The Coalition was represented eloquently by Gabriel Haaland, Belinda Calvin, Paula Hawthorn, Assata Olugbala, Mary Vail, Susan Shawl, Mollie Costello and Rashidah Grinage, as well as Claudine Tong who offered,
“My name is Claudine Tong. I am an East Oakland resident and a member of the First Unitarian Church of Oakland (your neighbors) Genesis and PUEBLO.
I would like to add my name and those of my fellow resident congregants and others who support a change in how Oakland runs its police department because it is clear that the City has virtually no control over police officers who violate the law,even when they do it repeatedly or even when they kill innocent, unarmed citizens and children like Alan Blueford. The unlimited and unchecked power that the City Administrator has to overturn and ignore guilty findings by the Citizens Police Review Board must be taken away. Oakland is in I think it’s 12th year of Federal oversight over its police department – oversight that was supposed to take under five years and bring reforms that would stop police wrongdoing. A decade plus is long enough to show what is NOT working.
Life is precious and has infinite value. You can’t put a price on it. However we can show that Oakland has spent over 58 million dollars in settlements to victims and victim’s families for their suffering at the hands of Oakland’s police; more than the larger cities of San Francisco and San Jose combined.
We propose that all citizen complaints re the police be handled exclusively by the Citizen’s Police Review Board and Internal Affairs be closed to civilian complaints. We further ask the City Council to work with the Coalition for Police Accountability to craft a measure to establish a Police Commission with the authority to discipline officers – to appear on the November 2016 ballot and for the Council to actively support the ballot measure.
Thank you.
Coalition for Police Accountability 
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