[420 Girl]

The Oakland City Council voted Tuesday night to pay $6.5 million to more than 100 people - some of them drug suspects - who said their homes were searched by officers who obtained search warrants by providing false information to judges.

The payouts - of which $4.5 million will be paid by the city's insurance carrier - bring to an end two federal civil rights lawsuits filed by individuals who said a group of officers lied to judges when they stated on affidavits that substances they seized as suspected drugs had been confirmed by police laboratories as narcotics, when in fact they had not been.

Some of the plaintiffs were drug suspects, but others were not, according to their attorneys, John Burris and Jim Chanin, who filed a class-action lawsuit against the city alleging warrant irregularities for several years ending in 2008.

Many people, predominantly African American residents in East and West Oakland, "had their homes and lives torn apart by the malicious and fraudulent actions of OPD officers, and a large number of the class members were totally innocent men, women and children who had nothing to do with illegal narcotics trafficking or other criminal activities," the attorneys wrote in court papers.

"Search warrants were improperly issued," Burris said. "This is a historic settlement." Burris said the department needs to ensure that its policies and procedures are in order "to ensure that this type of problem does not occur again."

The city agreed to the settlement "to avoid the risk of an adverse verdict should the matter proceed to trial," City Attorney John Russo wrote in a document submitted to the council.

City officials acknowledged in court papers that many officers, "particularly younger, less experienced ones, were never properly trained in drug-testing procedures."

The city fired four officers in connection with the case, and seven other officers who had been facing possible firing were allowed to keep their jobs after arguing that they had been poorly trained or inadequately supervised, court records show.

Some fired officers have sued the city, saying they had been trained to rely on templates when filing the affidavits, and the templates were based on the assumption that substances submitted to the crime lab would test positive. Assistant Police Chief Howard Jordan has said previously that the problems stemmed from training issues and that the officers who drew up the affidavits had committed procedural errors.



NewsHawk: Ganjarden: 420 MAGAZINE
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
Author: Henry K. Lee
Contact: San Francisco Chronicle
Copyright: 2010 Hearst Communications Inc.
Website: Oakland settles warrant suits for $6.5 million

* Thanks to MedicalNeed for submitting this article


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