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The Riders Come Out at Night, by Ali Winston and Darwin BondGraham, Atria Books, 480 pages, $30

Oakland, California, is “the edge case in American policing,” journalists Ali Winston and Darwin BondGraham declare in The Riders Come Out at Night. “More has been done to try to reform the Oakland Police Department than any other police force in the United States.”

It’s a bold claim, given the crowded field competing for the title. In Baltimore during 2016, a vice squad was essentially operating a criminal enterprise, using the police department as a front. The corruption and violence exposed in the Rampart scandal, which unfolded in the late 1990s and early 2000s, landed the Los Angeles Police Department under federal oversight for 12 years. Chicago is Chicago. But in their deeply reported and comprehensive book, Winston and BondGraham make a persuasive case that Oakland’s entrenched police corruption best demonstrates “the still-unfulfilled promise of reforming law enforcement.”

The eponymous Riders were a clique of four Oakland police officers known for terrorizing minority neighborhoods. The book opens in 2000, with an idealistic rookie, Keith Batt, being paired with a Rider for field training and quickly learning the grimy truth about urban policing. “Fuck all that shit you learned in the police academy,” one Rider tells Batt. “Fuck probable cause. We’re going to just go out and grab these motherfuckers.”

After witnessing and participating in kidnappings, beatings, cover-ups, and frame-ups, Batt blew the whistle, setting off a legal saga that is still ongoing. The Riders Come Out at Night follows the ensuing two decades of attempts to clean up the Oakland Police Department (OPD).

The local district attorney filed criminal charges against the Riders, one of whom immediately fled the country and remains a fugitive. The prosecution of the remaining three Riders ended in two mistrials. The Riders’ attorneys argued, with a fair amount of evidence, that the officers had been doing what police brass and other city officials demanded.

That was also the feeling of rank-and-file OPD officers and their union leaders, who rallied behind the Riders. As they portrayed it, this was a case of “noble cause corruption.” If you wanted these men to do the dirty work of sweeping drug dealers off the corners in the dead of night, you couldn’t cry every time they roughed someone up or fudged a report.

Although the Riders escaped criminal consequences, Oakland would not get off the hook that easily. John Burris and Jim Chanin, two Bay Area civil rights lawyers, had been routinely squeezing multimillion-dollar settlements out of Oakland on behalf of their clients. (In one case, Burris represented a member of the ’80s R&B group Tony! Toni! Ton! who had been choked by one of the Riders.) Burris and Chanin were fed up with the lack of change.

After the criminal prosecution of the Riders collapsed, the two lawyers began putting together a giant civil suit against Oakland. They eventually collected 119 plaintiffs who alleged that they had been beaten or framed by the Riders. Burris and Chanin were holding the legal and fiscal equivalent of a nuclear bomb over the city’s head. Oakland had no choice but to attempt a settlementthrough reform rather than cash payouts.

In 2003, Oakland entered into an unusual settlement agreement. It agreed to 52 specific reforms, which would be overseen by an independent monitor who reported to a federal judge. Settlements like this are called consent decrees, and usually only the U.S. Justice Department has the juice to force a city into one. They may be the most powerful tool the federal government has to force change on rotten police departments.

The settlement agreement was supposed to expire after five years, but it was repeatedly extended as reform efforts sputtered and failed. Unnecessary shootings continued. An early warning system to flag officers with high numbers of use-of-force incidents and complaints was ignored. In fact, the most violent cops received glowing reviews for their “proactive” work. Internal affairs investigators chose not to investigate obvious discrepancies in officers’ reports. In the rare instance where an officer was disciplined or fired, the punishment was usually overturned through union arbitration. The police union also clawed back power from Oakland’s civilian police oversight board.

In 2015, a teenaged girl accused dozens of OPD officers of sexually exploiting her. OPD fired four cops and disciplined 12 others over the allegations. One officer committed suicide, and the police chief was forced to resign.

