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A BERKELEY ACTIVIST'S DIARY, Week Ending November 20
So much happened this last week it is hard to know where to begin. And much of it has been in the news already. Here is how the Tuesday evening, November 15, 2022 Berkeley City Council meeting rolled out:
Jennifer Louis’s appointment as Berkeley Police Chief was supposed to slide through on consent, with 21 other items and likely no comment from the council other than congratulations, but the entirety of the appointment broke open Monday afternoon when Nathan Mizell, vice-chair of the Police Accountability Board (PAB) ,sent out a press release published in the Planet and elsewhere. A dump of derogatory, racist texts alluding to arrest quotas sent by Berkeley police officers, which had been released by whistleblower Corey Shedoudy, a former Berkeley police officer who was fired earlier in the year, started circulating in emails on Tuesday morning.
The PAB held an emergency online meeting about this at 2 pm Tuesday afternoon, November 15. It was there that we learned the PAB had received the notification of the allegations on the previous Thursday. After a long discussion the PAB agreed on a letter to the Berkeley City Council, to be sent after the close of the meeting, requesting a delay in the appointment of Louis as police chief and the formation of a subcommittee to handle the matter. The PAB will also do its own investigation, separate from whatever investigations are performed by the city manager.At just 22 minutes into that evening’s Council meeting, Mayor Jesse Arreguin called on Brandon Woods, Public Defender for Alameda County who made this statement:
“I’m coming on to discuss my issues. I’m urging you to delay the confirmation of interim chief Louis until the full investigation is completed ,and my belief come comes from my interactions or lack of with her. On July 6, I sent her an email outlining outrageous conduct by her officers as they refused to read the Miranda Rights on the phone with our attorneys. A new law provides minors should be allowed to speak to an attorney when they are read the Miranda Rights to make sure they understand. The officers were hostile and rude and often hang up on our attorneys. The Oakland Police Department did the same conduct and corrected the conduct when addressed.Councilmember Hahn asked if the emails to the chief had been sent to Council. They hadn’t, so then she requested the emails to Louis be forwarded to city council.“I emailed [the Berkeley Police] on July 6, no response, I emailed on July 10 and on July 11. I see the response from a captain. On August * I emailed the chief again and today I have not received a response from her correcting their practices. That’s the way she responds to the Public Defender of Alameda County and the way she handled minors in her custody and I don’t have faith she’ll respond properly to the new allegations. Arrest quotas, derogatory comments about unhoused people and racism have no place in policing, but seem to be present in the Berkeley Police Department and prevalent under the current leadership. I’m asking, I’m requesting, the least the Council can do is postpone this vote tonight. Thank you for giving me the time and space to advocate for the residents of Alameda County and the residents of Berkeley and for the people that I’m honored to represent. Thank you.”
The council meeting went on for the next half hour with the usual blather about agenda items until 6:57 pm when Councilmember Bartlett was called on and in a subdued, unemotional voice asked for item 2, the appointment of Jennifer Louis as Chief of Police, to be removed from consent and moved to action. The council rules require three councilmembers to remove a consent item and place it on action. Councilmembers Harrison and Hahn joined Bartlett.
No mention of Mizell’s letter from the PAB requesting delay was ever made during the evening.
Arreguin told meeting attendees before opening public comment on the consent calendar that they would need to wait to comment on the appointment of the chief until. “we get to the item.”
Item 17 on the consent calendar was declaring November 13 – 19th, 2022 as United Against Hate Week. Andrea Pritchett did what the mayor and council did not do: she tied Uinited Against Hate to the police texts in question during her allotted one minute,
“I’m definitely appreciative of the efforts to address hate speech and I would like to think that we are united against hate. But, I fear that more than events and posters and more than slogans, is the actions of our city leaders that can really direct our city. So when racist messages appear in the city police department, when people are made aware of it, or when people in positions of authority ignore it, then that undermines the good intentions of your United Against Hate Week. I hope you understand that the most potent, the best work we can create against hate crimes is good leadership that is willing to being brave in situations that are uncomfortable.”
