The mayor of Oakland, California fired the city’s police chief on Wednesday over the alleged cover-up of an officer’s misconduct.
Democrat Mayor Sheng Thao placed Armstrong on paid administrative leave last month to review investigations by the department’s federal monitor that found the police chief responsible for gross dereliction of duty.
At a news conference Wednesday, Thao said that she was firing Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong after findings from an independent probe concluded the chief and the department failed to properly investigate and discipline Sgt. Michael Chung.
“Chief Armstrong has my respect and appreciation for his service to the Department and to the City that he grew up in and that he loves dearly. He will continue to have my respect and appreciation,” Thao said.
“But I am no longer confident that Chief Armstrong can do the work needed to achieve the vision. So today, I have decided to separate Chief LeRonne Armstrong from the City without cause.”
In 2021, Chung was involved in a hit-and-run with his patrol car and later fired his service weapon inside an elevator at police headquarters.
The law firm report concluded Armstrong failed to hold his subordinate officers accountable.
Thao said Armstrong downplayed concerns about police officer misconduct and disregarded independent investigator’s findings of serious flaws in the disciplinary process.
“After the relevant facts are fully evaluated by weighing evidence instead of pulling soundbites from strategically leaked, inaccurate reports, it will be clear I was a loyal and effective reformer of the Oakland Police Department,” Armstrong said in the statement.
“It will be equally clear that I committed no misconduct, and my termination is fundamentally wrong, unjustified, and unfair. I anticipate releasing a more detailed statement soon once I have the chance to fully digest the Mayor’s remarks.”
Armstrong, a 20-year Oakland police veteran and the city’s top cop since 2021, is one of seven police chiefs to leave the department within the past seven years.
The Oakland Police Department has been under federal oversight for two decades—the longest of any police department in the country.
The department made national news in 2000 after a rookie officer came forward to report abuse of power by a group of officers known as the Oakland “Riders.”
The four officers were charged with making false arrests, planting evidence, using excessive force, falsifying police reports, and assaulting people in west Oakland, a predominantly Black area. Three of the officers were acquitted after two separate juries deadlocked on most of the charges. The fourth officer is a fugitive and is believed to have fled the country.
The case resulted in the department coming under federal oversight in 2003 and being required to enact 52 reform measures and report its progress to an outside monitor and a federal judge.