***

The ins and outs of the settlement agreement and the granular details of Oakland politics may be a bit much for general readers. But for anyone interested in the Bay Area or in policing, this book offers a deeply sourced and well-researched narrative. Both authors have years of experience reporting on policing in the Bay Area.

In fact, Winston and BondGraham’s reporting became part of the story of reform in Oakland. California had been one of the most secretive states when it came to police personnel files, but the state legislature passed a bill that made those files public records beginning in 2019. Yet many police departments across the state, including Oakland’s, stonewalled and slow-rolled records requests from reporters and civil liberties groups. Winston and BondGraham were plaintiffs in a lawsuit that forced the OPD to comply with the law.

It is only because of that suit that the authors were able to uncover never-before-revealed information about the long history of complaints and excessive force allegations against the Riders. Supervisors had either ignored or abetted the abuses.

Several chapters take detours into Oakland’s history, describing how the OPD was an enthusiastic participant in repressing Chinese immigrants, union agitators, communists, and the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. The last group, formed in Oakland in the 1960s, was a response to black residents’ longstanding complaints about police beatings and harassmentcomplaints that one police chief had dismissed in 1949 as “a Communist plot to discredit and harass the OPD.”

These chapters are not totally necessary, but they can be interesting. For example, we learn that during Prohibition, “Oakland cops were skimming so much of the lucrative alcohol trade’s profits that local bootleggers formed a Bootlegger’s Protective Association to collectively resist the extortion.”

This history also shows how deep the roots of police corruption go and why it has been so hard to uproot. In 1949, an independent commission investigated complaints that Oakland police were brutalizing the city’s black population, which had swelled considerably during the previous decade. “I found it hard to describe adequately the sense of monstrous beastliness, authority clothed in nighttime garb, that our investigation disclosed,” one of the researchers wrote.

This problem is not unique to Oakland. Several police departments are currently being investigated for tolerating officer gangs and other groups of criminal cops. The nearby city of Vallejo recently was rocked by reports that a clique of police officers bent the tips of their badges to represent fatal shootings. Earlier this year, the Los Angeles County inspector general ordered more than three dozen sheriff’s deputies to appear for interviews and show any tattoos connected to two deputy gangs, the Banditos and the Executioners.

The book ends on a positive note, arguing that real reforms have been accomplished in Oakland. Shootings and other use-of-force incidents have dramatically declined, as have brutality complaints and findings of unjustified force. Last year the federal judge overseeing the settlement agreement, William Orrick, found that Oakland had achieved “substantial compliance” with its terms. He agreed to a one-year probationary period, after which he could possibly terminate the longrunning settlement.

“It’s possible to reform the police,” Winston and BondGraham argue. “That’s one lesson Oakland can offer the nation.” Bu in April, after The Riders Came Out at Night was published, Orrick declared his decision “premature.” He extended the probationary period for five more months after several new cases of internal corruption emerged.

Winston and BondGraham also concluded that “Oakland’s ultimate lesson then is about vigilance.” This was perhaps more prescient than they realized.

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World

Gaza ceasefire ‘resumes’ after killings and suspension of aid test fragile truce

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October 20, 2025

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Gaza ceasefire 'resumes' after killings and suspension of aid test fragile truce

The Israeli military has said that a ceasefire in Gaza would hold after the truce was seriously tested by an attack that killed two Israeli soldiers and a wave of airstrikes that killed 36 Palestinians.

Aid supplies into the enclave are due to resume on Monday following US pressure, an Israeli security source said, shortly after Israel announced a halt in supplies in response to what it called a “blatant” violation by Hamas of the truce.

A little over a week has passed since the start of the US-proposed ceasefire aimed at ending two years of war.

Israel‘s military said militants fired at troops in areas of Rafah city that are Israeli-controlled, according to agreed-upon ceasefire lines.

The military said Israel responded with airstrikes and artillery, hitting dozens of Hamas targets. It also said its forces struck “terrorists” approaching troops in Beit Lahiya in the north.

