announcer: building a better bay area, moving forward, finding solutions. this is abc 7 news. you are watching "getting answers." everyday with talk with experts about issues important to the bay area and we get answers. today the oakland police department is under the microscope for police misconduct. we will get insight into corruption issues within the department. the officers -- the authors of the new book, "the riders come out at night,'will join us in a bit. the race for u.s. california senator has gotten more crowded. adam schiff announced his

candidacy this morning. >> they are not going to stop. we have to stop them. that is why i'm running for u.s. senate, the struggle is not over. not for me, not for you, not for our country. kristen: joining us to talk about the senate race, the race for the republican national committee, a lot of talk about, is abc 7 news insider phli >> there is a lot of ground to cover. >> let's start with dianne feinstein. she actually just made some more waves in getting some democrats worried in terms of giving a timeline as to when she will decide. >> what did she say in washington? she said she would hold off. >> on deciding. >> on deciding whether to run

for possibly another year. it will not stop people from running. the race is on. dianne feinstein is pushing 90. another six-year term in the senate is not in the cards. it is also for her own health, for her own mental state. i don't think we can risk six more years. kristen: there was a lot of criticism of people breaking the tradition like the southern california congresswoman before the official announcement by dianne feinstein out of respect but now there is more of a chorus saying she will wait until 2024. walk us through who will have put their names in already. >> katie porter is a congresswoman from the southland. she is on the progressive side, sort of an elizabeth warren figure who is known for holding up those infamous whiteboards and pointing out questions about

corporate class and structure and profits. she was the first out of the gate. as you said, she got criticism not only for jumping the gun on dianne feinstein but she announced it while we were being hit with those storms so people said it was a little tone deaf. the next is representative barbara lee. she is an east bay congresswoman, a longtime representative, former leader of the black caucus. she has also let it be k she has had people have come to her and said you need to run. she said, i am listening. she has not formally announced. it is interesting to note that she was one of the top contenders if dianne feinstein for any reason was unable to complete her term. she would have been one of the top contenders as a replacement. >> governor newsom said he would appoint a black woman. >> that narrowed the field since she was at the lead of the pack. today we have adam schiff, late

of the trump impeachment hearings and impeachment. >> that is all over his announcement video. that is all it is about. that is his narrative. >> he is also on the intelligence committee. that is his narrative. i am the prosecutor of donald trump. and there is a reason for that because that is how he is known in the state. it is difficult for politicians to get name recognition. insiders know who these people are but when they walk down the street, they don't. but adam schiff is the closest to having a national presence and he needs to use that national presence in order to get going and make sure he is not overtaken by katie porter or barbara lee. does that shrink his area that he can claim? it is an interesting game in politics. if dianne feinstein chose not to run and everybody else stayed back, then everyone else can say i did not know youthat is one t.

by everybody getting out there, it is like clearly everyone is in the field so you cannot say that. some people will have to make decisions. they cannot have already said it. or, i am waiting for dianne feinstein. the race will be interesting. it is generational more than anything else. kristen: i think barbara said she would ba.1 term senator, sort of like a transitional senator. i wonder when you hear that, that is what she is trying to carve out. i would be a trusted caretaker for a while. then you have the up start with the whiteboard taking on the big corporations. then you have this trump in teacher. >> who knows. eric swalwell or a host of other people. >> who plays best? >> it is an interesting phenomenon because they are playing in california, a blue state. i will give you something people

are not talking about but the insiders are clocking. california is an overwhelming we blue state but there are 35% republicans in this state. if you look at every election whether it is gavin newsom's landslide win or other races, usually goes 65-35. we also have something called an open primary. it is not you run for the democratic nomination or the republican nomination. you run together and the top two vote getters so how does this influence the race among democrats? >> think about it. if you have a republican on the ballot or one, then they can probably get 35% of the vote. that leaves 65% for the others to carve up. so you do not need a huge majority to win the first round but you have to best out other people that are probably polling the same as you. 10% or 15%.

it makes it much more competitive. kristen: and it makes it seem like it is advantageous to be out of the gate first and of storing who might coming your way. >> that is what katie porter has to do. she has long aspired to move up from the southern california perspective. she raised close for the midterm election but she barely got reelected. adam schiff used his national identity to raise $25 million. he has $20 million left. kristen: that is a head start. i want to shift the conversation to the republican side. the republican national committee. normally a committee chairmanship is not that glamorous. >> it is terrible. kristen: they are not household names. >> you get to go on tv and have people yell at you. kristen: true. but this time there is a real battle between ronna mcdaniel and someone from the bay area. tell us about that. >> hartman dell in. kristen: who is she?

