Oakland Focus News | Oakland News Online Blog

More at Inside Bay Area : “OAKLAND — The family of Jerry Amaro III, who died a month after suffering broken ribs from an alleged police beating in 2000, filed a $10 million civil-rights lawsuit against the city in federal court Tuesday. The lawsuit follows revelations last month that the FBI is conducting an investigation of the incident, including the role played by then-Lt. Edward Poulson, who was later promoted to captain and became head of the department's Internal Affairs Division in 2008. Poulson was placed on paid leave Jan. 22. Attorneys John Burris and Jim Chanin said Amaro was the victim of excessive police force, but also said that a number of officers conspired to cover up the facts surrounding his death, and to conceal information from Amaro's family and the public.”

More at Oakland Tribune : “OAKLAND — The family of Oscar Grant, the 22-year-old man shot and killed by a BART police officer early New Year's Day, filed a wrongful-death lawsuit for $50 million against BART in federal court Monday. The shooting prompted massive public outcry and protest in Oakland, and Johannes Mehserle, the BART officer who resigned in January rather than submit to questioning in BART's investigation of the shooting, is charged with murder in the incident. "This is the most egregious police shooting case that I've been involved in," said John Burris, the attorney representing Grant's family who has been involved numerous high-profile police-misconduct cases. Burris filed a $25 million tort claim against BART and Mehserle in January. He said he increased the dollar amount after learning more about what happened before and after the shooting, as well as learning more about the officers who were at the scene and about Grant and his family.” -- A...

Sf Chroncle's scribe and my cantankerous friend Chip Johnson wrote an article that saw the light of day , and then was forgotten -- until now. It involves Larae Brown, who was a Controller with the City of Oakland and according to Johnson, doing her job, which was finding flaws in bookkeeping. Seems she found a huge one: Chip Johnson reports: The trouble began in 2006 when Brown completed a reconciliation of more than 100 city bank accounts, a task she alleges had not been performed since 1999 - and what she found was extremely troubling. In her review, she discovered the city's cash balance was overstated by $172 million and 77 of 111 city accounts showed negative fund balances. By her estimates, all that was left in city coffers were bond funds, whose use is restricted by state law. When she raised concerns with her superiors, the suit claims, she was told that City Administrator Deborah Edgerly had devised a 10-year repayment plan to cover a half-dozen negative fund balan...