Disciplinary Outcome for OPD Officers in Soakai Death Could Come This Week: Updated 9/6/23

The discipline process for OPD officers who engaged a vehicle pursuit that led to the death of Lolomania Soakai last June may have a resolution as soon as this week, according to statements and actions by the Oakland Police Commission at last Thursday’s meeting.

At the start of the August 10 meeting, the Commission’s Counsel, at the direction of Chair Tyfahra Milele, announced the addition of two items to the set agenda–an additional closed session meeting and a request for documents relating to two cases, one of which corresponds to the investigation of the pursuit that led to Lolomania Soakai’s death last June. The Commission was required to move the placement of the items through an “urgency” vote–the items were described by Counsel as investigations at risk of missing statutory deadlines that could have “adverse” impact on the cases otherwise.

The deadline for the Community Police Review Agency [CPRA] and the Commission in the Soakai case [22-0796] appears to be associated with a likely adjudication of the investigation findings by OPD this week. The Commission was only notified of the pending deadline last Wednesday, according to comments made during the meeting, too late to amend the published agenda.

According to investigatory documents reviewed by this publication, the driver of the fleeing vehicle in the case, Arnold Linaldi, had been doing donuts at International Blvd and 42nd Avenue last June [which OPD has described as a "sideshow"], but sped away when he noticed an OPD SUV driven by the officers under investigation. The officers gave chase, but didn’t communicate with dispatch and did not turn on lights or siren initially as they matched speeds of Linaldi's vehicle beyond 60 MPH on International according to Linaldi, his passenger, bystander video, and another officer who witnessed part of the chase. At some point, the pursuing officers slowed, but Linaldi's vehicle collided with parked vehicles at high speed, which caused the resulting collisions that took the life of Soakai and injured others.

After the collisions, the pursuing officers didn’t stop or render aid. According to investigatory documents, a body worn camera recorded one of the officers stating, “I hope he dies,” in reference to Linaldi as they passed the wreckage caused by the pursuit. The officers face allegations of nearly a dozen violations of OPD rules, including some, like truthfulness, which lead to automatic dismissal if sustained.

The suddenness of the Commission and Community Police Review Agency [CPRA] action Thursday is surprising, given that on the same agenda, the case is classified as “tolled.” The OPD can “toll” investigations, suspending statutory deadlines, if other relevant legal actions are being pursued that would affect or prejudice the outcome of the investigation.

Such a toll would have also delayed the CPRA's deadline for concluding an investigation. It’s likely the CPRA incorrectly believed the investigation was “tolled”– that could have been for any number of issues, including a criminal investigation of the collision, prosecution of Linaldi and a lawsuit by the Soakai family against the City and OPD. But that classification was in error, apparently, a fact that led to a sudden scramble to meet charter requirements that mandated a Commission closed session vote last week.

The hurried moves come at a time when the CPRA’s new director, Mac Muir, publicly announced at a recent meeting that the agency has fallen behind in its work, due to the ransomware attack and under-staffing, and could miss deadlines on some investigations.

An attempt was made to contact CPRA for this story, but no one from the agency had responded by press time. OPD also had not responded to inquiries by time of publication.

This is a developing story, more to come as it unfolds.

• a previous version of this story stated that bystander video showed the OPD SUV running a red light with no siren or lights, but although the SUV had no lights/sirens as reported, the video available to this publication doesn't show the vehicle running a red light.

Update:

Yesterday, KTVU reported an anonymous source claim that the disciplinary outcome for the officers involved in the pursuit is termination. OO also received a claim from a source with direct knowledge several weeks ago that the disciplinary outcome is termination.

However, neither the City nor OPD have confirmed the findings. Last week, OPD declined to release any records to this publication's request based on state law allowing the release of police officer personnel records. OPD stated:

IA and the Force Unit have been consulted. At this time, there are no disclosable investigative or disciplinary records (Penal Code sections 832.7, 832.8).

The officers will likely remain on leave while seeking to reverse or modify the discipline through a typical arbitration process, which could take months to reach a conclusion.