6/8/20 Oakland Police Commission Meeting Public Comments
The online meeting was called on Monday, June 8 to address the treatment of protesters by the Oakland Police Department during the recent George Floyd protests and Black Lives Matter Movement in Oakland, California, which began on Friday, May 29, 2020. Below are comments made by several individuals who made speeches, while the rest are from the public made over the course of roughly three hours. The transcripts are lightly edited for clarity and brevity. If you feel the transcript misrepresents you, feel free to reach out to me on Twitter: @SarahBelleLin Instead of cherry-picking statements and trying to summarize/paraphrase people’s thoughts, I’d rather do justice to those who spoke and lay all their thoughts bare. This is a long document - 23 pages long. The statements may be triggering for those sensitive to police violence and brutality, so please take caution in proceeding if you believe you might be negatively impacted. For additional context, the Oakland Police Commission is not to be confused as part of the Oakland Police Department. The Commission is made up of community members who “oversee Oakland Police Department’s policies, practices, and customs to meet national standards of constitutional policing and to oversee the Community Police Review Agency which investigates police misconduct and recommends discipline,” as stated on the City of Oakland’s website. *Although the meeting was public, I will not provide the identities of those who made the comments. If you would like to verify the identities yourselves, visit https://www.oaklandca.gov/boards-commissions/police-commission/meetings for the link to the meeting video*
The online meeting was called on Monday, June 8 to address the treatment of protesters by the Oakland Police Department during the recent George Floyd protests and Black Lives Matter Movement in Oakland, California, which began on Friday, May 29, 2020.
Below are comments made by several individuals who made speeches, while the rest are from the public made over the course of roughly three hours. The transcripts are lightly edited for clarity and brevity. If you feel the transcript misrepresents you, feel free to reach out to me on Twitter: @SarahBelleLin
Instead of cherry-picking statements and trying to summarize/paraphrase people’s thoughts, I’d rather do justice to those who spoke and lay all their thoughts bare. This is a long document - 23 pages long. The statements may be triggering for those sensitive to police violence and brutality, so please take caution in proceeding if you believe you might be negatively impacted.
For additional context, the Oakland Police Commission is not to be confused as part of the Oakland Police Department. The Commission is made up of community members who “oversee Oakland Police Department’s policies, practices, and customs to meet national standards of constitutional policing and to oversee the Community Police Review Agency which investigates police misconduct and recommends discipline,” as stated on the City of Oakland’s website.
*Although the meeting was public, I will not provide the identities of those who made the comments. If you would like to verify the identities yourselves, visit https://www.oaklandca.gov/boards-commissions/police-commission/meetings for the link to the meeting video*
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I'm looking for you to draft a military ordinance that would have the effect that was discussed
earlier and to hold a forum similar to this one with Chief of Police Susan Manheimer present on
a monthly basis until we trust in her. It;s not appropriate that she's not speaking here on behalf
of all those murderers she's responsible for.”
“I was born and raised in Oakland. I graduated from Oakland Tech in 2004. It’s not enough to
register and vote. Know who your commissioners are. Know your [City] Council, assembly
members, sheriffs, all elected officials make your voice heard. All politics are local and officials
need to be held accountable. What I would like to see is the following: a solid plan to move the
OPD out of federal oversight. We have been in federal oversight for 17 years stemming from the
Oakland Riders Case. We have had many, many police chiefs changes in that time. What are
the defined goals and measurable outcomes we need to achieve to revisit the relationship
between the district attorney's office and the police? How's the district attorney's supposed to
prosecute police misconduct when they rely on the same police to prosecute formal crimes? I'm
concerned about qualified immunity and a general sense that actions taken by the police are
treated differently than actions taken by the public. While they are authorized to exercise use of
force, it seems that they are never held accountable when things go wrong.”
“Just to revisit a history and come forward: If we go back to World War II, it's an historical fact
that Oakland recruited white men from the South during World War II to deal with the large
population of Blacks that were coming from the South. If we come forward to the sixties and the
abuse of Black people in open during the 1960s, to the 10 black men being killed in 1979 to the
Riders, to the pedophiles, some of whom are still working with the police department. Oakland
Police Department is an agency that is out of control, has been out of control. I just believe that
it should be designated an unlawful organization and a terrorist organization, and it should be
dismantled and reconstructed from the bottom up.”
“I'm an attorney and resident of Montclair, Oakland. A couple of friends and I were leading a car
caravan protest organized by Anti-Police Terror Project on Sunday, May 31st. At 5:45 P.M.,
dozens of officers swarmed the intersection. Everything was peaceful. And the OPD
representative who just spoke [at this meeting] was utterly disingenuous to this commission as
they could not possibly justify any violence toward them on 14th and Broadway. When they
deployed tear gas, there was no announcement or dispersal order. And I saw them through at
least five canisters of tear gas toward our car, and about 20 to 30 peaceful bystanders. People
were crying and trying to pour water into their eyes. That evening, myself and another friend in
the car started to have trouble breathing. I have asthma. And this past week I started wheezing,
which I haven't done in a year. I'm also in the middle of IVF and tear gas is toxic for fertility. It's
dangerous and unethical that OPD tossed tear gas for no reason, especially when folks are
having so much difficulty during the coronavirus. Please disarm and defund the OPD. It's a
racist organization.”
“Prisoners and inmates were once known as slaves. Police were once known as slave catchers.
The only thing that's been reformed are the words used. Ain't nothing else changed. So let's just
Change language