CITY OF OAKLAND

Memorandum

To:

Chief Sean Whent

From:

Lieutenant Anthony Souza, Inspector General

Date:

October 27, 2014

Subject:

Inspection of Supervisors Review of PDRD Recordings

On September 15, 2014, the Audit and Inspections Unit of the Office of Inspector General
initiated an inspection to determine whether the Oakland Police Department supervisors are
conducting random reviews of the Portable Digital Recording Device (PDRD) recordings for
each of their subordinates on a monthly basis. The purpose of the audit was to identify policy
and/or practice deficiencies and to propose solutions that will aid in the Departments ability to
comply with Departmental General Order I-15.1, Portable Video Management System. The
audit team reviewed supervisors subordinates VieVU profiles for the months of June, July, and
August 2014 to determine whether supervisors are conducting random reviews.
To conduct this inspection, the audit team used the following methodology/analysis/audit steps:

Referenced DGO I-15.1, section D.1, which reads Supervisor shall conduct a random
review of the PDRD recordings of each of their subordinates on a monthly basis.
Using OPDs Personnel roster, members and employees were sorted by job
classification. Only members with a job classification of police officer were selected for
the population. There were 499 officers in the population.
A random sample of 120 officers PDRD profiles in VieVu was selected for the
inspection.

During the inspection, it was determined that some members had to be eliminated from the
sample for various reasons. Some members profiles were no longer in the Departments iPAS
system and therefore no longer employees. Some members worked administrative assignments
(Communications, CID, IAD, etc.) or were on medical leave and did not have any video activity
displayed in VieVU. Hence their respective VieVu profiles were considered not applicable and
eliminated from the inspection. Lastly, some members were in field training during one or more
of the months reviewed and therefore their VieVu profiles were considered not applicable and
eliminated from the inspection. The following table provides a breakdown of the members
profiles eliminated from the inspection:

Category

JUN

JUL

AUG

Sample Size
Employee Not in iPAS
Not Applicable
Applicable

120
6
49
65

100%
5%
41%
54%

120
6
46
68

100%
5%
38%
57%

120
6
34
80

100%
5%
28%
67%

The inspection indicated that supervisors are conducting random reviews of their subordinates
PDRD recordings on average 70 percent of the time. The percentage is a result of the audit team
reviewing the members respective VieVu profiles for the months of June, July, and August
2014. If a supervisor noted in the Comments section monthly audit, random review, or any
wording that indicated that a video was selected as a random review for a particular month, then
that video for the respective month was considered in compliance with the Departments
policy. If there was not any wording indicating that a random review occurred for a particular
month, no credit was given for the respective month. The following table provides a breakdown
of the compliance percentages for each month inspected:
Category

JUN

Applicable
65
In Compliance
44
Not in Compliance 21

JUL

100% 68
68% 47
32% 21

AUG

100% 80
69% 59
31% 21

100%
74%
26%

While conducting the inspection, the auditor noted the following documentation issues in VieVu:

Two supervisors note portions reviewed; however, there is no way to determine the
length or section of the video reviewed.
Some reviews are conducted by a lieutenant and not a sergeant.
Some supervisors are omitting both their name and serial number, therefore it is
impossible to determine who conducted the random review.
Some supervisors are merely documenting NO MOR violations, and therefore not
specifically stating that they conducted a random review.
The VieVu recordings of some members who work administrative assignments are not
consistently being reviewed for their respective supervisors. Consequently, there were
three (3) members VieVue profiles not in compliance in June, six (6) in July, and six (6)
in August.
Some supervisors are randomly reviewing a previous months video in a current
month. For example, a supervisor reviewed a June video on July 2 and an August video
on September 2. In addition, another supervisor reviewed a June video on July 22 and
this review was not found to be in compliance. It is noted that this video was uploaded
July 8.
Some videos are not being uploaded in a timely manner.

In closing, the Departments policy does not reference any of the issues found during the
inspection. Therefore, more guidance in executing the Departments policy is needed.

Anthony Souza
Lieutenant of Police
Office of Inspector General
RAJ:raj
Audit Team
Rebecca Johnson, Lead Auditor
Sergeant John Haney, Contributor
Lieutenant Anthony Souza, Contributor