Anne Kirkpatrick claims she was fired for reporting corruption within the police commission. The city of Oakland says Mayor Libby Schaaf was allowed to fire her for any reason, or none at all.
SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — As a young patrol officer in her hometown of Memphis, former Oakland Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick said she was exposed early on to the corrupt side of policing. “It was common practice in Memphis to flash your badge and you could get your free dry cleaning and go out to dinner,” she said. “There was also a lot of ticket fixing.”
She said she decided that she wasn’t going to put up with it. “I made a decision about which path I was going to take. I was going to try to be one of the good ones,” Kirkpatrick testified Tuesday in her whistleblower retaliation trial.
But on cross-examination, attorney Jonathan Bass suggested that this “sense of righteousness” may have colored her perception and caused her to assume corruption where there was none.
Bass, a partner with Coblentz Patch Duffy & Bass, represents the city of Oakland in Kirkpatrick’s lawsuit claiming she was fired in retaliation for blowing the whistle on abuse of power and misconduct within the police commission, a seven-member civilian body established by voters in 2016 to oversee some department policies and review officer misconduct.
“To report misconduct is not an act of betrayal. It is an act of integrity. I acted on that integrity and I came forward,” Kirkpatrick told the jury. “I had a right to...
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