Health officials said at least 36 Palestinians were killed across Gaza, including children.

An injured child is carried to Nasser Hospital after an airstrike in Khan Younis, Gaza. Pic: AP
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An injured child is carried to Nasser Hospital after an airstrike in Khan Younis, Gaza. Pic: AP

One airstrike hit a former school sheltering displaced families in the area of Nuseirat, killing four people, according to Al Awda Hospital, which received the casualties.

More on Israel-hamas War

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Another hit a tent in the Muwasi area of Khan Younis in the south, killing at least four people, including a woman and two children, according to Nasser Hospital.

Read more:
Israel identifies body of dead hostage
Watch: Evidence of Israeli support for Gaza militia
Violence that plagues Gaza

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu directed the military to take “strong action” against any ceasefire violations but did not threaten to return to war.

The armed wing of Hamas continued to accuse Israel of multiple ceasefire violations, but said it remained committed to the ceasefire agreement.

It said communication with its remaining units in Rafah had been cut off for months, adding “we are not responsible for any incidents occurring in those areas”.

Children were injured and some were killed in Sunday's strikes, local health officials say. Pic: AP
Image:
Children were injured and some were killed in Sunday’s strikes, local health officials say. Pic: AP

In a statement on social media on Sunday evening, the IDF said it had “begun the renewed enforcement of the ceasefire, in line with the terms of the agreement”.

“The IDF will continue to uphold the ceasefire agreement and will respond firmly to any violation of it,” it added.

An Israeli source told Sky News: “The bottom line is that we’re done responding. We are now back to where we were this morning before their attack.”

Fearing the truce may collapse, some Palestinians, many of whom have lacked sufficient food for months, rushed to buy goods from the main market in Nuseirat.

Further south in Khan Younis, other families fled their homes and shelters after airstrikes hit nearby.

Major hurdles still stand in the way of a long-lasting peace in Gaza. An earlier ceasefire collapsed in March when Israel launched a barrage of airstrikes.

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Ceasefire faces toughest test

The new ceasefire began on 10 October, but for days the Israeli government and Hamas have been trading accusations of ceasefire violations.

A senior Egyptian official involved in the ceasefire negotiations said “round-the-clock” contacts were under way to de-escalate the situation.

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Israel on Saturday pressed Hamas to returning the remains of all 28 dead hostages as promised under the ceasefire, saying the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt would stay closed “until further notice”.

Hamas says it has no reason to keep the bodies of the remaining hostages, but that it needs special equipment
recover corpses buried under rubble.

A Hamas delegation led by chief negotiator Khalil al Hayya has arrived in Cairo to follow up the implementation of the ceasefire deal with mediators and other Palestinian groups.

The next stages are expected to focus on disarming Hamas, Israeli withdrawal from additional areas it controls in Gaza, and future governance of the devastated territory.

The US plan proposes the establishment of an internationally-backed authority.

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Sports

Florida fires coach Napier after 3-4 start in ’25

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3 hours ago

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October 19, 2025

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Florida fires coach Napier after 3-4 start in '25

  • ESPN News Services

Oct 19, 2025, 12:22 PM ET

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Florida fired coach Billy Napier on Sunday, a day after an error-filled win against Mississippi State that included more head-scratching calls and offensive lulls like those that marked much of his four-year run with the Gators.

Athletic director Scott Stricklin made the move following a 23-21 victory that improved the Gators’ record to 3-4 but looked as if it was going to be a gut-wrenching loss until defensive tackle Michai Boireau picked off a pass with 21 seconds left and the Bulldogs near field goal range.

The game-sealing takeaway energized The Swamp, but the home crowd quickly turned on Napier and booed him as he sprinted off the field. Stricklin had seen enough and pulled the plug on a run that most of the Florida faithful thought lasted longer than it should have.

