A federal judge ended a 23-year consent decree of the Oakland, Calif., police department Tuesday, the longest federal oversight in U.S. history.

Sept. 30 (UPI) -- A federal judge ended a 23-year consent decree of the Oakland, Calif., police department Tuesday.

The consent decree was the longest federal oversight of a police department in U.S. history.

Judge William Orrick ended the oversight agreement in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, saying it puts oversight of the department "back where it belongs."

"The oversight never showed us what the police department is lacking on it," Ali Alvasiery, an Oakland resident and business owner, told CBS News. "Everything is just paperwork between [federal monitor Robert Warshaw] and the police department. But there's nothing that's affecting the residents of Oakland."

Alvasiery founded the group Oakland Safe. The group had petitioned the judge to end the consent decree.

"For 23 years, there's probably half the police department that's already retired," Alvasiery said. "Those bad officers are already gone. So that doesn't mean that the police department is bad. We cannot look at just the city of Oakland's police department as bad. There's bad officers all over the United States."

Millie Cleveland, chair of the Coalition for Police Accountability, said the monitor is still needed.

"There are some questionable police scandals that are current that need to be investigated," she told CBS. "The police department cannot investigate themselves. They cannot oversee themselves. Either it's a federal monitor, or it's effective civilian oversight."

The group had also sent a letter to the judge urging him to continue the oversight.

"We have a situation where even today they are not in compliance," she said. "So, if they're not in compliance at this pivotal time, where they're under scrutiny of the judge and the monitor, what would the behavior be if they feel nobody's overseeing them?"

Local NAACP President Cynthia Adams said the department has improved and deserves a chance to prove itself.

"Let us work together, work with the mayor, Barbara Lee, and show you what we can do as a community. And show how we have grown from 20 years under this," Adams told CBS. "If the community sees you out there and sees you doing what you're supposed to do, you're building a relationship with the community."

Cat Brooks, founder of the Anti-Police Terror Project, said the department hasn't come far enough.

"We get calls every single week about people that have negative encounters with the Oakland Police Department," she said. "The problem is we're tinkering around the edges. We need to be adjusting from the inside. The whole thing needs to change. The culture is a problem. The people, individually, as they walk into that, are not the problem. But they get impacted by the culture. The culture is one of 'subdue, suppress, force them to compliance.' And it looks at the people in the flatlands as the enemy."

The consent decree began with litigation filed in 2000 because of allegations against four Oakland officers nicknamed the "Riders." They had planted evidence, falsified reports, made false arrests and used excessive force.

The city settled the class-action lawsuit in 2003 with 119 plaintiffs for $11 million, agreeing to 51 reforms.

The consent decree was only supposed to last five years but continued for 23, due to ongoing scandals and issues.

In 2016, a woman claimed she had sex with several police officers while she was a minor. The mayor at the time described the police department as a "frat house."

In May, Warshaw reported that the department had complied with all 51 reforms. But a report in September found that the department hadn't completed serious misconduct investigations on time. Warshaw wrote that he was "confident that the capacity to meet the mandates of this task is there."

He also credited Lee and her administration, as well as Police Chief James Beere -- who was named chief in July -- and the department's leadership for having "worked diligently to foster a culture of accountability."

"They're getting their police department back. The oversight is going to belong to the people of Oakland," Beere said at a press conference Tuesday.