Pubdate: Wed, 30 Oct 2013
Source: East Bay Express (CA)
Copyright: 2013 East Bay Express
Contact: http://posting.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/SubmitLetter/Page
Website: http://www.eastbayexpress.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1131
Author: Ali Winston

OAKLAND POLICE HAVE PRIORITIZED DRUG CRIMES OVER HOMICIDES

The department's crime lab now has a decade-long backlog of more than 
650 homicide investigations with unexamined evidence, yet it 
processes 95 percent of drug cases in just 24 hours.

Oakland is known as one of the most violent cities in the nation, in 
large part because of its high murder rate. And yet, over the past 
decade, the Oakland Police Department has not prioritized homicide 
investigations, and instead has focused on patrolling city streets. 
In 2012, OPD solved just 28 percent of the homicides in the city, and 
the department has come under intense criticism for its investigative 
shortcomings. Last year, the Alameda County Grand Jury noted that 
OPD's crime lab had untested evidence in at least 330 homicide cases 
dating back several years. Moreover, a recent department report 
indicates that the grand jury underestimated OPD's massive backlog - 
and that the problem has worsened.

OPD crime lab director Mary Gibbons informed the city council's 
Public Safety Committee last month that the department had 659 
homicide cases in which it still had evidence that needed testing. 
Furthermore, homicide investigations are in such disarray that the 
lab has no idea which of the cases with unexamined evidence have been 
closed or adjudicated. Gibbons also presented a report that made it 
clear OPD's crime lab has been running at below capacity for the past 
seven years. "Some of these cases are very, very old. Whether they've 
been adjudicated or not, no one's bothered to tell us," she said.

The sheer size of Oakland's backlog of ballistics and latent print 
evidence from homicide cases is extremely troubling, said Eugene 
O'Donnell, who teaches criminology at John Jay College of Criminal 
Justice at City University of New York and is a former lieutenant in 
the New York Police Department. "There is so much public attention on 
police visibility and crime stats. And oddly, something like people 
getting away with murder gets pushed aside," O'Donnell said. "Whether 
having more uniformed police on the streets decreases crime is still 
open to debate - this [analyzing evidence in homicide cases] is not 
open to debate, that not catching people who need to be caught is 
denying families justice and endangering public safety."

Recent disclosures about OPD's crime lab also reveal that while the 
department has deemphasized homicide investigations, it has made drug 
cases - including minor drug arrests - its top priority. OPD's crime 
lab, in fact, has no backlog for narcotics evidence and processes 95 
percent of all suspected drug cases within 24 hours, while allowing 
homicide case evidence to languish for years without being examined.

OPD Deputy Chief Danielle Outlaw stated in an email that the lab 
processes drug evidence quickly because it's easier and takes far 
less time than analyzing DNA evidence, shell casings, or bullet 
fragments. She also said that quick narcotics testing was a 
"cost-effective way of doing business" to ensure individuals arrested 
with drugs can be charged within the 48-hour window that Alameda 
County District Attorney has under the law to bring criminal cases 
against those people.

But prioritizing the analysis of drug evidence over homicide evidence 
shouldn't be an either/or situation, O'Donnell said. Moreover, 
violent crimes should take priority. "Generally, there's not going to 
be a threat to public safety in the drug cases," O'Donnell said. In 
homicide cases, he said, "there's an immediate urgent need to get to 
the bottom of the physical evidence."

Oakland's crime lab has been understaffed and underfunded for years. 
By the end of 2006, OPD had lost all but one of its qualified 
firearms examiners as a result of budget cuts, retirements, and 
furloughs. The staff reductions drastically reduced OPD's ability to 
analyze gun and ballistics evidence, and also resulted in the 
shuttering of the Latent Print unit, which examines fingerprints 
found at crime scenes. Furloughs also have resulted in crime lab 
staff being sidelined for a total of one year during the past 
half-decade. The following passage from Gibbons' report to the 
council outlined the history of this debacle:

"Backlogs in the Latent Print Unit are a lingering consequence of the 
closure of the Unit in 2006 to latent print comparison and computer 
searching casework due to the loss of all but one examiner. A 
remaining staff member who conducted all the latent print development 
casework retired in 2009. That position was frozen and ultimately cut 
to reduce the budget. It has not been restored. The Latent Print Unit 
reopened to comparison casework in 2008 when two examiners were 
hired. This is bare minimum number of staff required to keep the unit open.

