Coalition for Police Accountability

Last night I was very disappointed, even angry at our police department and new mayor, when the police took a hardline approach for the 2nd time this week with a peaceful group of highly disciplined demonstrators. Sadly,I had just started to feel the new mayor was on the right track in some areas. She appointed Sabrina Landreth as the new city administrator who was Mayor Quan’s budget director and helped us get through one of the worst budget periods in this city’s history.

Mayor Schaaf also appointed Claudia Cappio as the economic development director working on new retail projects with which she’s had lots of experience. She made one other move that surprised and heartened me in appointing Gary Malachi Scott, a young man I made a short video of for PUEBLO, who has real experience with restorative justice as her Measure Z rep.

I had heard her talk to business groups about preventing any more nights of destruction like that which happened to Broadway Auto Row-the remains of a once robust auto row, mostly now gone to the burbs and which generates high sales tax for the city-on the night of May Day. Fifty-seven cars had been damaged in one dealership alone that night and no one could explain why.

Schaaf thought she could reinterpret our crowd control policy to prevent night time vandalism by outlawing night time marches through downtown Oakland as the former cat and mouse strategy had not been working. Clearly, the police and her new administration were under tremendous pressure to find some solution to a problem that most Oaklanders had grown weary of, especially when it seemed to have no connection to recent local injustices; and in fact, moved the focus of protest away from current injustices.

Interestingly, Mayor Schaaf’s first instinct was to announce her decision, which she insists is not a new policy, to the media and the community but the police department discouraged her from going that route. Rather than obey her own political instincts which served her well during the election, she went with law enforcement’s analysis. That has turned out to be a huge mistake which may reverberate night after night unless she decides to fix it.

Police think about security first, policy much less citizen rights, are not their specialty, as those of us who have worked for social justice for decades learned long ago. That is not their job either. It is the policy makers job to determine the correct solutions and and law enforcement’s job to implement them even when they don’t understand or agree. This tendency of Libby Schaaf’s should not surprise us. Though she talked little about her approach to public safety during the campaign, I remember what she did when the idea of a youth curfew came up on the council.

Noel Gallo had dredged up this old curfew idea but the council voted it down, again. When asked for Libby’s position, she replied that she had queried the chief and he said that it was not useful. So she voted against it on the basis that OPD did not particularly want it rather than on principles or data, or a combination of both.

I passed this off as election politics but now wonder if she really believes it’s appropriate for the chief to make these important policy decisions. The chief was right about this based on data, the size of our force, etc. But a mayor must have an understanding of how this kind of curtailment of activity becomes punitive in many of our communities and may lead to the expansion of the childhood to prison pipeline that Oakland youth are so familiar with. In other words, a mayor has to make political decisions based on the knowledge of a wide breadth of how our community experiences law enforcement, schooling, and many other factors in high crime-impacted neighborhoods.

So now we’re in a situation in which the women of the #BlackLivesMatter movement, the next stage in our long American struggle for Civil Rights, have been lumped in with the masked vandals who tear up our retail districts. Unfortunately, many Oaklanders have already conflated the two-they may be excused for not paying attention but the mayor should know better. It’s her job to know who is working for a better Oakland even if their strategies differ from hers.

These women and their partners in other organizations have helped jump start this new movement, indeed the hashtag, the rallying cry #BlackLivesMatter, started with them. Though OPD has come a long way, some of our residents still have reason to eschew the “assistance” of OPD and fear the officer in their rear view mirror. There’s no need to reiterate all the ways that fear affects folks’ lives, I hope; but we still have a ways to go before each community in Oakland feels comfortable working with their neighborhood police officers.

This mayor’s confused policy directive has reminded us of our unhappy past and its consequences and it may take us back there if she doesn’t act soon. Why has she not met with the representatives of this and other groups who seek to make positive change? It’s not too late to apologize for knowing so little about the folks she shut down last night and Thursday night. It’s not too late to admit an error or a wrong turn when struggling with a difficult situation in an atmosphere of distrust. But it will be soon. See you on the plaza tonight.

May 25, 2015May 25, 2015

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Newark’s New Cop Watch Board Should Be a National Model for Police Accountability

By Rashawn Davis, ACLU of New Jersey

May 8, 2015

Since 1967, when five days of violent clashes between police and community members left 26 dead and hundreds injured, residents of my great city of Newark have protested police abuse and impunity. A reminder of one of their most desired reforms sits on my desk: a sepia-toned photo of civil rights marchers with signs demanding the creation of a civilian review board to provide citizen oversight of the police.

Nearly 50 years of fortitude later, those demands were finally fulfilled last week when Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, flanked by activists and the police director in the grand rotunda at city hall, signed an executive order creating a strong and independent civilian complaint review board to review allegations of police misconduct.

This new initiative constitutes an enormous victory for Newark, but its importance doesn’t end at the borders of New Jersey’s largest city. As one of the strongest police oversight boards in the country, Newark’s civilian review board has national implications, especially at a time when police shootings of unarmed Black men in Baltimore and Ferguson have started a nationwide conversation about accountability.

A three-year U.S. Department of Justice civil rights investigation last summer showed years and years of widespread civil and human rights abuses. Among the most shocking statistics: The DOJ found that out of the hundreds of excessive force complaints filed against Newark police officers from 2007 to 2012, the department’s internal affairs division sustained just one. A consent decree will soon be entered and a federal monitor appointed to oversee reforms to the department.

Yet Newark is far from unique. Department of Justice investigations of major American cities’ police departments like Cleveland, New Orleans, and Seattle have found the same kinds of egregious lapses. Newark’s new review board can serve as a model of first steps other cities can take to rein in their police departments that too often see the people they watch over as the enemy.

The review board, which is among the strongest in the nation, is meant to outlast the DOJ’s consent decree and provide civilian oversight for years to come. Not only will it have the power to subpoena records and police officer testimony, it will have the rare power to make its disciplinary decisions stick. In order to reject the review board’s findings, the police director must determine that the board committed “clear error,” a high standard to meet. The board will also audit department policies and procedures, and it will issue public reports of data on interactions with the public.

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka at the signing ceremony for the city’s new independent civilian complaint review board. April 30, 2015.

For Newark’s police department, too, the creation of this civilian review board is an opportunity to reset community relations. Our police director, Eugene Venable, believes public safety depends on the police department and residents working together. That partnership requires trust, and a civilian review board helps build that trust by making our police department more accountable and transparent.

My hometown, like too many American cities, has more than its share of problems and systemic injustices, and no problem eclipses the fraught interactions Newarkers have with their police department. For many members of my community, there is no such thing as a positive encounter with the police, a problem that reverberates in communities across the country.

I grew up hearing the same kinds of stories of discrimination and impunity that pushed people into the streets of Baltimore and Ferguson; the same stories told by friends of Walter Scott in South Carolina and the parents of Tamir Rice in Cleveland. Friends were thrown by police against walls for walking in the “wrong” neighborhood. Mothers and fathers were harassed by police about their children. I saw the anger and despair of residents on the losing end of police violence and abuse.

Now, for the first time in a very long time, Newarkers will have a way to be heard and a promise of due diligence. Because of this, there’s new hope that the police and the communities they protect and serve will come together to make the streets safer for everyone because we’re no longer asking, “Who will guard the guardians?” Now we have the answer we struggled so long for: the people of Newark will.

We need data

Tell DOJ

It’s a model other cities and towns should follow as the events of Ferguson and Baltimore demonstrate how critical police reform is in communities across America today.I have no doubt the civilian complaint review board will change Newark. To quote Mayor Baraka, “The transformation of our police department leads to the transformation of our city.” To expand on that vision, the transformation of our nation’s police departments can lead to the transformation of our nation.

May 9, 2015May 9, 2015

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Are We Paying Attention Yet? The Response Of Black Rage To Oppression Is Not Going Away

“The longer we allow city officials and corporate oppressors to operate with impunity, the more we will see our communities devolve into chaos.”

By Jamala Rogers
Progressive America Rising via Black Commentator

Another U.S. city goes up in smoke. The rage and despair to conditions in black Bantustans has now bubbled over into the streets of Baltimore.

The city had been center stage after the horrific death of Freddy Gray at the hands of Baltimore police. After allegedly “making eye contact” with police, 25 year old Gray ended up in police custody with a severe spinal cord injury that later led to his death.

Gray’s death is part of a relentless and seemingly never ending string of police assaults on black citizens across the country. Almost daily, we are besieged with graphic videos of black people’s encounters with police. At one point, I advised my Facebook community not to repost these images as our people struggle with both the historical and contemporary symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). My suggestion was to post visuals of the perpetrators or of people organizing against state violence as the more healthy or inspiring alternatives.

Here in Ferguson, we have been in a joint healing and organizing mode since the murder of Mike Brown. I wish I could say that there have been no acts of police violence since the tragic August 9 shooting of the black teen. Sadly, that has not been the case. This means that in between organizing to address the systemic violence of police to black bodies, progressives and justice-seeking citizens have been organizing to address solutions to racist policing. We have also stepped up our efforts to get relief for the conditions in disenfranchised and marginalized communities where distrust and rage are brewing.

The injustices highlighted in the scathing report on the Ferguson Police Department by the Department of Justice can be ascribed to most cities. The longer we allow city officials and corporate oppressors to operate with impunity, the more we will see our communities devolve into chaos. It is a choice Dr. Martin Luther King posed to the nation in 1967 and it looks like we keeping choosing chaos.