The appointment of Louis as Chief of Police remained as the last discussion and action item of the evening until 10:10 pm when the City Manager Dee Williams-Ridley announced that she was withdrawing the appointment of Jennifer Louis as Chief of Police until the investigation was complete, stating: “Chief Lewis is still the Interim Chief. I also believe that ultimately the outcome of the investigation will find she was not aware of this , and has made a public statement, to this effect, to my understanding, and if she were aware of it she would have taken immediate action to address the issue. I hope that the outcome of an investigation will collaborate that.”
Back in 2017, the City Council received the report from the Center for Policing Equity on biased policing in Berkeley. Residents of Berkeley have been reporting incidents of harassment at public meetings. There was a task force that met for months on Reimagining Public Safety, there was the task force on Fair and Impartial Policing. Harassment has been reported in the Planet.
How soon we forget what happened to Jorge Colon, Program Manager at the Berkeley Drop-In Center on February 2, 2022 (on Jennifer Louis’s watch). Four police officers approached Colon from behind with guns drawn and forced him to the ground,then handcuffed and detained him. What was Colon’s sin? Hanging Black History Month Decorations while Black. https://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2022-03-06/article/49638?headline=Un-armed-Berkeley-Drop-In-Center-Manager-Detained-at-Gun-Point-by-BPD-Letter-to-Berkeley-Mayor-Arreguin--Katrina-Killian-Executive-Director-Alameda-County-Network-of-Mental-Health-Clients- Was there ever an apology, was there ever an investigation of police behavior? What was the follow-up with the four police officers, and is it the same four police officers that wrote the string of texts released now?
The release of texts that are racist with arrest quotas should come as a surprise to no one. It is Louis’s excuse of “not knowing” that comes as a surprise from someone who has been a member of the Berkeley Police Dpartment for 23 years.
Jennifer Louis has been with the BPD since 1999. She became a Police Captain in 2016 and was appointed Interim Police Chief in March 2021.
Not knowing what is going on in a department makes a police chief just as incapable and ineffectual as a Chief of Police that knows and does nothing.
Darren Kacalek is on the downtown bike patrol, the center of the arrest quotas and texts. President of the Berkeley Police Association, the police union, he is now on leave of absence.
Adam Serwer, journalist, senior editor at The Atlantic and author of the 2021 book The Cruelty Is the Point: The Past, Present and Future of Trump’s America had this to say about police unions: “This is not a system ruined by a few bad apples. This is a system that creates and protects bad apples by design. Being a good cop can get you in trouble with your superiors, your fellow officers, and the union that represents you. Being a bad one can get you elected as a union rep.”
Reflecting on past public comment at city meetings about harassment of the poor, the homeless, of People of Color leaves a lot of questions. From the outside, what looks like a failure of meaningful follow-through says more about who we are as a city than a declaration of United Against Hate.
While the City Council’s Health, Life, Enrichment, Equity & Community Policy Committee was considering Councilmember Taplin’s proposed Office of Racial Equity: Re-Entry Employment and Guaranteed Income Program, the Ashby Village/Elder Action and Berkeley Friends/Racial Justice Action Team was moderating “Shining the Light on The Militarization of Police Departments” to discuss AB 481.
California AB 481 requires law enforcement agencies to obtain approval for the acquisition and use of military equipment and for the governing body to either disapprove or authorize the controlling ordinance(s) annually. In Berkeley the PAB writes/reviews the policy and City Council approves the final version often with council modifications. Berkeley and the PAB are further along in the process than Oakland and Richmond.
I wouldn’t label the video of the panel discussion on the Militarization of Police Departments as a must see, but it helped me put together the responsibilities of the PAB and City Council in relation to controlling the availability and use of military equipment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9gHJyvaI-E . Given the Oakland panelist Omar Farmer’s description of the use of the bearcat (a tank with wheels instead of treads) and military equipment in Oakland and multi-million-dollar settlements to everyone in Berkeley who fought against military equipment here, it was and is worth the fight.
As for Taplin’s proposal on guaranteed income and re-entry employment, it was modified and passed out of committee and now sits in the draft agenda for the December 6 council meeting. Like so much that comes out of Taplin’s office it is a referral to the city manager which means it could be months or years before we see it again. The re-entry employment part was diluted to review available services.