"Even at the 2006 level, staffing was inadequate to meet service 
demands," Gibbons' report added.

Over the years, OPD has depended on state and federal grants to keep 
its crime lab operational. In the 2000s, OPD had three 
scientist/technicians who were funded by a state grant. But when that 
funding expired in 2007, the department eliminated the positions. 
Other federal grants have been used for working through backlogged 
DNA evidence. But OPD has not received any grants in the past seven 
years to help mitigate the large backlog of firearms evidence.

While the current city council has placed a renewed emphasis on 
hiring civilian support staff for OPD and its crime lab, previous 
council members freely cut those positions in order to make sure that 
OPD had a sufficient number of patrol officers. Councilwoman Libby 
Schaaf said she is disturbed at the state of the crime lab and its 
concurrent effect on OPD's ability to solve crimes. However, she 
noted that the public's perception of supporting the police 
department has been - for better or worse - limited and driven by the 
fear of crime and the need for immediate security in the form of 
patrol officers. "When people focus on the police department, they 
look for the guns and the badges," she said.

But the lack of funding for the crime lab has resulted in "missed 
opportunities to solve the crime," said Gibbons, adding that the 
department needs to invest about $1.2 million to hire twelve 
employees for the lab, including two latent print examiners and five 
forensic technicians.

The lack of resources and sheer volume of evidence also means that 
Oakland police investigators can't check with the lab to see if 
evidence in particular cases has been processed - unless it's a drug 
case. "Case-by-case checks are not feasible given current staffing 
levels," Gibbons told the council. The shortages drastically decrease 
OPD's likelihood of solving homicides based on forensic evidence.

Over the years, the crime lab also has prioritized the analysis of 
drug evidence because it can be done by lower-skilled technicians. 
The department historically has had difficulty hiring highly skilled 
lab techs who have the needed expertise to process evidence for homicide cases.

OPD officials also say that contracting such work out to the private 
sector is not viable. "That has to be an Oakland staffing solution - 
there's no way to outsource this," said Assistant Chief Paul 
Figueroa. Furthermore, there are not many people with the skills to 
perform firearms analysis who are currently in the job market. Outlaw 
wrote in an email that a firearms examiner needs a minimum of two 
years of training to be effective.

And even if Oakland does manage to hire additional personnel for the 
crime lab, the current facility is too small to accommodate that many 
people, and the estimated cost to expand the sixth-floor lab at the 
department's downtown headquarters was estimated at $5.65 million in 2009.

"One thing that shocked me until Gibbons testified was that once the 
new people were hired, there was no place for them to go," Schaaf 
said. She said that former Police Chief Howard Jordan had repeatedly 
submitted requests to the council for additional civilian staff, but 
never identified the crime lab's staffing nor physical facilities as 
in need of investment. Gibbons' report, Schaaf said, was a breath of 
fresh air, even though it brought alarming news. "There's no 
substitute for talking to the people in the trenches," she said.

Councilwoman Lynette Gibson McElhaney also pressed both Gibbons and 
Figueroa at last month's meeting for answers on the department's 
massive backlog of untested evidence in homicide cases, and expressed 
outrage at the lab's 95 percent success rate for testing seized 
narcotics within 24 hours after they're brought to the lab, and the 
absence of any backlog for drug analysis.

"I think we need to re-prioritize how we use officers as it pertains 
to arrests," McElhaney said.

Figueroa responded by recounting his own experience doing seemingly 
endless low-level narcotics enforcement as a patrol officer in the 
1990s. He said such policing is now outmoded and that the department 
is changing its focus under Interim Chief Sean Whent. "Chief Whent is 
focusing on the individuals who are most violent," said Figueroa. 
"The late 1980s/1990s type of enforcement is not being done under Chief Whent."
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom