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Young man wrongfully detained by BPD

By Devona Walker Daily Planet Staff
Tuesday February 26, 2002

It was not exactly the way Reza Mokhtari-Fox had planned to spend the better part of his Friday night. Eighteen-year-old Fox and his two friends went up to the corner store on University and Sacramento for chips and sodas. Shortly after leaving, they were accosted by approximately 13 police officers, six cars and immediately shuttled off to jail.  

The arresting officer, Fox said, though it was difficult to tell with a barrage of white lights in their face, told them they had been positively identified as perpetrators who had just robbed a senior by gunpoint. 

The suspects were three African American males. Fox is Mediterranean. The arresting officer Caucasian. 

“My son called me and told me to come help him,” said Mahmood Mokhtari, Fox’s father. “When I got there they said it was a ‘$20,000 bail.’ I called lawyers. I called bail bonds. I never had to deal with anything like this. I know my son, he would no hurt a fly, not to mention a robbery at gunpoint.” 

After three and a half hours, Fox and his friends were released much to the relief of their families. 

“At first I didn’t want to say anything. I didn’t want to make things worse for him, but afterwards I started to get angry. This is my son. He doesn’t even look like a black man. It’s like saying all Mexican’s, all brown people are black,’” Mokhtari said. 

“It makes me think they had just started arresting every group of black kids in the vicinity,” he added. 

Fox, a freshman at Vista Community College said that when the officers questioned him he and his friends combined had less than $30 on their person and no weapons. 

“I also had an alibi for the whole day but it didn’t matter,” Fox said. “When they finally let us go — I mean they didn’t even listen to anyone until my mother, a white woman showed up — they acted as if they were doing us a favor.” 

Berkeley Police Department could not comment yesterday on this incident. But police documents do verify that the three youths were detained and let go after approximately three and a half hours. 

At this point Fox and his father are looking for satisfaction.  

“We are contacting the Police Review Board. We’ve already contacted the NAACP and I’ve spoken with my councilmember Dona Spring. It’s not right,” Mokhtari said. 

“My friends were kind of traumatized by the whole thing,” Fox said. “It’s a real experience to be locked in a jail cell and not know when you are going to get out. 

You don’t think this kind of thing is going to happen, especially here in Berkeley. It is supposed to be the most liberal city — built on freedom or whatever.” 

Ironically enough the incident occurred weeks after Mokhtari had returned from visiting relatives in Iran — where he fled for the sake of freedom. 

“I had just came back from I ran, the Axis of Evil, right? And I come home to this. And of all places, in Berkeley, if a kid can not go down the street and buy a pack of chips without getting busted and humiliated where else do we have to go?” Mokhtari asked. 

 

Contact reporter: devona@berkeleydailyplanet.net