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an evening in south berkeley
an encounter with your friendly, local berkeley police.
it was a nice peaceful april evening in south berkeley (near ashby and san pablo) around 10pm. suddenly the much-feared \"whoop whoop\" of a police siren broke the silence. i lit a cigarette and went outside to watch, sort of out of curiousity and sort of out of the belief that cops interacting with people at night need to have as many eyeballs on them as possible
i was not the only person who was thinking this in the predominantly african-american neighborhood i live in. people from the neighboring apartment building came out to watch.
outside, an unmarked police car had pulled over a car with a black man driving and a black woman passenger. two more regular police cruisers had arrived as \"backup\", their obnoxious strobe lights flashing all over the houses nearby.
the people were instructed to get out of their car by one commanding officer, surrounded by 7-8 other cops.
a middle-aged black woman who had come out to watch the scene called out to me, from about 30 yards away, \"see what i mean? can\'t have a black man driving down this street without getting pulled over\" this broke the initial tension of the scene and people began talking loudly amongst themselves, all while the police looked at each other shifty-eyed and continued about their business.
the cops, who had apparently pulled the car over for little to no good reason, asked permission to search the car. a woman who was watching yelled out, \"you don\'t have to give them permission to search the car!\" the black male driver kind of shrugged and gave permission. the cops proceeded to search the entire inside of the car and the trunk.
making sure to talk loud enough that the cops could hear, people in the community continued talking ... \"every fucking time you think you can walk to the store here come the pigs,\" etc. a woman who lived at the apartment building that the 3 cop cars were blocking tried to walk through the crowd of police, who told her to go around, and she began to loudly complain, \"mother fucking police blocking the parking lot...\"
about 20 minutes later, the bureaucracy of a police stop continued... the cops continued to scour the inside of the car while the detained people stood on the sidewalk, surrounded by 7-8 police. a young african-american woman, around 23 years old, started to tell a story. she said that one time she went to the corner store to pick up a prescription for her mother, and on the way to her mom\'s house, she was pulled over by a white male officer. she said she got pulled over because her license plate tag was expired. she had gotten the license plate tag renewed, but still had to get the costly smogcheck requirement fulfilled, so she had the receipt. usually this means that cops will let you go, within a 30-day window that she was in. however, the cop arrested her on felony drug possession for the prescription she was taking to her mom. she spent 2 days in jail and then the charges were dropped.
the tension was thick in the air. here we were after 45 minutes, the police could not justify why they had pulled over these people, and a crowd of black people were all standing outside, basically heckling the police and the whole situation (and some weird white kid with a camera ready). at this point, the officer in charge was trying to get some kind of information out of the black male driver, and raised his voice to shout out, \"I\'m trying to get this situation moving and it doesnt seem that you LIKE us very much!\" at this point, the on-lookers quit chattering to themselves and silently moved forward a few steps towards the police. the tension was defused again when the commanding officer went to sit by himself in the undercover police cruiser.
finally, after an hour or so, the police handed the driver his ID and registration, and told them to leave. the cops dispersed and the people relaxed and talked to each other for another half hour.
two nights later, a similar incident occurred. again, two black people were pulled over, their entire car searched, and they were let go. again, people from the community were outside to watch, acknowledging each other with eye contact but keeping a little quieter.
the war is here at home
i was not the only person who was thinking this in the predominantly african-american neighborhood i live in. people from the neighboring apartment building came out to watch.
outside, an unmarked police car had pulled over a car with a black man driving and a black woman passenger. two more regular police cruisers had arrived as \"backup\", their obnoxious strobe lights flashing all over the houses nearby.
the people were instructed to get out of their car by one commanding officer, surrounded by 7-8 other cops.
a middle-aged black woman who had come out to watch the scene called out to me, from about 30 yards away, \"see what i mean? can\'t have a black man driving down this street without getting pulled over\" this broke the initial tension of the scene and people began talking loudly amongst themselves, all while the police looked at each other shifty-eyed and continued about their business.
the cops, who had apparently pulled the car over for little to no good reason, asked permission to search the car. a woman who was watching yelled out, \"you don\'t have to give them permission to search the car!\" the black male driver kind of shrugged and gave permission. the cops proceeded to search the entire inside of the car and the trunk.
making sure to talk loud enough that the cops could hear, people in the community continued talking ... \"every fucking time you think you can walk to the store here come the pigs,\" etc. a woman who lived at the apartment building that the 3 cop cars were blocking tried to walk through the crowd of police, who told her to go around, and she began to loudly complain, \"mother fucking police blocking the parking lot...\"
about 20 minutes later, the bureaucracy of a police stop continued... the cops continued to scour the inside of the car while the detained people stood on the sidewalk, surrounded by 7-8 police. a young african-american woman, around 23 years old, started to tell a story. she said that one time she went to the corner store to pick up a prescription for her mother, and on the way to her mom\'s house, she was pulled over by a white male officer. she said she got pulled over because her license plate tag was expired. she had gotten the license plate tag renewed, but still had to get the costly smogcheck requirement fulfilled, so she had the receipt. usually this means that cops will let you go, within a 30-day window that she was in. however, the cop arrested her on felony drug possession for the prescription she was taking to her mom. she spent 2 days in jail and then the charges were dropped.
the tension was thick in the air. here we were after 45 minutes, the police could not justify why they had pulled over these people, and a crowd of black people were all standing outside, basically heckling the police and the whole situation (and some weird white kid with a camera ready). at this point, the officer in charge was trying to get some kind of information out of the black male driver, and raised his voice to shout out, \"I\'m trying to get this situation moving and it doesnt seem that you LIKE us very much!\" at this point, the on-lookers quit chattering to themselves and silently moved forward a few steps towards the police. the tension was defused again when the commanding officer went to sit by himself in the undercover police cruiser.
