By Sarah Ravani

The Oakland Police Department came closer to exiting federal oversight after a judge said Wednesday that he plans to take the next step in ending control of the troubled agency.

Judge William H. Orrick said he expected to issue an order in the next week that will detail when the department can enter into its probationary one-year period to end oversight.

The judge’s decision Wednesday marks a victory for a department that has gone through multiple scandals and 11 police chiefs in nearly 20 years. The federal oversight has cost the city millions of dollars, and the road to ending it has been bumpy. The department has seemed tantalizingly close to ending the oversight in the past, but subsequent problems kept it under scrutiny.

A class-action lawsuit in 2000 resulted in the arrangement. Six men in West Oakland argued they were falsely arrested on drug charges and accused four officers, known as “the Riders,” of assaulting and conspiring to frame them. Three of the officers were tried on criminal charges and never convicted and a fourth officer fled and remains a fugitive, but the civil case resulted in a settlement that required the department to complete dozens of tasks to improve the way it tracks, trains and disciplines officers.

Many proponents said oversight was necessary to bring reform to a troubled department. The department’s former brass said the result is an agency that can be a model of progress nationwide, while others caution that the department can’t let up on repairing its relationship with residents who still mistrust it.

Orrick heaped praise on Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong and his “laser focus” on the reform goals — a stark difference in the judge’s statements from just two years ago when he criticized city leaders after police lost ground on complying with tasks.

But, Orrick said, “there is some work that needs to happen.”

Orrick said he expected the department would have reached total compliance by now, but it still has one task to complete: reducing disparities in discipline among officers. The judge said that task is “critical in ending the court’s oversight.” He also said he hoped that the department would have fully completed and adopted a social media and cell phone policy by now — the result of a racist and sexist Instagram account set up by a former officer. Nine Oakland officers were disciplined for engaging with the content.

Mayor Libby Schaaf said in court that the city and department are committed to continuing their work toward achieving reform.

“Oakland leaders are united in our deep commitment to this continual journey with and without court oversight,” Schaaf said.

“We intend to continue to hold ourselves to a higher standard,” she added.

Last week, the City Attorney’s Office and attorneys in the case filed a joint statement to Orrick saying that they are open to starting the one-year transition to a probationary period to end federal oversight. Their joint statement marked a major moment in which all the attorneys in the case agreed on the next steps.

Robert Warshaw, the court-appointed monitor, said in his report released Wednesday that the Police Department has reached “a significant milestone” by complying with all tasks but one.

He praised Armstrong’s tenacity and commitment.

Last year, when Armstrong was appointed to the role of top cop, he said bringing the department into compliance with the federal mandate would be a major priority.

On Wednesday, plaintiffs’ attorneys John Burris and Jim Chanin applauded Armstrong’s work.

“You are on the verge of succeeding in an effort which no one in the Oakland Police Department has accomplished in nearly 20 years,” Chanin said.

A judge appointed Warshaw as the department’s monitor in 2010. In 2014, he was given more power as the compliance director. The city has spent nearly $30 million on all monitor-related expenses, including for Warshaw and his team.

Warshaw’s critics argue that he was more interested in getting paid than helping the department achieve compliance. One of his biggest critics was former Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick, whose 2020 termination was due in part to Warshaw’s critical reports on the department’s reform efforts.

Kirkpatrick told The Chronicle on Wednesday that she is “personally glad that Oakland is finally being able to make a case in front of the judge to say it’s time.”

Kirkpatrick said the department’s rank and file have “embraced reform” in their efforts to de-escalate and transform the culture of the department. Kirkpatrick said past scandals — including the Riders case and a sexual misconduct case involving a teenager — were “not reflective of who these men and women actually are and yet they carried the scars of that.”

In 2016, the attorneys in the case, the city and Warshaw were prepared to end the oversight, but changed their minds after allegations came to light that several officers were involved in the sex scandal.

Former Police Chief Howard Jordan said Wednesday’s decision is a positive step.

“It shows that the department has really embraced accountability, reforms, and that they are a model agency for the police profession,” he said.

Former interim Police Chief Susan Manheimer said the judge’s comments are a testament to the department’s “painstaking focus on achieving compliance.”

“The only way that OPD can move forwards is really working with the community,” Manheimer said.

Rashidah Grinage, a spokeswoman for Oakland’s Coalition on Police Accountability, said the department should keep in mind that there is a “new sheriff in town” with the hiring in December of the city’s first independent inspector general, who is meant to ensure the department complies with its policies.

The inspector general, hired by the city Police Commission, is tasked with “making sure that there is no backsliding,” Grinage said.

In a news conference after the hearing, Armstrong and Schaaf called the judge’s decision a milestone.

“I’m optimistic that we have proven to the public that we have reformed,” Armstrong said. “We have more work to do.”

Chronicle staff writers Megan Cassidy and Andres Picon contributed to this report.

Sarah Ravani (she/her) is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sravani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SarRavani

“Oakland leaders are united in our deep commitment to this continual journey with and without court oversight.”

Mayor Libby Schaaf