Oakland Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong was placed on indefinite administrative leave on Thursday for “dereliction of duty,” according to a report. Last year, the city of Oakland asked an independent law firm to look into allegations of misconduct by Oakland Police Department personnel and the department’s subsequent investigations into the misconduct. The law firm’s report delivered to the city on Wednesday found that one officer had ripped the bumper off a car in a hit-and-run incident in 2021 that he failed to report. The department’s Internal Affairs Division played down the incident, and Armstrong broke department rules by “failing to hold his subordinate officers to account,” the report concluded. In April last year, the same officer involved in the hit-and-run fired his service gun inside the department’s elevator. After a week of keeping quiet, the officer admitted being responsible and attempting to cover up the incident, including by gathering the spent shell casing and “throwing it in the San Francisco Bay while driving his service vehicle over the Bay Bridge.” “The multiple failures, at every level, to hold this sergeant responsible, belie OPD’s stated position that it can police itself and hold its members accountable for misconduct,” the report concluded.