>> she is a lawyer in san francisco. she is on the conservative side. she has launched many lawsuits. questioning different democratic policies, different democratic laws. she has risen in the ranks. she is a trump supporter. she is an inside play very vocal one and very articulate one. kristen: she got a big endorsement today from ron desantis. talk about that. >> there is another gu there, mike lindel, the pillow guy, he is running for it as well. let's not forget that. we are seeing it in the democrat and were public in party. there is a question now about what are the parties. who are they? who are the

republicans that will go to donald trump and say,l a are jt. who are the democrats that will go to the president and say we have seen the polling. you have a problem with age and we are not sure that you can swing this so maybe you should think about stepping out. both of these giants, there is no party apparatus to make them work. she says the republicans need to work on their message in order to make a change. these party chairmanships are not necessarily a party. kristen: this election is happening this week, tomorrow. we will see what happens. it seems like it has suddenly become more important. >> it is. it will be interesting. one of the things that she is pushing for is saying republicans have not taken advantage of vote by mail.

that is his affluent donald trump and everyone is opposed to. -- that is exactly what do trump and everyone is opposed to. voting by mail. kristen: we come back we will talk about what is going on in oakland (vo) at wells fargo, direct deposits come up to two days early with early pay day. what if everything came two days early? (hero) have a good weekend!

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kristen: we are back with abc7news insider phil matier turning our local local. chief armstrong remains leave after the naacp set put him back. what is going on there? what is the latest? phil: there used to be a tv show

called "queen for a day." now there is a show that could be called "pd chief for a day." it has gone through this cycle of problems within the department and the chief having to exit. what we have is the naacp has sent a letter to mayor zhang tao saying that they want leronne armstrong reinstated but they add another thing. they say they want the police commission to decide whether he stays or not, not the federal monitor. what we have is a situation for those who are new to the story, leronne armstrong is the chief now on leave after reports showed that he had supposedly boxed an investigation into a sergeant who was accused of getting into a traffic accident in san francisco and not reporting it and accused

discharging his weapon in an elevator in the oakland police headquarters. we are not talking about taking money under the table or excessive use of force. but the investigation the feds felt did not go far enough and was perfect of a culture of not investigating enough. if that sounds familiar, it is because that is the same allegations made repeatedly on chief after chief after chief. when we asked the chief about it, he said i have 200 is a binary cases per year. if all i did was concentrate on these smaller disciplinary cases, i would not get anything done. kristen: what do you think about the validity of that argument? he has a lot on his plate, that is true. phil: it is a valid argument. it is not a perfect argument. naturally you want things to work well within the department and they have to be but you have to have realistically. it is interesting because there was a certain segment in oakland

that are very concerned after some 20 years of overstepping bounds and you will have a book on that coming up in a little bit. you want to have a hard look at the police department. critics say that is where the focus needs to be. others, business people, residents say ok but what i really want is the police on the street doing something about the crime. those are two thoughts. sometimes they are held by the same person. sometimes not. the new mayor who has been in a couple of weeks is facing. what do you do? the department is not perfect. do you get rid of the chief or use a we are holding onto the chief -- or you say we are holding onto the chief to give the appearance of stability which is what the residents want. kristen: it sounds like a real test for her because of how this plays out. >> look at america today.

look at the major cities. those important decision that the mayor makes -- the most important decision that the mayor makes is who is the chief of police. kristen: certainly in the big cities. phil: that is what you have to deal with. mayor shane tao is not that well known in oakland. she won but she is new to the political scene. she was a councilwoman. leronne armstrong has been there all his life and has been in the community all his life. she put him on administrative leave rather than fire him which is what the former mayor gives a number of cheese -- which is what the former mayor did with a number of chiefs. does this rise to the level of dismissing police? there will be a certain group that says yes very loudly and another group that says no very loudly. kristen: there is a possibility

that some people would view it as a dysfunctional relationship that does not serve the people. >> that is oakland. kristen: this is not going away. thank you so much for filling us in as the insider. phil: we will keep you abreast because this is one series that is going on and on. kristen: thanks a lot. when we come back we will have the authors of a new book that takes a close look at the i'm jonathan lawson here to tell you about life insurance through the colonial penn program. if you're age 50 to 85, and looking to buy life insurance on a fixed budget, remember the three ps. the three what? the three ps? what are the three ps? the three ps of life insurance on a fixed budget are price, price, and price. a price you can afford, a price that can't increase, and a price that fits your budget. i'm 54 and was a smoker, but quit.

