BART Police Oversight Vs. Every Cop Union in the State; Police Chief Gee Out; and a Rumor

Over the weekend, as BART negotiated with its own labor unions to avoid a strike that would have shut down BART on Monday, Police Chief Gary Gee announced that he will be retiring from the force by December 30th of this year, two days short of the first anniversary of the murder of Oscar Grant.

The removal of Chief Gee has been a top priority for community activists since January after he declared in a press conference that all of the officers on the Fruitvale platform when Oscar Grant was murdered acted professionally and according to protocol. He said this despite having seen a high-quality video with audio and accounts of numerous eye-witnesses to the contrary. Chief Gee has failed to discipline a single officer for misconduct related to the murder on New Year's Day. It might be one of his very last acts as Chief to finally do so, according to rumors surfacing now.

Rumor has it, indirectly heard from two elected officials, one within BART and one within city government, that the long overdue Meyers Nave investigative report on the events of January 1st is set to be released in the very near future and that the report comes down hard on the extremely unprofessional behavior of the officers who detained Oscar Grant and his friends. If the report indeed makes such conclusions, it will validate what community activists have been saying all along. There is no advance word on whether the report will recommend criminal charges against at least Tony Pirone as activists have demanded.

If the Meyers Nave report does turn out to be critical of BART police behavior and not merely a public relations whitewash as some in the community have feared it might be, then it becomes obvious why Chief Gee announced his resignation on Saturday. If the report were to vindicate the BART police at Fruitvale, then it would have also vindicated Gary Gee for taking no action against them and he likely would remain on the force. But, if Gee's officers were out of control -- acting more like a racist, murdering gang than a professional police force -- and Gary Gee failed to hold them to account for their behavior, then he himself is culpable for his own gross negligence as their supervisor. And so his resignation ahead of the release of such a report makes sense.

Looking forward, General Manager Dorothy Dugger is just as culpable as Chief Gee for the failures of the BART police. She is the only one who currently has the authority to reprimand or fire Chief Gee (not even the BART Board legally can), and yet she has failed to do so. Likewise, she has made false statements in support of Gee and the officers involved on the Fruitvale platform. Dugger publicly has stood by Gee and the BART police, deflecting responsibility to Meyers Nave and NOBLE to tell her what to do. Additionally, Tony Pirone and Marysol Domenici need to be held to account for their actions on January 1st, not to mention the perjury they both committed during Johannes Mehserle's preliminary hearing. Why none of the other officers present on the Fruitvale platform felt compelled to check Pirone and Domenici as they assaulted Oscar Grant and his friends, and why they all apparently hesitated in calling for medical assistance after Oscar Grant was shot in the back, are more outstanding issues BART has yet to deal with.

While BART's Board-approved draft for police oversight is flawed for tying its citizen's board's hands with a supermajority requirement and by allowing BART's two police unions to appoint a "citizen" oversight board member, amongst other issues, it is unique in a state dominated by the Police Bill of Rights in that it actually allows civilians outside of BART's police force to have a say in discipline for officer misconduct. Hence the very strong police resistance to the plan -- they worry that it is a foot in the door to stronger civilian police oversight statewide. One can only hope...

Presumably the bill to create external police oversight at BART will pass through the California Assembly's Public Safety Committee, as did Tom Ammiano's AB312, which was an earlier legislative attempt to establish BART police oversight that was stymied by BART itself and statewide police unions. Assemblypersons Jerry Hill and Warren Furutani voiced support for AB312, but passage will also require convincing previously undeclared Assemblypersons Fiona Ma from San Francisco and/or Nancy Skinner from Berkeley in order to move the bill forward. Supporters of increased police oversight at BART should call or email these officials to enourage support for the plan. You can also show up at the offices of Fiona Ma and Nancy Skinner on Fridays when they are required to be in their local offices.

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previous related post:

BART Anxious to Wrap Up Police Oversight Plan at Final Subcommittee Meeting: audio & PDFs
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/08/14/18615770.php