Florida owes Napier roughly $21 million, with half of that buyout due within 30 days. The rest will be spread over three annual installments beginning next summer, meaning that, since the Gators are still paying former coach Dan Mullen, they will be paying three head coaches for the second time in seven years once they hire Napier’s replacement; they did the same with Will Muschamp, Jim McElwain and Mullen in 2018.

Napier went 22-23 in four seasons at Florida, including 12-16 in SEC play. He was 5-17 against ranked opponents, including 0-14 away from home, and declined to give up his playcalling role despite calls to do so.

Equally damning: His 3-12 mark against rivals Florida State, Georgia, LSU, Miami and Tennessee includes the fewest wins by a Florida coach in such games since the late 1930s.

Napier is the first full-time coach at Florida to finish his tenure with a losing record since Raymond Wolf (1946 to ’49).

“Making this decision during the open date provides our team valuable time to regroup, refocus, and prepare for the challenges ahead. The timing also allows us to conduct a thoughtful, thorough, and well-informed search for our next head coach. We remain fully committed to utilizing every resource available to identify the right leader to guide Gators Football into the future,” Stricklin said in a statement.

“I will conduct the search with a high degree of confidentiality to protect the privacy of those involved. The search will focus on the hiring of an elite football coach who will embody the standard we have at the University of Florida, and we will continue to provide all of the necessary resources for that coach, his staff and the players to be successful.”

Receivers coach Billy Gonzales was named interim for Florida’s remaining five games, beginning against rival Georgia (6-1, 4-1 Southeastern Conference) on Nov. 1 in Jacksonville. The Gators (3-4, 2-2) have an off week to regroup from the chaos that often comes with a coaching change.

Jettisoning Napier will temporarily quell a frustrated fanbase, but the group won’t truly be satisfied until the Gators hire someone with a proven track record at college football’s highest level.

Napier sealed his fate against the Bulldogs. He dialed up a QB rollout on a third-and-1 play in the waning minutes that led to a punt and gave Mississippi State a chance down the stretch. He also called a QB keeper on a third-and-7 play earlier in the game, botched the final possession before halftime and was flagged for having 12 men on the field during a 2-point try.

It was a fitting end for a coach who often looked in over his head in the powerhouse SEC. Between repeated penalties, game organization issues, clock management miscues and running an offensive scheme that was as predictable as it was pedestrian, Napier stuck around longer than many thought he deserved.

Stricklin gave the coach a public vote of confidence shortly before the Gators won their final four games of 2024. They hoped to carry that momentum into Napier’s fourth season, but quarterback DJ Lagway was out close to eight months recovering from injuries — and it showed.

Lagway looked mostly lost in the pocket as Florida struggled to move the ball. Suddenly, the two-time Sun Belt Conference coach of the year, who gained fame at his previous stop by saying “scared money don’t make money,” seemed afraid to get the ball down the field the way Lagway did with such ease as a freshman.

Most outsiders saw this ending coming. Although Napier accomplished plenty while helping the program navigate name, image and likeness compensation and revenue sharing, he churned through assistants while failing to find much consistency on either side of the ball.

“The standards and expectations for Gators football are to win championships — not simply to compete. We exist to win, and will not settle for less. UF has never been more invested in the success of this football program — elite facilities, robust NIL opportunities and comprehensive support for our student athletes and staff — than we are today,” Strickland said.

“The University of Florida is a destination — a place where people come to achieve excellence. With our resources, passionate fan base, and unwavering commitment, we are determined to return Gators football to championship form. I understand and accept the responsibility to deliver a football program that reflects the greatness of this university and I thank Gator Nation for their continued support as we begin this next chapter together.”

Florida hired Napier in 2021 after he went 40-12 in four seasons as Louisiana’s coach.

The Associated Press and ESPN Research contributed to this report.

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Sports

Tide, Dawgs into AP top 5; Vandy soars to No. 10

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3 hours ago

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October 19, 2025

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Tide, Dawgs into AP top 5; Vandy soars to No. 10

  • Associated Press

Oct 19, 2025, 02:16 PM ET

Vanderbilt is a top-10 team in college football for the first time since 1947 in an Associated Press Top 25 poll that got a nearly complete makeover Sunday after a weekend during which nine ranked teams lost.