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use this valuable guide to record your important information and give helpful direction to your loved ones with your final wishes. and it's yours free just for calling. so call now for free information. kristen: we were discussing the long history of problems in the oakland police department. a new book explores that history along with many failed attempts at reform. "the riders come out at night" is the work of two journalists. joining us now are ali winston and darwin bondgraham . thank you for joining us.

how long did it take for you to research this book and make it a reality? >> we have been reporters in oakland for the past, myself 14 years. darwin, 10 or 12. we put together this book throughout the course of our reporting. the past few years have been the meat of our research and writing process. kristen: what did you attempt to trace and ultimately show in the book? >> the central question of the book is why has it been so difficult to reform policing in oakland. we begin with 20 years ago when the oakland police department was placed under federal court oversight for the first time and we traced the past 20 years of history of that oversight agreement, the progress that was made to the police at

transforming themselves but also the major setbacks and then we tried to put that in an even bigger historical context of policing california and the east bay. kristen: in terms of the progress and the oversight that began with the trial, it demands the question who are the riders that are in the title of the book. now when you say the riders, people associate it with something bad. but that was not always the case. >> the individuals in the title the offices referenced in the title are frank cfo, a group of officers that were outed by a young rookie in 2000 after he was in training with them for less than two weeks right out of the academy and saw them committing a litany of abuses, kidnapping people,

planting drugs on them, sending them for jail for crimes they did not commit, assaulting them, all in the name of the mayor's tough on crime program for oakland in the late 1990's and early 2000's. these officers were fired for administrative misconduct, charged by the alameda county d.a. and there were two trials in 2003 and 2005. as a result of the case becoming public, i should mention that frank vasquez fled from law enforcement and is still a fugitive to this day. as a result of the entire a civil suit was filed and the oakland police department was placed under a decree outlining a list of reforms. there has been one step forward and two steps backward but the department has changed

remarkably since the early 2000's. kristen: can we talk about how it has changed and even though it is one step forward, one step back, what were the successes and failures? >> some of the major successes have to do with a huge decrease in the number of people who are being stopped and searched by oakland police officers for no good reason. the department used to conduct a lot of these stops where they would simply find someone with a broken tail light or someone who rolled a stop sign and pulled them over and conduct a search of their vehicle. this activity was disproportionately targeting african-americans who made up the majority of police stops. this amounted to racial profiling. the reform agreement over the past 20 years has led to a massive reduction in the number of those types of stops. today the department is known

for carrying out what it calls intelligence-led policing where any stop of an individual has to be based on actual suspicion that a crime has been committed. they do not search people randomly anymore. one other big transformation that the department has to do with policies surrounding when and how they chased suspects and how they handle them. the department used to kill over one dozen people in any given year. a few of those people would always be unarmed. these were just very controversial police shootings that did a lot to harm community-police relations. today it is rare for the police department to kill someone. officer-involved shootings are no longer the norm. kristen: if those were successes , what does it take in terms of proof of performance to get out

from under the consent decree? part of what leronne armstrong got placed on administrative leave was because of the federal oversight and the report that came out that said you did not do a good enough job monitoring this misconduct case. how long does that relationship continue? >> the key failure that chie armstrong and his internal affairs department appeared to have committed, and these are all allegations. there is still a lot of investigation that needs to be done. they failed to uphold core tenants of the reform program which is geared toward overhauling how the department investigates alleged misconduct by officers. the riders were not caught because of internal affairs investigation. they were caught because an officer blew the whistle. there have been many complaints filed against them through the years and they have not resulted in serious discipline. they had not resulted in that sort of remedial action.

a core component of the settlement agreement is a wholesale reform of internal affairs, that all cases of complaints, all alleged misconduct to be investigated thoroughly, that the discipline the metered out according to md even standard regardless of race, regardless of rank, regardless of social position of influence that officer holds. in the case of sargent michael chung ou, that appears to be a problem. the investigator downgraded his charges and was the immediate president for him at the office association. because of the -- in past scandals such as the sexual exploitation scandal of 2016 or the strip search scandal in 2008, 2009, the internal affairs department did not sort through these cases ahead of time and that is a big reason why the

court oversight has been extended because there have been repeated failings down the years of unequal discipline, inadequate investigation, coverups on behalf of either internal affairs or the command staff. these problems keep on surfacing. this week when the u.s. district court judge who oversees the consent decree gave his remarks about the current report, he said this is the third time in my time overseeing the consent decree. he is the second judge. he said basically that this shows brought -- rot. kristen: thank you very much.

kristen: thanks for joining us for "getting answers." tonight, breaking news as we come on the air. authorities describing the police video, calling it appalling and criminal. five former police officers now charged with murder in memphis. the officers surrendering to authorities, accused of viciously beating tyre nichols after he ran from a traffic stop near his home. he later died in the hospital. graphic body camera video expected, and the police chief calling it inhumane. tonight, president biden calling for calm and elwyn lopez is in memphis. also tonight, the one-time prominent attorney, husband, and father on trial for the murders of his wife and son. alec murdaugh sobbing in court today. what an officer described when arriving at the house. eva pilgrim in that courtroom. in new york city, the verdict tonight in the terror attack, that truck plowing