Berkeley Police Chief Meehan No-Show @ Review Commission

Berkeley Police Chief Michael Meehan was a no-show at the Berkeley Police Review Commission, Wednesday night (March 14th). While his presence is not required if someone of substantial rank is assigned to go in his place, it was expected he would appear to answer the Police Review Commission's questions regarding statements made to the press, as well as the decision to sent Sergeant Mary Kusmiss to reporter Doug Oakley's house.

There was a audience of about 15 people in the crowd, some with questions or statements regarding the Berkeley Police's handling of Occupy: ranging from proving a support role to Oakland PD, to the wrongful arrest of a Berkeley protester and subsequent refusal of the department to rightfully return the protester's belongings.

Berkeley PD Captain Cynthia Harris was present at the review commission, however the captain was unable - or unwilling - to answer questions provided to her. Captain Harris serves on the Professional Standards division, and should have been been able to provide more insight into the professional standards the police are supposed to meet. However, queries made by commission members went generally unanswered, the Captain pleading ignorance.

Commissioner Sharon Adams was in particular trying to get to the root of Meehan's statement to the press and public that an FTP March was headed to take over the UC Berkeley police station. Where did this supposition come out of? What was the process of intelligence gathering which garnered such a wrong hypothesis, and is this information available for public review? Adams reminded Harris that it is the purpose of the board to provide oversight of the police and their policies. This claim of a police station take-over is at the crux of the terrible decision to hold over officers way from aiding in public safety; instead that night's shift was told to monitor the march.

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Police review commission meeting March 15th. Commissioner Adams questioning BPD Captain Harris.

Adams: My question is, were there 36 police officers on duty that night at the...a single police station?

Harris: I don't have that information on front of me. I didn't come prepared to discuss that. I think the chief addressed some of that at the press conference.

Adams: Do you recall what he said at the press conference?

Harris: No, I don't know.

Adams: Do you know where the information came from that the FTP march was going to take over the police station? Do you know that Chief Meehan said that was publicly available information? If that was publicly available information how would the police department process that information?

Harris: So, you're talking about open source information?

Adams: Yes, open source information.

Harris: We could go online like anyone else and get that information.

Adams: And if you had open source information that you thought was relevant, in terms of a threat to public safety, do you keep a record of that?

Harris: If you are talking about in regards to what happened that night, if there's a record in regards to that, I don't have that information.

Adams: No, I'm just asking for your policy. We are here on the police review commission, and we are trying to review the police. We are trying to establish a little more civilian oversight of what's going on. I am trying to find out what the process is. Publicly available information, and I'm just going on what I heard Chief Meehan say, publicly available information led the police to believe that the FTP march was going to take over [a] police station. So my question is, in that police procedure would you keep a record of that information?

Harris: We wouldn't have to keep a record because it's public information; it's an open source.

Adams: For the next meeting, I would like to have a lot of information, as much information as possible about the events of that night... Where the intelligence came from, what intelligence was used, how the decision was made to process that intelligence.