Legal Commentary

Four Oakland Officers Fired for Falsifying Affidavits

By TChris

A few months ago, TalkLeft took note of Oakland's desire to fire eleven lazy police officers who found it easier to lie in search warrant applications than to do the work necessary to make their sworn statements truthful. The falsified affidavits resulted in illegal raids against a number of suspected drug dealers and caused sixteen prosecutions to be dismissed, not to mention the two civil rights suits that have been filed against the city.

Last week, Oakland managed to fire four of the eleven.

The terminations, which were officially approved by City Administrator Dan Lindheim, came shortly after an investigation by an independent hearing officer found that seven other officers accused of falsifying warrants should not be fired.

The four who were fired will continue to contest their terminations because, according to one of their attorneys, there was insufficient evidence of intentional misconduct. Their theory seems to be that they were never trained to tell the truth when they swore that they were telling the truth. Perhaps the police academy needs to add a brief training session on the meaning of the word "oath."

Full post as published by TalkLeft on April 26, 2009 (boomark / email).