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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the police department. Black folks are terminally victims of police brutality. It's more veterans
officers. It's not excusing the young officers who are the criminals that are shooting on unarmed
Black folks and Hispanics.”
“I am a resident of Oakland. I just moved here and I just bought a condo and I pay property
taxes. And I want to defund the Oakland Police. You guys spend $330 million, which is about
20% of the city budget on this department. Meanwhile, you only spend $49 million on
community and housing. They had a decrease of 29% in funding over the last fiscal year. I want
to ask all of the commissioners, how do you feel knowing that none of your residents feel safely
protected by the Oakland Police. We're in a pandemic and they're using tear gas, which directly
affects the respiratory system. UCSF physicians have demanded that police stop using tear gas
and rubber bullets. How do you guys feel about that? I thought that Oakland City Council was
here to protect citizens, but in reality, they're harming them. Fuck the police.”
“I'm a senior. I go to school in Berkeley, but I am a resident of Oakland. And I would just like to
say, I hope that we can get an official follow-up of this meeting and how the demands are going
so that we know that it's just not going in the trash or one ear and out the other. I also find it
crazy that 45% of Oakland's budget goes to the police department, but not as much goes
towards education. I feel like a lot of the funding should be put towards people and investing in
the youth rather than the people who have continuously been proved to do the community and
the members of the community wrong. We as youth and civilians are often expected to react
calmly when rubber bullets are being fired at us or tear gas is being fired our way, but police are
okay to act on impulse and often get away with it. These police need to be held accountable,
and everybody needs to realize that just because you may have a high position in Congress or
anything like that, these high positions do not get to ruin our communities and plague our
communities with these policies that this country was built on. It's just really frustrating. And I
see a lot of people getting worked up about it and it is something to get worked up about. We
need legislation and policies and a complete reform of the justice system. And I just hope that in
the future, we can have a follow-up about what some of our representatives are doing and what
we can do in the future to progress rather than keeping the same cycle of institutionalized and
systematic oppression happening.”
“I'm a therapist who has for six years provided mental health services to residents of Oakland
with low income. On the night of June 1st, OPD sprayed protesters with tear gas deployed
before the curfew, which had only been put in effect that afternoon. On June 3rd, a peaceful
protest of several thousands gathered again after 8:00 PM to protest curfew and peacefully
disbanded as OPD state to protect their building. These events demonstrate the direct impact
police presence has an escalating peaceful protest and more over highlights. The serious
issues related to discernment and accountability from OPD. I understand the events from the
previous weekend left energies high and on edge. It speaks to the complex nature of Oakland’s
needs and the police departments inability to understand the nuanced relationships, dynamics,
and approaches to serve unmet needs of the community to guests has shown to cause
miscarriages and stillbirths. We’re in the midst of a pandemic, which is a disease that targets the
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