Ohio State was the only team to hold its spot, remaining No. 1 for an eighth straight week after shutting out Wisconsin 34-0 on the road.

Beyond the Buckeyes, significant revision was required with four top-10 teams losing in the same week for a third time this season. Nine Top 25 losing teams were the most since Week 5 in 2022, when 10 went down, according to Sportradar. Four of the losses this week were to unranked opponents.

The Buckeyes received 60 first-place votes, 10 more than a week ago. No. 2 Indiana pulled away from Michigan State, improved its program-record ranking by one spot and received the other six first-place votes.

Ohio State’s 10 straight appearances in the top five is the longest active streak.

Texas A&M‘s one-rung promotion to No. 3 gives the Aggies their highest ranking since 1995. No. 4 Alabama has its highest ranking of the season and No. 5 Georgia returned to the top five after a three-week absence.

Georgia’s 140th consecutive week in the poll is the second-longest active streak to Alabama’s 287.

Oregon, Georgia Tech, Ole Miss, Miami and Vanderbilt round out the top 10.

The Ducks bounced back from their home loss to Indiana with a lopsided road win over Rutgers.

Georgia Tech, which won at Duke, hadn’t been in the top 10 since 2014 or ranked as high since 2009. Mississippi’s loss to Georgia caused it to slip three spots, and Miami fell seven after losing to unranked Louisville.

Louisville makes its season debut in the Top 25. The No. 19 Cardinals, whose only loss was by three points to Virginia on Oct. 4, were 0-18 all time against top-10 teams in true road games before knocking off the Hurricanes.

At No. 16, Virginia’s ranking is its highest since 2007.

Vanderbilt rallied from its loss at Alabama two weeks ago with a 31-24 win over then-No. 10 LSU. The Commodores earned a seven-spot promotion for their first win over the Tigers since 1990. At 6-1, Vandy is off to its best start since 1950, with two wins over ranked opponents.

Vanderbilt’s top-10 ranking is its fifth in program history. The others were in 1937 (once), 1941 (once) and 1947 (twice).

Texas Tech‘s first loss came at Arizona State and dropped the Red Raiders seven spots to No. 14.

LSU took the biggest fall, plunging 10 spots to No. 20 for its lowest ranking of the season.

No. 23 Illinois returned despite being idle. The Illini had dropped out for the first time this season after a home loss to Ohio State.

No. 24 Arizona State, which fell out of the poll after a 32-point loss at Utah, returned following its first win over a top-10 opponent since 2019.

No. 25 Michigan‘s 17-point home win over Washington returned the Wolverines to the rankings after a one-week absence.

USC (No. 20 entering this week), Memphis (22), Utah (23) and Nebraska (25) dropped out.

CONFERENCE CALL

SEC (10): Nos. 3, 4, 5, 8, 10, 13, 15, 17, 20, 22.

Big Ten (5): Nos. 1, 2, 6, 23, 25.

Big 12 (4): Nos. 11, 14, 21, 24.

ACC (4): Nos. 7, 9, 16, 19.

American (1): No. 18.

Independent (1): No. 12.

RANKED VS. RANKED

No. 3 Texas A&M (7-0) at No. 20 LSU (5-2): The home team has won the past eight meetings. LSU’s Garrett Nussmeier threw three second-half interceptions and Marcel Reed came off the bench to run for three TDs in the Aggies’ 38-23 win last season.

No. 8 Mississippi (6-1) at No. 13 Oklahoma (6-1): This will be only their third all-time meeting. The Rebels recorded nine sacks in a 26-14 win last season.

No. 15 Missouri (6-1) at No. 10 Vanderbilt (6-1): Vandy kicker Brock Taylor has made 17 consecutive field goal attempts since missing a 31-yarder that gave the Tigers a 30-27 double-overtime win last season.

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