finally, after an hour or so, the police handed the driver his ID and registration, and told them to leave. the cops dispersed and the people relaxed and talked to each other for another half hour.
two nights later, a similar incident occurred. again, two black people were pulled over, their entire car searched, and they were let go. again, people from the community were outside to watch, acknowledging each other with eye contact but keeping a little quieter.
the war is here at home
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He had made a complaint at the Police Review Commission after an incident in which his sister had been interrogated by the police over something related to her landlord, and he wanted to be present, and to witness the questioning. Officer DiBlasi (I'm pretty sure, but not entirely sure this is the officer) was getting very angry over his presence and telling him to go away, and was using racialized and patronizing language such as "hey, blood" (he's black, and often dresses in a way that can be interpreted as muslim, and diBlasi is white) and this was the substance of the PRC complaint. This all occurred near Ashby and Spaulding. My black housemate who is a security guard was once on a ride-along with DiBlasi and said that he once really did show his anger or lack of control when a onlooker at a stop in west Berkeley was spitting at him and diBlasi pushed the guy.
Anyway, the police review commission finds fault with the officers in *very few* complaints during the year. And there is significant reason to conclude that the PRC hearings should be televised on public access. You see, people at the PRC supposedly conduct an 'independent' investigation of the incident, and the outcome really depends on the integrity, honesty and discretion of these PRC investigators. They have to weigh evidence between what the police are saying and what people filing the complaints are saying, and it seems to be that they don't find a lot of credibility for people who speak black english, don't have college degrees, much less if they are homeless or mentally ill. Anyway, his PRC complaint was totally waved off despite all the evidence and documentation he had because he was considered a noncredible person. The head person at the PRC is a woman called Barbara Attard. From what my acquaintance tells me, she has friendly relations with many of the officers.
After this PRC hearing, a group of officers including officers diBlasi, Wellington and three others, possibly including Gordon, stopped him when he was entering the courthouse building which is immediately adjoining the new police building downtown. He was in the courthouse on some entirely unrelated business. The officers basically bum rushed him and handcuffed him and brought him into the yard of the jail and were lecturing him about how he must be really stupid and they don't like frivolous complaints filed against them or something like that (I wasn't there, of course, so I'm not sure what they said).
And this is getting to the most disturbing part. He went to the PRC building to request copies of the paperwork related to his complain in an entirely peaceable fashion. The person at the desk, who I believe was Attard (but I may be wrong), called up officer Wellington. It would seem that the two had been talking and agreeing that he was just this persistent sort of crazy guy with an illegitimate complaint. Wellington came and they filed a completely false report that was designed to make it seem as though my acquaintance had been having a paranoid schizophrenic episode. They made completely ludicrous and false statements like that he had been saying that everyone else has radio implants in their head and are centrally controlled by some conspiratorial power and are against him, and that he had been making violent threats to hurt or kill the officers. This was part of a '5150' report that is used to forcibly put a mentally ill person who is a danger to themself or others under observation. Then they called in an ambulance to drive him to the mental institution in San Leandro. The ambulance people could see that he was totally coherent and was not nuts, and he even made friends with them on the trip down. Luckily the mental health institutions in Alameda county are so overburdened that they are kicking people with real problems out on the street right and left, so he got out pretty quickly. In any case, just think about this. If he ever has an incident with the police again, this report will come up. Any angry statement that he makes, or any further retribution or problems he suffers from the police will be interpreted in a completely different fashion. they will just say that he is mentally ill and suffering delusions - so I view this as an entirely conscious political move on the part of Officer Wellington.
Anyway, the only real solution I see to this is to petition to televise the police review commission hearings on channel 25 public access.
In the above case, I think Off. DiBlasi needs some sort of wakeup call for his temper, but he isn't the worst officer on the force. Wellington pretty much has to go. Barbara Attard too.
It's kind of interesting that my friend, and a lot of african american relatives and neighbors of his, have this 'we can stand the police, yet we need more police' attitude that clashes with my own perspective as a white progressive who is involved with various anarchist-oriented projects, but grew up in a middle class area with no so many crime problems. He grew up in a building immediately adjoining the parking lot of a liquor store on San Pablo a few blocks from University Ave., and it was just an open drug market a dozen years ago during the crack era. And the way the police ran the city then, they considered some parts of West and south berkeley to be 'containment zones', where they didn't respond to calls or enforce the law because it was a black neighborhood. The % of black people in Berkeley has gone way down due to gentrification in recent years, and west berkeley has changed quite a bit. My friend has stories of his mother calling in every other night when there were people walking around on the sidewalks with rifles, guns going off, bricks going through their window (his mother was very vocal and would challenge dealers, and banded together with other church ladies to chase prostitutes around on san pablo trying to shame them - which isn't too progressive, but that was their reality). Some drug dealer neighbors caught their cat and slit its throat and then tossed it back on the lawn as a form of threat. The police dispatchers pretty much started to yawn when they kept calling in complaints regarding violence. This all sounds very difficult for me to truly believe and understand, but that is what the 1980s were like in west Berkeley. The police then were pretty unresponsive to complaints by people so distant from the university area who weren't really of consequence to them. I've even heard from more than one person that the police in a way 'manage' the drug trade by keeping it down to a smaller number of dealers who they have something of a relationship with. This older black lady said that police even tell dealers who is making the complaints about them.