John Upton/The Bay Citizen

Oakland mayor Jean Quan speaks with Bay Citizen reporters in her office at Oakland City Hall March 29, 2011

As Oakland officers continued to protest the firing of a popular police sergeant, Mayor Jean Quan firmly planted herself on the side of the command staff Tuesday, and said the time has come to conclude a nearly decade-long reform effort.

In an interview with The Bay Citizen, Quan maintained that the firing of police sergeant Robert Glock for dishonesty last fall was justified.

Glock, who was voted officer of the year by department rank and file a month after his discharge, has become a symbol of the growing unease at the department.

He was fired because he approved some felony arrests over the phone, instead of in person, and repeatedly failed to appear on the scene to investigate officers' use of force — both violations of the negotiated settlement agreement, or NSA, that the department entered into in 2003 as a result of the Riders case, in which four rogue officers were accused of regularly planting drugs on suspects.

The NSA mandates that supervisors respond to the scene and thoroughly investigate every incident in which an officer uses force.

Quan said the officers' support for Glock has rankled the U.S. District Court judge who ordered the reforms, Thelton Henderson, and called the use-of-force investigations one of the most crucial mandates of the NSA.

“Judge Henderson has every right to be upset,” she said after speaking with police Chief Anthony Batts and Assistant Chief Howard Jordan about the Glock case. “Officer Glock was very popular, but if you have a use-of-force incident and you refuse to go out and look at it, that undercuts the whole issue of civil rights. This is a very serious thing.”

Glock's case has become increasingly politicized as the city gears up for heated contract negotiations with the police union. Some say the officer-of-the-year vote, indicative of low officer morale, has provided the Oakland Police Officer's Association with the perfect leverage for negotiations.

Others say the support among the rank and rile for an officer who violated the NSA suggests the department is far from meeting the requirements of the court-ordered reforms. Failure could have serious consequences for the department. Henderson has threatened federal receivership or broader powers for the independent court-appointed monitors, a move supported by the plaintiffs' attorneys, John Burris and Jim Chanin.