UCB-PD Review Board a Fixed Game

On December 1st, the UC Berkeley Police Review Board reconvened for their yearly public meeting. The meeting, which was not well publicized, was held in a cramped room in the bottom floor of Barrows Hall. UC Berkeley School of Law professor Jesse Choper was the only board member to speak to the public. Jesse Choper is a Boalt Hall colleague of John Yoo, the law professor who help set the legal framework for US torture programs.

Jesse Choper announced that Chancellor Robert Birgeneau tasked the board to review police actions at Occupy UC. The board did not explain what such an investigation would entail. Despite a January 31, 2012 deadline to complete the investigation into the abuses against the student protesters, the board had not yet decided the protocols of the investigation. The board's standard of evidence was set so high, it was not clear what would meet their standards. Choper claimed student accounts could not be substantiated and video footage, even the UC Berkeley Police's own footage, could not be verified as being real.

It was asked how the board could report back to Birgineau and follow the lead of Birgieneau, if the Chancellor himself had ordered the military-style raid of the UC Berkeley Commune. Choper declared it would be "inappropriate to make that conclusion". However, that argument suggests that the police are acting autonomously, separate from the UC itself, with no oversight from the Chancellor's office.

Choper concluded by stating that "dictatorships produce fast justice", and that the students should appreciate the fact that "the wheels of American justice grind slowly."

After giving the board's annual statement to the public, students and faculty lined up to speak. One student told of his own personal experience being pepper-sprayed. A professor spoke out against having the campus protesters being sent to Santa Rita, when they could have been cited and released.

The majority of those in attendance lacked faith in the police review board. The process appeared to be a fixed game as the board reports to Birgineau and defers to the police which it is supposed to be investigating. The majority of those in attendance voted to develop a student, faculty and community run police review board which would be independent from UC control.