The in-person public meeting on the Civic Center design started with a presentation by Susi Muzuola from Siegel & Strain Architects and followed with four stations to give comment on the design of the Maudelle Shirek and Veterans Buildings, the Civic Center Park and reconfiguration of MLK Jr. Way. https://berkeleyca.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Berkeley-Civic-Center-Phase-II_Open-House-Presentation.pdf
The proposed plan is to move city council into new offices in the Maudelle Shirek Building, build a 14,000 square foot addition (or close to that size) for new city council meeting chambers and put the Media Center and Historical Society Museum in the basement. And also, to bring the Maudelle Shirek building to “ immediate occupancy (IO)” seismic standards (the level used for hospitals).
The Veterans Building seismic upgrade would be downgraded to “basic life safety plus” without buttressing that would have added needed backstage space to increase functionality.
The plan for Martin Luther King Jr Way, an Emergency Access and Evacuation Network Route, is to put this evacuation route on a “road diet” with narrowing driving lanes, widening sidewalks and pedestrian bulb outs.
There appears to be a disconnect. A large chunk of Berkeley sits in high fire hazard zones, and evacuation from fire in the high fire hazard zones is already challenged. This means that a rapidly moving fire will likely overtake people trying to escape (evacuate) under current conditions. This is before, according to the evening presentation, the architects, city planners, and the transportation department will put together a plan for the Civic Center to narrow yet another emergency access and evacuation route.
We would all do well to listen to those warning of the hazard of narrowing roads. Margot Smith has been sounding the alarm in Berkeley of the looming danger of putting Emergency Access and Evacuation Routes on road diets. Before any of us dismiss those warnings we should all remember, Mildred Eselin’s words to the city council of Paradise, California as reported in the Los Angeles Times.
“Town recordings show a lone voice of concern at the 2014 council meeting giving final approval to the road narrowing. ‘The main thing is fire danger,’ said Mildred Eselin, 88. ‘If the council is searching for a way to diminish the population of Paradise, this would be the way to do it.’” https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-camp-fire-deathtrap-20181230-story.html
Reading a little further in the article you will come across this,
“Paradise officials repeatedly told The Times they never envisioned a firestorm reaching the town. But the 2005 state fire management plan for the ridge, developed in consultation with some of those same Paradise planners, warned that canyon winds posed a ‘serious threat’ to Paradise. The ‘greatest risk’ was an ‘east wind’ fire, the document said, ‘the same type of fire that impacted the Oakland-Berkeley Hills during the Oct. 20, 1991, firestorm’ that killed 25 people.”
The meeting on setting objective standards for North Berkeley BART development started with an hour-long large group introduction and a 90-page presentation, which is on the city website for the North Berkeley BART housing project. https://berkeleyca.gov/sites/default/files/documents/NB-BART_PreODS_Community_Meeting_1_v1.pdf
The introduction was followed by breakout groups, but the evening closed without reports of breakout group discussions. Nothing was decided and there will be more meetings on establishing objective standards.
The Open Government Commission heard my complaint and request and will be following up in January. For the complaint I submitted a list of the committees, boards and commissions that are not posting draft meeting minutes within 14 calendar days of meeting (as recommended by the Open Government Commission and passed by City Council). The list includes the 2 x 2 (Council and BUSD), 3 x 3 (Council and Housing Authority), 4 x 4, (Council and Rent Stabilization Board) City/UC/Student Relations Committee Housing, Board of Library Trustees, Commission on Disability, Community Health Commission, Fair Campaign Practices Commission, Landmarks Preservation Commission, Mental Health Commission, Youth Commission and the Zoning Adjustment Board.
The request was that live transcription be made available at all city meetings (not just city council) as a requirement.
This is long already. I will cover the webinar “Light at Night a Glowing Hazard” in the next Diary.
I’ve already included a short quote from Adam Serwer’s The Cruelty Is the Point: The Past, Present and Future of Trump’s America. With Trump declaring he is running for President again, the book is worth reading. Serwer is a senior editor for the Atlantic. The book is an expansion on his articles. Trump and his devotees, his cult revolve around cruelty, revenge, name calling, blaming, getting even, greed and selfishness.
It is all such a sharp contrast to the link a friend sent me on why / how/ what lead people to call themselves socialists. Their responses to why they were socialists were all about caring about the welfare of others. This is a link worth pulling up when you feel everything is hopeless. Click on comments.
