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OAKLAND – A jury has found KPFA supporter Kahlil Jacobs-Fantauzzi not guilty of obstructing or delaying a police officer in the course of his duties. The decision was announced in Superior Court Judge Jacqueline Tabor’s court at about 10:30 a.m. Wednesday. 

The charges stemmed from a demonstration outside KPFA radio on the morning of July 21, 1999, when Jacobs-Fantauzzi, acting as a police liaison, was arrested for impeding a police officer. At the time, Sgt. Randolph Files was trying to go to a demonstrator who had pitched a tent on the 1900 block of Martin Luther King Jr. Way in front of the radio station. Jacobs-Fantauzzi testified that acting as police liaison, he was trying to talk to the officer. 

Jacobs-Fantauzzi’s attorney, Richard Krech, said that some of the jurors told him after the trial that they were convinced of his client’s innocence by a citizen’s videotape that had been entered as evidence. It showed that Files had misspoken when he described the events that led up to Jacobs-Fantauzzi’s arrest. 

The verdict showed that Jacobs-Fantauzzi was selectively prosecuted, Krech said. The 24-year-old middle-school teacher was the only protester among some 100 arrests against whom charges were not dropped by the District Attorney’s office. The exception was for a handful of protesters who pled guilty to jaywalking charges. 

“After the trial, jurors asked the prosecutor (Assistant District Attorney David Lim) why Kahlil’s charges had not been resolved” as they had with the other protesters, Krech said. 

Lim told the jurors that was because of Jacobs-Fantauzzi’s previous arrest at UC Berkeley, where he had participated in demonstrations in support of affirmative action, Krech said, concluding that his client was signaled out for prosecution. 

A pre-trial motion contending that Jacobs-Fantauzzi was prosecuted selectively was denied by Judge Ron Greenberg. 

Given Files’ inconsistent testimony and the ruling in favor of the defendant, Berkeley City Councilmember Kriss Worthington, who was a character witness in favor of the defense, said he has questions about Files’ testimony and Jacobs-Fantauzzi’s arrest. 

“We’ve asked the city manager to do an investigation, to get a transcript of the case and give us a report,” Worthington said. 

An investigation into the incident would show whether there needs to be changes in police procedures, in training or if it was a question of individual behavior, he said. 

At this point, Worthington said he is not sure if the manager will investigate or if it will take a council resolution to spark an investigation. 

Jacobs-Fantauzzi said he is planning a civil suit based on false arrest. 

In a related matter, Krech dropped his demand Tuesday for unpublished photographs from The Oakland Tribune, saying that he did it on the request of Jacobs-Fantauzzi. 

A court had found the Tribune’s chief photographer in contempt of court for not turning over the pictures, and the Tribune had intended to appeal the ruling. 

About 20 supporters showed up for a small press conference early Wednesday evening outside the radio station, where Jacobs-Fantauzzi said the struggles within the Pacifica radio network and within the community aren’t finished. 

One of the supporters who spoke was Dennis Bernstein, whose on-air defiance of Pacifica regulations sparked the heated conflict at the station last summer. 

“They say (Jacobs-Fantauzzi) was obstructing justice,” Bernstein told the group. 

“What I say he was doing was obstructing the abuse of justice.”