The fate of Oakland’s embattled police Chief LeRonne Armstrong is up in the air after a new confidential report from an independent law firm determined that he violated his duties as chief.
The law firm released public findings on Chief Armstrong back in January, giving the city of Oakland a deadline to discipline him.
The Oakland Police Commission's Discipline Committee needs to prove just cause for dismissing him, however if the decision is left to Mayor Sheng Thao, she has the authority to fire him without cause.
A 57-page report by the San Francisco law firm Clarence, Dyer, and Cohen, accuses Armstrong of engaging in gross dereliction of duty when he failed to hold OPD officers accountable for misconduct, and did not ensure there was a fair and thorough disciplinary process.
That report details a 2021 incident when two OPD officers, who were engaged in a secret romantic relationship, hit a parked pedestrian vehicle with their police vehicle, and drove off. The incident was caught on video and obtained by OPD.
A second confidential report published in full on Oaklandside.com, describes a meeting months later, where Armstrong claims to not know much about the hit and run, and chooses not to discipline either officer involved.
“Officers in the meeting described him as cutting off the discussion, cutting off questions that others had about the incident so that the meeting abruptly ended, with the chief just cutting everyone and then signing off on the report,” said Ladoris Cordell, retired court judge and former independent police auditor for the city of San Jose.
Cordell says if that's true, Armstrong will have a difficult time avoiding discipline, or even keeping his job.
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“Had he allowed the questions to be asked and information come out, then I believe we would have had a different outcome,” she said.
Thao placed Armstrong on leave last month after a federal court judge overseeing the department released a summary of the law firm's investigation.
NBC Bay Area reached out to Mayor Thao for comment Tuesday night but her office did not respond.
Former Oakland City Councilmember Loren Taylor defends that key information about the hit-and-run was withheld from Armstrong. He questions the accuracy of the report's findings.
“As I look at the report it opens up a lot of questions, there are discrepancies that need to be resolved, I'm hoping the police commission will do as they evaluate the report along with the record of progress that's been made under Chief Armstrong," said Taylor.
