Breaking News: Emeryville Police Give Up Military Chemical Weapon Launchers, Keep Assault Rifles

Breaking News:

Emeryville Police Attempt Carve Out Exemption for Arsenal of Military Assault Rifles

Emeryville Stands Alone Among Bay Area Police Departments 

AR-15 Rifles at Neighboring Police Departments Voluntarily Regulated By AB-481

The Emeryville Police Department last week unceremoniously dumped its arsenal of military style chemical agent launchers and issued a letter of disclosure to the City Council of its stockpile of military weapons of war in order to comply with California Assembly Bill 481, the Tattler has learned.  The department however is reserving the right to continue to carry the AR-15 military assault rifles as it has, regardless of the provisions of AB 481 (which normally requires police departments to declare them and submit a use policy for them) using a controversial claim that the assault rifles are “standard issue” and therefore beyond the reach of the State's regulation.  The City Council will meet and discuss the issue at its Tuesday meeting.

Emeryville Police Department stands alone among police departments in the Bay Area with the claim about its AR-15 arsenal according to John Lindsay-Poland, the co-director of the American Friends Service Committee’s California Healing Justice program.  All the other police departments are not making such a claim and their department issued AR-15 rifles are consequentially falling under the regulatory provisions of AB 481, Mr Lindsay-Poland told the Tattler. 

The purpose of the assembly bill, signed into law on September 30, 2021, is to require the police department to obtain the approval of the City Council before taking actions relating to the funding, acquisition, or use of military equipment. 

The issuance of AR-15 assault rifles among
some police departments like EPD have contributed
to a culture of militarization in recent years.

AB 481 was authored by Assembly member David Chiu (D-San Francisco).  It was written to have the effect to reduce the amount of military equipment and weapons of war in California police departments.  The jettisoning of Emeryville’s military chemical agent launchers last week just before Tuesday’s letter to the City Council is testimony to the bill's reach.  But the claims of compliance with AB 481 made by EPD regarding its stockpile of the AR-15 military assault rifles will have to be quantified according to the new law.  A strenuous policy of transparency and accountability to citizen complainants provided in the bill means the department may end up reclassifying the guns to match neighboring police departments.

The legislature of the State of California has defined the AR-15 as military equipment and an assault rifle

The American Friends Service Committee, founded in 1917, is a Religious Society of Friends (the 'Quakers') founded organization working for peace and social justice in the United States and around the world. 

Military CS Gas Launcher
Emeryville Police finally gave up these weapons of war 
last week because of AB 481.

In anticipation of Tuesday’s meeting, the City staff says AB 481 requires that law enforcement agencies seeking to continue the use of any Military Equipment must commence the approval process for the Policy by May 1, 2022.  They are recommending waiving the first reading of and introducing an ordinance adopting Emeryville Police Department Policy 707: Military Equipment. The second reading and formal adoption of the ordinance will not be scheduled until the relinquishment of the military chemical launcher equipment is verified as complete. 

New Police Chief Moves to Increase Police Accountability

 New Chief Unilaterally Increases Police Accountability

Town Hall Public Debate on Militarization,

Citizen Complaints Democratized

Emeryville’s new Chief of Police, Jeffery Jennings, indicated this week he will usher in greater accountability and transparency at the police department by agreeing to a open town hall style public meeting addressing police use of force and re-writing the citizen complaint code against officers with a higher degree of probity and openness.  The town hall meeting will likely be held off until the fall owing to the COVID pandemic but the re-write of the complaint code will begin much sooner says the Chief.

The Chief’s democratic demeanor, representing a thawing of previous intractability at the EPD on these two issues, will bring a new local level of community engagement for the department against a backdrop of greater calls for police accountability nation-wide. 

