4 Ex-Housing Authority Officers Guilty in Oakland Brutality Case

A U. S. District Court jury on Friday found four former Oakland Housing Authority police officers guilty of conspiring to make false arrests and to beat and intimidate residents in a case that stemmed from the largest federal probe of a police agency in Northern California.

The former officers, members of a special anti-drug squad, were convicted of conspiring to violate the civil rights of a dozen residents of housing authority units by beatings, intimidation, the filing of false police reports and lying in their testimony against suspected drug dealers.

Jurors found the men not guilty of lesser counts involving alleged thefts. The jury was deadlocked on one theft charge in the 19-count indictment.

During the three-week trial, one witness accused the special anti-drug police squad of roaming the projects like a “wolf pack” on orders to brutalize citizens and concoct phony evidence against them.

The graphic videotape of the Los Angeles police beating of motorist Rodney G. King erupted into national headlines just before the start of the trial and was reported seen by each juror.

Convicted were Scott Dwyer, 29, of Vallejo; Daniel Broussard, 40, of Oakland; Juan Reese, 35, of Milpitas, and Larry Houston, 25, of El Cerrito.

“It would be misleading to say the Los Angeles videotape changed the outcome, but it did affect the credibility of police generally. It made them less believable,” said Peter Robinson, attorney for Dwyer.

“Given the climate in the state today about police brutality, the verdict was not a complete surprise,” he said.

Robinson said he would appeal the verdict to the U. S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Reese, one of the officers convicted of use of excessive force and conspiracy, said the verdict “was not fair. But if things were fair I would not have been here.”