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When people write about the Oakland Police Department, they tend to use superlatives.

They call it the most watched police department in California, or a model for the state,

a dirty police force that's getting clean. But these superlatives, they wouldn't apply at all

if it wasn't for two men, a cop named Keith Batt and a suspect named Delphine Allen.

His name is a little bit sort of low-key famous in Oakland. People who know a lot about

the police department and police community relations, they'll know Delphine Allen's name.

I called up Darwin Bond Graham, who reports for the Oakland Side News website,

and I asked him to tell me how Keith Batt and Delphine Allen stories intersect.

He said it all started in July of 2000.

Delphine Allen was a young man who was stopped by the Oakland police in the summer of 2000,

late at night. He was walking across the street, holding a soda can, or maybe a can of beer.

...