Review by Choice Review
This relevant, vivid narrative recounts the history of corruption and police brutality in Oakland, CA. It follows a group of officers referred to as the "Riders," known for allegedly planting evidence, creating false reports, intimidation, unlawful searches, assaults, animal abuse, and even kidnapping. Although these activities were apparent to the communities subjected to their injustices, the Riders were ultimately exposed by a fellow officer. As Winston and BondGraham argue, the Riders were not simply rogue officers but reflected a problematic policing culture built on power, racism, and lack of accountability. They further dive into the historical connections between law enforcement and illicit activity in Oakland while also touching on key events and figures--e.g., Earl Warren, Jerry Brown, the Black Panther Party, Occupy Oakland--to provide broader context. After the Riders were reported, a series of lawsuits, trials, reforms, and oversights ensued. Despite new police leadership and continued federal oversight, however, it is clear that these changes have not completely corrected the course--new incidents of racism, assault, and sexual exploitation have arisen in the last decade, proving that Oakland faces a long and difficult path toward justice. This critical, relevant, and thorough narrative reaches beyond Oakland's borders to serve as an essential model for cases of systematic corruption and police brutality. Summing Up: Essential. General readers through faculty. --Jeremy Taylor Pekarek, Indiana University Northwest
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Journalists Winston and BondGraham, who together won the 2017 George Polk Award for Local Reporting in Oakland, offer an explosive, gut-wrenching narrative account of brutality and corruption in the Oakland Police Department, ripping back a curtain for readers and plunging them into the heart of the terror that the so-called "Riders" inflicted on the Oakland community in the 1990s and early 2000s. Off-the-clock beatdowns, drug planting, Internal Affairs cover-ups: the stark reality of what the Riders got away with for so long will shock some readers, devastate others, and leave every one with aching knowledge. The authors seamlessly turn their years of journalistic coverage into a compelling, well-paced narrative account of crimes almost too vile to be believed. Winston and BondGraham's care for the victims, and their dogged pursuit of the deeper story, make this a must-read for anyone interested in criminal justice reform and a book that easily threads the needle between nonfiction journalism and true crime. For readers of His Name is George Floyd by Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa, Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe, and When They Call You a Terrorist by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and asha bandele.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Reporters Winston and BondGraham debut with a comprehensive look at why the Oakland, Calif., police department has been under federal oversight for two decades, longer than any other department in the country. Sketching the history of Oakland's insular "cop culture" from early crackdowns on labor movements through the war on drugs, the authors spotlight the Riders, a group of police officers who abused and framed predominantly Black suspects in the 1990s. Rookie police officer Keith Batt exposed four of the Riders, leading to their expulsion from the force (though none were convicted of misconduct charges), and civil rights attorneys Jim Chanin and John Burris sued the department on behalf of 119 victims, resulting in the 2003 "consent decree" requiring reforms under the supervision of independent monitors. In granular detail, the authors describe the fits and starts of the department's efforts at reform, taking note of improvements in diversity training and transparency, as well as fatal police shootings of unarmed suspects, a botched SWAT team raid that resulted in four officers' deaths, and other scandals. Though occasionally plodding, this impressive work of reportage highlights the challenges of changing police culture. Agent: David Patterson, Stuart Krichevsky Literary. (Jan.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
George Polk Award--winning journalists Winston and BondGrahan chronicle brutality and corruption within the Oakland Police Department over 13 years, even as the department was under the longest-running federal reform program in the United States. They focus on a group of officers dubbed the Riders, who felt justified in using violence to address crime. Winner of a 2021 Creative Nonfiction grant from the Whiting Foundation.
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A searching history of the central problems of policing in America, focused on one once-notorious department. It didn't take the killing of George Floyd to convince minority communities that in most places in America, the police are the enemy. This was especially true of Oakland, California, with a large Black and Latine population brutalized by a White-led police force. Down the chain of command, write Polk Award--winning journalists Winston and BondGraham in this deeply reported book, were the "Riders," who practiced vigilante justice in the streets, beating and torturing suspected drug dealers and other lawbreakers. As the narrative unfolds, one brave young rookie risks his career and life to expose these criminals with badges. The Oakland police were hardly alone. "If they are allowed to do so--or encouraged, as they so often are--police will frequently subject a society's poor and racially oppressed to violence, surveillance, and harassment, all in the name of maintaining social order," write the authors. Thankfully, the whistleblowing led to hard-won reforms. For one thing, the criminal cops were prosecuted in 2002. One disappeared, probably deep inside Mexico, and has never been found, while the others were fired. (One became a military contractor in Iraq, and another joined a distant police force.) Meanwhile, the Oakland Police Department became something of a ward of the state, overseen by the federal court. While still not quite a model, OPD has changed markedly. Its records are transparent, its officers no longer terrorize the community, the N-word is no longer uttered by contemptuous cops, and, even under criticism, OPD "never attempted to punish the city's residents with a de-policing backlash." The wholly timely--if surely controversial--lesson that the authors draw, in a time of reform, is that all police departments require at least some outside, civilian monitoring. A fiercely argued case that the police can't be trusted to police themselves--and that such policing is essential. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
