Thomas Frazier - Oakland

On March 4, 2013 Thomas Frazier was appointed the first Compliance Director of the Oakland Police Department with a salary of $270,000 by Judge Thelton Henderson, federal overseer of the Negotiated Settlement Agreement. (For lots more about Frazier's time in Oakland, see Compliance Director)

The official order appointing him can be seen here.

Frazier is the head of The Frazier Group and the author of the infamous Frazier Report on Occupy Oakland which strongly condemned the actions of the Oakland Police Department.

Mayor Quan and City Administrator Deanna Santana issued the following statement on the appointment:

"We believe we can work well in collaboration with Mr. Frazier to accelerate our efforts to reach full compliance with the outstanding reform tasks. Everyone involved in this case is working toward the same goals: enhanced constitutional policing and strengthened relationships between our police and our communities."¹

On February 12, 2014, Matthew Artz of the Oakland Tribune reported via twitter that Judge Thelton Henderson had fired Frazier and that monitor Robert Warshaw would be taking over duties. Frazier had not published a required monthly report since December, 2013. The order, dated February 12, can be accessed here. Essentially Helton writes that having both a federal monitor AND a compliance director has been "unnecessarily duplicative" and there will now only be a monitor, Warshaw. Frazier's appointment will end March 10, 2014 and all powers turn over to Warshaw effective immediately. Beginning April 15, 2014, Warshaw must turn in bimonthly reports which will not replace the quarterly monitor's reports. The contract is to be renegotiated including whether Warshaw must spend more time in Oakland (it doesn't seem he spends much time there now), and if his salary must be raised, not to exceed $150,000 more.

Here is what Jean Quan's newsletter said about the change:

This week Judge Thelton Henderson ordered that Federal Monitor Bob Warshaw assume the compliance director's duties in addition to his long- standing quarterly monitoring reports. This means he will be here more frequently and will be working more directly with the department in addition to conducting the quarterly reports that sometimes reflect data over 6 months old. For the City, this reduces the cost of monitoring significantly and may lead to a quicker resolution of the remaining issues which have been reduced from 22 to 6 or 7 remaining tasks since I became Mayor.

I have spent much time talking with all involved this week. Both Frazier and Warshaw feel that the Department has made important improvements in the last months. Both the Chief and I hope that the remaining tasks focused on the use of force and racial profiling monitoring can be resolved this year.