The protestors, self-included, gather in front of City Hall
and we call that Oscar Grant Plaza.
In Oakland we know the problems of having the police be out
of control.
According to Judge Henderson, who oversees the Negotiated
Settlement Agreement, we are over a decade late dealing with just the tip of
the iceberg represented by the Riders case. According to many of the liberal Democrats that
run our city, we have not made good on the promise of our Civilian Oversight
since the days of Mayor Lionel Wilson back in the 1970’s. According to me, when it comes to how Oakland
Police treat blacks, other people of color and the working public in general,
there are no good old days. It was
always bad. The further back you go…..
It is bad and the problems extend past the mistreatment of
the “minorities” who make up Oakland’s majority of residents. We just spent 10 long and expensive Measure Y
years watching this force drag their feet and hide behind union rules and the “Police
Officers Bill of Rights” to fight every form or participation in community
policing and even the most mild civilian oversight.
Community policing example:
The program we are supposed to have is that each Neighborhood Crime
Prevention Council is to have a Problem Solving Officer. The reality is that this is the most unstable
job in the Oakland Police Force. It is
always the first thing to be cut, put on the back burner and when staffed, the
officer assigned is constantly changing.
In my local NCPC’s we never had anyone on the job long enough to really
get to know their group, let alone their community. By the time you get to ask them to sit for
coffee, your PSO has been replace by someone who is too busy to talk with you
because they are just getting started.
Accountability example:
For a couple of budgets now, there has been a small reform in the offering. Right now, if you have a complaint against an
Oakland police officer, you must file that complaint to an Oakland police officer
in the Internal Affairs Department or someone who works directly for them. Oakland activists, self-included, have been
pushing to move civilian complaints from Internal Affairs to the Civilian
Police Review Board. The council agreed
and put the funds into the budget. The
City Administrator simply did not do it.
No authorization, little explanation, no public review. Then after some pressure, much of it led by
the organization PUEBLO, it was put into the budget again. Next thing we know, there is a job description
asking civilians to apply to do intake for civilian complaints IN INTERNAL
AFFAIRS. Still no authorization from Council
to change the plan laid out in the budget, still no public account given. It turns out that the City Administrator had
been consulting with the police officers’ union under a farfetched contrivance
where they really had no standing, and the police officer’s union was able to get
the court appointed monitor to go along with blocking this reform “to have
better relations”. (That monitor has been
relieved of duty shortly thereafter, but the decision stuck.)
By the way, included in the job description for a civilian
complaint intake officer, was an encouragement for former police to apply and
requiring knowledge of the Police Officer’s Bill of Rights, but civil rights
training, being from Oakland, having any background in advocating for the
public, none of that was even asked about.
Anyone active in Oakland over the last fifty years could now
say: “Yeah and let me tell you about….. “
Fill the blank in here with all kinds of issues big and
small that stem from a police department that does not have a clear system of accountability
or any checks and balances.
Therefore there is no surprise that this police force is
costing the City of Oakland big dollar payouts to compensate victims of Oakland
Police Abuse. How much more? More than the cities of San Jose and San
Francisco COMBINED.
Done right, and done well, a Police Commission could make a
difference. A police Commission was what
people were asking for back in the 70’s.
What we got instead was a sham.
That failed and then history repeated itself the second time as farce
giving us today’s powerless Civilian Police Review Board.
Other cities have police commissions, we can look at their
legislation, look at their successes and failures and catch up quick.
PUEBLO still has such a proposal that they have been working
on, they call it a “Public Safety Commission”.
If they had the support of the street demonstrations, they could advance
an even stronger proposal and they have all the lawyers necessary to write up a
charter amendment. I don’t care what
they call it, as long as it has the power to conduct outside, independent investigations
and it has the power to dismiss police officers who we do not want. Notice I said “want” and not those convicted
of some kind of a crime. Police officers
who want to kick but, want to bust heads and treat our people like the enemy
have the wrong attitude for working here.
They should go and the ones who are on the community service wavelength should
stay and be rewarded for it.
We should also look into our souls and think about what it
is WE want out of this here in Oakland.
We are one of the US’ urban cores dealing with problems of
generational discrimination, poverty, crime, violence and lack of
education. With Measure Y and Measure Z
we see that the overwhelming majority of us, self-included, have decided to
make our focus the causes of crime as well as the crime itself.
We cannot do that with a police force that is not held
accountable. One of our biggest problems
right now is the extremely poor relationships the police have with most of the
communities of this city.
So let’s do it. The
groups organizing the protests, can you also organize a ballot petition? This kind of change is going to need a change
of the City Charter and we are going to need the support of the voting majority
to make it work. Contact the PUEBLO
office http://www.peopleunited.org/
and join into this effort. This will
probably move the protests from the freeways to the neighborhoods getting folk
to sign petitions and for many, sign up to vote. Do this and the protests win.
PUEBLO is willing to take the risk of leading, do we have
the good sense to FOLLOW? The group
that is meeting following the Dan Siegel mayoral campaign, you are partly
involved already. This is something we
can do now and deserves a coalition now.
Jessie Douglas Alan Taylor, Wilson Riles, speak out, you know a lot more
than me and it is time to share it. My local Greens, we are already part of
this coalition on paper, can we make this the first thing we do in 2015? There are many other groups, I think too many
other groups, Phat Beets, the ISO, Peace and Freedom. Hey Commemorators, didn’t you start this the
first time? Would Block by Block support
a strong police commission? If so, many
of you know your way to the PUEBLO office, and I mean YOU Pamela, among others.
Can we just agree on this essential power shift right now and
get this one reform done?
It has waited too many years and our streets and freeways
are feeling the need to finally do it.
Don’t do it, and we will feel our own unfinished business in
the pain of others. Oakland will be an
example either way. Right now we are an
example of the problem, we can join Richmond and be an example of the solution
if we can work together enough for this.
Given the right police commission we can quickly work towards
a day when any law enforcement employee who commits a crime or abuse will be dealt
with and the public can trust that justice will be served, especially if the injustice
was committed by someone wearing a gun and a badge.
If we do it right, Oakland Police would wear a badge that
everyone honored.
