Berkeley Copwatch Demands: No Berkeley Mutual Aid to Shut Down Oakland Protests!

COME TO CITY COUNCIL MEETING NOVEMBER 8th at 7pm

City Council @ 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way (across from Occupy Berkeley!)

The people of the Berkeley have a unique opportunity to let their voice be heard and to stand up for those who protest this unjust system. Demand that the Council modify Mutual Aid agreements to ensure that BPD is not used to stop the exercise of free speech.

We can demand:

a) That our police will only respond where a credible/demonstrable threat to the health or safety of the people of that area exists and the resources of the host city are inadequate to manage it. Mutual aid in times of natural or other types of disasters would qualify for such assistance.

b) That Berkeley officers must abide by the policies of our department and be accountable to the policies of BPD OVER those policies of the host city. Whatever is not permitted by Berkeley policies will not be required or permitted by our officers in a host city.

Despite what Berkeley Police Department spokesperson Sgt. Mary Kusmiss has said publicly, on the morning of the raid of Occupy Oakland, Berkeley police were equipped with less-lethal munitions and did assist in suppressing free speech in Oakland. They were not simply doing “traffic control.”

Copwatch wants to know what BPD Chief Meehan intends to do about officers who:

1) Cover badges and have no # on helmut (in violation of PC section 830.10) 2) Use crowd control devices for patrol purposes 3) Violate the department’s policy on the rights of civilians to observe police activity

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Contact Berkeley Copwatch @ 510-548-0425 or berkeleycopwatch@yahoo.com