Mercury News and other news orgs are calling a first in the United States. The difference, and what City Hall is trying to sell as a victory, is that the federal official with broad powers over how the department is run will be called a “compliance director,” and not the dreaded R-word, as in “receiver,” thus avoiding the distinction, technically at least, of Oakland PD being placed in federal receivership.

The deal to settle the city’s failure to enact court-ordered police reforms stemming from the so-called Riders case a decade ago, still must be approved by a federal judge. Mercury News