A former Oakland police chief has launched a scathing lawsuit against the crime-ridden California city after the new mayor sacked him from his post last year.
LeRonne Armstrong has accused the city and Mayor Sheng Thao of ‘illegal and retaliatory’ termination in a lawsuit filed in Alameda County Superior Court on Monday.
Thao, in one of her first actions as mayor, fired Armstrong in February 2023 after a probe ordered by a federal oversight monitor found he mishandled two police misconduct cases. An arbitrator later cleared him of wrongdoing.
She said she was terminating his employment ‘without cause’, allowing him to be paid severance, and said she was ‘troubled’ by statements he made in defense of the accused officers, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. She claimed he also denied the misconduct cases reflected systemic problems within the police department.
Armstrong, whose attorney claimed he was ‘fired because he spoke out about the misconduct of a high ranking official’, is now seeking reinstatement as police chief.
His complaint was filed just days before Governor Gavin Newsom announced his plan to send prosecutors and California Highway Patrol officers to Oakland to assist with targeted crackdowns on rising crime in the San Francisco Bay Area city.
Former Oakland police chief LeRonne Armstrong, pictured in February last year, has accused the city and Mayor Sheng Thao of ‘illegal and retaliatory’ termination in a lawsuit filed in Alameda County Superior Court on Monday
Mayor Sheng Thao, pictured in October 2023, fired Armstrong last February after a probe ordered by a federal oversight monitor found he mishandled two police misconduct cases. An arbitrator later cleared him of wrongdoing
Rising crime in Oakland has been drawing national attention as brazen robberies are carried out in broad daylight. Pictured: An armed robbery in broad daylight at the 7-Eleven parking lot in Oakland’s Grand Lake neighborhood in November last year
Thao, when firing Armstrong last February, that she had lost confidence in the police chief after he and the department failed to properly investigate and discipline a sergeant who was involved in a hit-and-run with his patrol car and who, in a separate incident, fired his service weapon inside an elevator at police headquarters.
But Armstrong in his complaint alleged he was unlawfully terminated in retaliation for criticizing the federal court-appointed monitor overseeing the department.
He claimed Thao was intimidated by the the monitor and fired him after buckling to pressure from the authority.
‘This is an unusual wrongful termination case,’ the suit alleged. ‘The city’s sole decision-maker (Mayor Thao) has repeatedly and publicly explained her reasons for the unlawful termination – and those reasons are illegal and retaliatory on their face.’
His attorney Will Edelman characterized Armstrong as a ‘whistleblower’, telling the Chronicle he was fired for speaking out against the monitor.
Oakland’s police department has been under federal oversight since 2003 after a rookie officer came forward to report abuse of power by a group of officers known as the Oakland ‘Riders.’
The case resulted in the department being required to enact more than four dozen reform measures and report its progress to an outside monitor and a federal judge.
In his complaint, Armstrong says the department had made great strides and was on track to regain its independence when the federal monitor said there were problems with police leadership and ordered the outside investigation into the sergeant.
Armstrong says the monitor and his team ‘transformed routine instances of lower-level misconduct into a complete indictment’ of the department and chief.
Thao’s office on Wednesday referred requests for comment to the city attorney’s office, which said in a statement that it had not been served with the complaint.
Oakland has been without a permanent police chief since Armstrong’s firing, even as violent crime, robbery and vehicle theft climbed in the city of 400,000. Pictured: Police investigate a multiple shooting and homicide at a gas station in Oakland in January 2023
Last month, In-N-Out Burger announced it will close its first location in its 75-year history due to car break-ins, property damage, theft and robberies at its only restaurant in Oakland. Pictured are police outside the restaurant in January 2024
Signs outside the In-N-Out Burger in Oakland warned of theft, amid a surge in robberies
Shoppers at the Apple Store on Bay Street in Oakland, California, stood idly by and watched as a masked male pulled 49 iPhones off their security chords and shoved them in his pants
Oakland has been without a permanent police chief since Armstrong’s firing, even as violent crime, robbery and vehicle theft climbed in the city of 400,000.
Preliminary data shows that crime rose in Oakland last year, despite falling in other California urban centers, Newsom’s office said.
Earlier this week a bold thief casually ripped a whole display of iPhones off the shelves at the Apple Store on Bay Street in Oakland.
Shoppers stood idly by and watched as a masked male pulled 49 iPhones off their security chords and shoved them in his pants.
Last month, In-N-Out Burger announced it will close its first location in its 75-year history due to car break-ins, property damage, theft and robberies at its only restaurant in Oakland.
Newsom on Tuesday announced he would deploy 120 California Highway Patrol city as brazen robberies in broad daylight have continued to draw national attention.
The governor on Thursday revealed he would be sending more prosecutors to the area to help with targeted crime crackdowns.
The additional deputy attorneys general from the California Department of Justice and attorneys from the California National Guard would help Alameda County prosecute suspects arrested for serious and complex crimes, Newsom said.
He didn’t say how many prosecutors would be sent or when.
It comes as car break-ins where the thieves use a car-escape tool to tap a glass window and silently shatter it and then steal belongings left inside the car have become so commonplace in the Bay Area that the criminal activity has its own verb: ‘bipping’ a car.
Some thieves have ‘bipped’ cars in broad daylight with occupants in them.
Governor Gavin Newsom, pictured last month, has announced his plan to send prosecutors and California Highway Patrol officers to Oakland to assist with targeted crackdowns on rising crime in the San Francisco Bay Area city
‘An arrest isn’t enough,’ Newsom said in a statement.
‘Justice demands that suspects are appropriately prosecuted. Whether it’s “bipping” or carjacking, attempted murder or fentanyl trafficking, individuals must be held accountable for their crimes using the full and appropriate weight of the law.’
But Alameda County Public Defender Brendon Woods called Newsom’s plan ‘a band-aid to fix a broken arm.’
‘More prosecution and more police is not the solution here,’ Woods said in a statement. ‘We need housing, money for community-based organizations, higher wages, employment, as well as money for our schools, medical care and mental health.’
Woods said California has tried increased prosecution and harsher sentences and that led to mass incarceration and severe prison overcrowding.
‘We can’t keep doing this over and over,’ Woods said. ‘We need different solutions.’
