“A UC Berkeley police officer and a Berkeley police officer will each team up in two squad cars to patrol the streets from 10 p.m.-2 a.m. Thursdays through Saturdays. More teams will be out before and after home football games.
Violence, sexual assault, and homicides have taken place on the south side of campus in recent years. Between fall of 2008 and February 2009, a man, who was never caught, sexually assaulted 19 women when he approached them from behind and lifted their skirts. Last month, 21-year-old Nicholas Bailey was found dead in a parking lot across the street from People’s Park. Police are still investigating whether his death was an accident or a slaying.”
*****
“An inmate at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin died after he charged at Alameda County sheriff’s deputies and was subdued with the help of Taser shock weapons, authorities said Thursday.
Martin Harrison, 50, of Oakland died at a hospital early Wednesday, two days after the jail incident, sheriff’s Sgt. J.D. Nelson said.”
*****
Some might refer to the “jail incident” as murder. This guy was in Santa Rita on DRUNK DRIVING charges.
Tasers must be banned. They are lethal force, PERIOD.
“Another factor (in the law numbers of immigrant detentions in Arpaio’s recent sweep) may well have been Lydia Guzman, a prominent Hispanic activist, who, along with a group called CopWatch, designed a detailed messaging system to warn the Phoenix Valley of immigration sweeps. Guzman sent an initial text blast to 100 rapid response teams of business owners, Spanish radio stations, pastors and teachers, each of whom messaged their respective networks. At the same time, Guzman contacted lawyers, social workers and elected officials to be at the ready to help. “It spiderwebs out,” she says. “Before you know it my text tree spreads out to thousands of people.
…..
In addition to Guzman’s tweets, CopWatch visibly tails police operations. On Thursday, in one small West Phoenix mobile command center, members of CopWatch monitored police communications. “They just said ‘294 King’ — that means immigration. Let’s go,” cried one member listening to the police scanners. And with that CopWatch activists grabbed cameras, lawyer contacts and car keys to follow Arpaio’s sweep.”
*****
An awesome heroic effort on the part of CWers in Arizona!
There’s a pretty ridiculous propaganda piece in the Tribune today:
“City police on Wednesday began meeting with representatives of other law enforcement agencies to prepare for the response to the scheduled Nov. 5 sentencing of former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle.
Their goal: Prevent a repeat of the violence that followed Mehserle’s July 8 involuntary manslaughter conviction in the Jan. 1, 2009, shooting death of Hayward resident Oscar Grant III.”
*****
The only voices in the piece are those of cops and city officials, all of whom describe the actions of OPD after the Mehserle conviction as “successful” and “appropriate.” They also describe protesters as “violent” – you know cause they’re the one who showed up with the guns and batons and locked people in cages and shoot unarmed people routinely… – and repeat the MYTH that the protests were carried out by out-of-town white anarchists. Not to diminish the role of out-of-town white anarchists – many of whom I’m sure are great people and did play an important role in the protests – but to undermine the fact that this confrontation was part of a deeply felt rage on the part of community members and that it is the expression of a rift between poor black youth and their bourgeois “leaders” is stupid. Anyway, the cops are preparing for another showdown…
“The decision by the city came after two days of intense negotiations in Federal District Court in Brooklyn. The children whom Mr. Bell had with his fiancée, Nicole Paultre Bell, will receive $3.25 million, and two friends of Mr. Bell’s who were injured in the episode will also receive payments, with Joseph Guzman getting $3 million, and Trent Benefield $900,000.”
*****
It certainly isn’t justice…
“The Baro family of Mexican immigrants was celebrating the 22nd birthday of Walter Baro on July 17 when the incident began. Two LAPD officers arrived shortly after midnight claiming they had received noise complaints from a neighbor.
According to Walter Baro’s 26-year-old sister, Elida, there was a brief exchange at the front door and the police ordered them to end the party and send their 70 guests packing.”
*****
Video of the beatings and harsh treatment the family received follows.
“The Oakland City Council voted Tuesday night to pay $6.5 million in two search warrant cases from 2008 that claimed several Oakland police officers falsified sworn affidavits resulting in illegal raids on homes in East and West Oakland.
The two federal civil rights lawsuits, representing 104 people, stemmed from allegations that a number of officers had misstated facts in sworn affidavits over a period of several years to Alameda County judges, indicating they had tested substances bought on the street to determine if they were drugs even though no test was ever conducted on the substances.”
*****
When considering all this it’s good to keep in mind what happened in Detroit to Aiyana Jones and to think about the prevalence of SWAT raids. This is terror on the order of what is unleashed on Iraqis by US house raids.
“Here’s what one eye-witness was filmed saying to local TV. Again she watched it out the window of her house in Fruitvale, a short distance from the rail station:
“When they turned here at the corner, there was, I want to say, about 10 policemen, all gathered together. And then I saw this man walking backwards, like this (both hands up), saying, ‘Shoot me, shoot me, shoot me’! And the police, I didn’t hear none of the police say anything. They were just gathered together, following him while he was walking backwards all the way through that street,” said Letty, who did not give her last name. “And then all of a sudden, I hear a little pop and then right after that I hear bup, bup, bup, bup, bup!””
*****
The Bay View piece shows convincingly that the police story is filled with holes. Even the eye-witnesses have very different accounts. Either way, the words of a 14 year-old in the story stand out: They didn’t have to kill him. OPD operates as judge, jury, and executioner — and so far, no one even knows what the alleged crime was.
“In 1980, 2,884 SWAT deployments were recorded nationwide; the number today is estimated by experts at 50,000 annually or more.”
*****
This is a really important piece and it has a lot of important information. After the murder of Aiyana Jones, I don’t think we can afford not to be pressing the cops about these issues.