As I did with the Ferguson uprising, I encourage people not to run to Baltimore now but to organize where you live. If you’re in an urban setting, your city has the same incendiary issues that we face in Ferguson and that the African American community is facing in Baltimore – failing schools, unemployment, police terrorism, etc. When organizers in Baltimore need our presence in their city, they will let us know.

Meanwhile, our communities are begging to be organized into a fighting machine that demands – and gets – its dignity and human rights. The energy of young people needs to be channeled into a self-determining movement that uplifts their aspirations and helps them to conquer their hopelessness and fears to create a future where they have an assigned place. The narrative is not about who’s burning down some buildings but who’s looting the nation of its human resources and material wealth.

Spoiler alert: it’s not the angry, black youth in saggin’ pants.

Black Commentator.com Editorial Board member and Columnist, Jamala Rogers, founder and Chair Emeritus of the Organization for Black Struggle in St. Louis. She is an organizer, trainer and speaker. She is the author of The Best of the Way I See It – A Chronicle of Struggle. Other writings by Ms. Rogers can be found on her blog jamalarogers.com. Contact Ms. Rogers and BC.

May 8, 2015May 8, 2015

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Recording police is often only available record on abuses

From the Oakland Tribune May 3, 2015 by Thomas Peele

After I wrote in December about the woeful state of access to police personnel records in California, a letter soon arrived. A reader interpreted my calling for transparency of law enforcement disciplinary records as meaning I wanted information that could hurt cops’ families to be made public.

I lack “respect of authority” and want to enable “loonies on the left” to attack police, the person wrote. I’m an “a—hole,” the writer concluded. At least they got that part right, although I’ve been called far worse.

The response to police violence and brutality against African-American men since the shooting of an unarmed teenager in Ferguson, Missouri, last year reached an epic level with the rioting in Baltimore last week following the in-custody injuries of Freddie Gray that took his life. The public’s paying attention. The president and former attorney general have spoken out.

Random incidents around the country, from a reserve deputy in Oklahoma shooting a handcuffed man in the back, killing him, to an Arizona cop running down a man from behind with his car, are suddenly, and finally, big news. They wouldn’t be if police controlled the narratives, and in some states, like California, the records.

The killing of Eric Harris on April 2 by 73-year-old Robert Bates, a volunteer sheriff’s deputy in Oklahoma, who bought a cop uniform and badge with gifts and campaign donations, was captured on another officer’s body camera. Bates, who’s pleaded not guilty to manslaughter, claims he thought his Taser was in his hand, not his gun, when he shot Harris in the back.

Harris had just been filmed selling a weapon to undercover cops. What would we know of his death if that recording wasn’t made public? Chances are very little. The Tulsa County Sheriff even trotted out an expert who claimed Bates was a victim of stress caused by Harris’ attempt to escape and couldn’t be held accountable for his actions. Other police experts rejected that claim.

If the shooting had occurred in California, there’s almost no chance the video would have been released. We have the most opaque police personnel laws in the nation, a total shutdown of access. The way to the truth isn’t road-blocked, it’s cut off by a massive landslide.

How worried are law enforcement officials about the release of body camera and dash-cam recordings? Last year, the CHP went to court in San Francisco and sought a blanket gag order on the release of dash-cam footage. It came after a routine DWI arrest was captured on video. The public defender’s office objected.

When the Northern California Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, whose freedom of information committee I co-chair, filed an amicus brief supporting the public defender, state Attorney General Kamala Harris filed one of her own supporting the CHP. The CHP claimed the recording was part of the arresting officer’s personnel file. It won, and access to dash-cam images through court files are off limits.

Given the state of the law, there’s no hope in acquiring such footage under the Public Records Act.

That means the best chance here of learning about police abuse is for it to be captured live, just as hero citizen Feidin Santana did when he recorded Walter Scott being shot in the back as he ran from North Charleston, South Carolina, cop Michael Slager. Imagine what we’d know of that shooting if not for Santana.

If you saw that video, you saw Slager, now charged with murder, picking up his Taser, walking about 30 feet to Scott’s body and tossing it to the ground as nonchalantly as a piece of trash. It’s obvious Slager was setting up his lie that Scott was grabbing for the Taser when Slager fired.

Then there’s CHP Officer Daniel Andrew filmed by a passing motorist as he savagely beat a homeless, mentally ill Los Angeles woman, Mardella Pinnock, on a highway last year. Don’t think for a moment that Pinnock gets $1.5 million to settle a lawsuit and that Andrew resigns if not for that recording.

Courts have ruled repeatedly that there is an absolute First Amendment right to film on-duty police. As long as we are blocked in California and elsewhere from access to records about police abuse, it’s often the best source of what really happens out there that’s available.

Thomas Peele is an investigative reporter for this newspaper and teaches a class on public records at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Follow him at Twitter.com/thomas_peele.

May 3, 2015May 3, 2015

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New study: For every 1,000 people killed by police, one officer is convicted of a crime

From the Daily Kos:

n what may be one of the most thorough and informative studies done on police officers who’ve killed people in the United States since 2005, the Washington Post and Bowling Green State University have done an amazing job giving color and context to an American epidemic that has been swept under the rug far too often. In this study, it was determined that out of thousands and thousands of people killed by police since 2005, only 11 officers have been convicted of any crimes whatsoever. Consider these findings from the study:

Most of the time, prosecutors don’t press charges against police — even if there are strong suspicions that an officer has committed a crime. Prosecutors interviewed for this report say it takes compelling proof that at the time of the shooting the victim posed no threat either to the officer or to bystanders.

Last year, at least 1,100 people were killed by police in the United States. That is the highest number on record in at least the past two decades, but the truth is that these numbers have been so poorly recorded that it is hard to tell if the problem is genuinely getting worse or if the number of people being killed by police is finally being reported properly.Whatever the case, the Washington Post study makes it abundantly clear that the deck is firmly stacked against victims of police violence and their families:

“To charge an officer in a fatal shooting, it takes something so egregious, so over the top that it cannot be explained in any rational way,” said Philip M. Stinson, a criminologist at Bowling Green who studies arrests of police. “It also has to be a case that prosecutors are willing to hang their reputation on.”But even in these most extreme instances, the majority of the officers whose cases have been resolved have not been convicted, The Post analysis found.

And when they are convicted or plead guilty, they’ve tended to get little time behind bars, on average four years and sometimes only weeks. Jurors are very reluctant to punish police officers, tending to view them as guardians of order, according to prosecutors and defense lawyers.

Almost certainly, this stark reality is not lost on police officers. Fully aware that they have a 1 in 1,000 chance of being convicted when they use lethal force, the risk is so minuscule that officers have no real motivation for avoiding it when they have even the smallest hunch or feeling that danger is any sort of possibility. In any industry, if people feel that they are above prosecution or consequence, it’s going to have a detrimental effect on society. When law enforcement officers feel above the law, people die, and often unjustly.

Originally posted to shaunking on Tue Apr 14, 2015 at 10:24 AM PDT.

Also republished by Police Accountability Group and Daily Kos.

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May 1, 2015May 1, 2015

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A WordPress.com Website.

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka at the signing ceremony for the city’s new independent civilian complaint review board. April 30, 2015.

Originally posted to shaunking on Tue Apr 14, 2015 at 10:24 AM PDT.

Also republished by Police Accountability Group and Daily Kos.

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41 comments | Permalink

Tip Jar (37+ / 0-)

Because the evil cops are protected from us (8+ / 0-)

What a shameful statistic. (5+ / 0-)

Unfortunately most people in this country (6+ / 0-)

how about (1+ / 0-)

randomly picked a report (2+ / 0-)

Yeah, I did the same thing a few months (3+ / 0-)

The accounts you read (4+ / 0-)

Nah, there are some stories that (1+ / 0-)

Other countries don’t have the (3+ / 0-)

Right, because criminals in other countries (4+ / 0-)

A very Dkos-like response (2+ / 0-)

Better than your RedState one. 😛 (3+ / 0-)

Very original as well. (0+ / 0-)

Hardly. I make far to many typos for that. (1+ / 0-)

It’s Not the Exaggeration You May Think: (10+ / 0-)

A good argument to overhaul the 2nd Amendment (6+ / 0-)

Since most talking points involve blaming and (2+ / 0-)

Then ban the guns (7+ / 0-)

Yeah, I’d be fine with that myself, but (0+ / 0-)

get rid of violent cops (2+ / 0-)

In some places around the world , (8+ / 0-)

Excellent point. (2+ / 0-)

That is not the right stat. (4+ / 0-)

Not that simple (2+ / 0-)

By “justified”, (2+ / 0-)

Since police Depts. are not required.. (9+ / 0-)

Quibble with the post (1+ / 0-)

its time we (2+ / 0-)

guardians of order (3+ / 0-)

legitimized murder (3+ / 0-)

Shaun King (1+ / 0-)

Cops and Firing Their Weapons (1+ / 0-)

Along those lines (1+ / 0-)

That stat is slightly misleading (1+ / 0-)

2 things..accountability and leadership (1+ / 0-)

That’s a higher conviction rate than I thought. (1+ / 0-)

I would gladly let every cop walk (0+ / 0-)

One begat the others; evil rich people created (1+ / 0-)

It’s all part of gun culture. (1+ / 0-)

Suppose police acted with perfection (0+ / 0-)

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