As it stands now, a citizen who wishes to make a complaint against an Emeryville police officer is asked to surrender their name, their address and their date of birth, all expressly counter to citizen’s right to make complaints anonymously.  Chief Jennings agrees the way the code is written now is improper and he told the Tattler April 20th he “will make it right” so that it better comports with state law.  The questions about complainants’ identity will be clearly qualified that answers given are strictly on a voluntary basis.  The date of birth question will be dispensed with altogether according to Chief Jennings.

Chief Jeff Jennings

These questions, as currently asked of would be citizen complainants, besides being of dubious legality, have a stultifying effect on accountability owing to their coercive and intimidating nature.

The public town hall style meeting will be attended by police department employees including the Chief himself and will focus on the militarization of EPD including specifically the quiet issuance of AR-15 assault rifles some years ago to officers for use in their daily rounds in Emeryville.  The police will answer citizen's questions and the Chief will weigh in himself on the issuance of these weapons to the rank and file he says.  The Council chambers will likely be the location of the meeting and it will probably take place before a regularly scheduled City Council meeting.

Assault rifles are considered weapons of high firepower and great lethality by the state legislature and are illegal for most citizens to carry in the State of California.  Emeryville police started carrying these weapons about six years ago, around the time former Chief of Police Jennifer Tejada took office during a period when police forces began acquiring military grade weapons systems nation-wide.  Citizens requested accountability for the new level of force the police acquired in Emeryville but were rebuffed by Chief Tejada.  The department would not attend any such town hall meetings set up to debate the militarization of the department Chief Tejada said.  “The weapons of my officers are not going to be up to a public debate” Chief Tejada opined at a public safety meeting at the time and City Hall dropped the issue.

By reversing the department’s wall of silence around the assault rifles issued to police and the unilateral rewriting of the citizen complaint code, EPD signals it is open to a new period of glasnost.  It is hard to say if this democratization of Emeryville’s police comes as a result of the new Chief or from pressure from below, taken on as citizens demand greater police accountability nation-wide.  Perhaps it’s a bit of both.  But it is taken as a public good that the police department has more citizen support as they strongly pronounce their embrace of and need for ‘community policing’.  

Emeryville's Current Police Complaint Form
Complainant's name, address, date of birth not optional.  Many citizens, seeing these questions will drop the complaint. 
Accountability is effectively thwarted.  Is that the function of this?    

Emeryville Police Announces Public Debate Regarding Department Issued Assault Rifles

Captain Oliver Collins of the Emeryville Police Department announced at a community engagement event at the Center of Community Life tonight there will be a future public forum on Department issued AR-15 assault rifles EPD officers have been carrying on their rounds here for several years.  The EPD issuance of the controversial weapons, banned for civilians by the State of California, has been a point of some contention since an Emeryville officer used one of the rifles to kill Oakland resident Yuvette Henderson in a 2015 shooting following a shoplifting event after a pistol was brandished by the woman.  Prior to that shooting, most Emeryville residents were unaware Emeryville police had been issued these consequential guns at some point in the recent past and calls for a public forum on the issue began to be expressed by members of the public.

Captain Collins made the announcement of the future AR-15 forum at the 1st Annual Emeryville 'Barbershop Forum', a series of police department sponsored public forums to build community trust after the tragic BART police shooting of Oscar Grant in 2009.  Top brass of police departments from around the Bay Area attended the Emeryville event tonight including the Chiefs of San Francisco, Oakland and Hayward.  Emeryville's Chief of Police, Jennifer Tejada was notably absent however.

Making the announcement to the crowd of 50 or so members of the public tonight, Officer Collins didn't commit to a date or location for the proposed AR-15 forum but presumably it will take place at Emeryville City Hall Council chambers as part of a 'Special Meeting'. Such community forums commonly occur before regularly scheduled Council meetings.  The Tattler will announce the date and pertinent information as soon as it is made public.

City of Emeryville Attempts to Derail Civil Case in Yuvette Henderson Shooting

Summary Judgement Sought by Police 

in Wrongful Death Civil Case

Lurid, Grisly Courtroom Details From High Powered 

Police AR-15 Fire

Police Shooting "Illegal" Says Attorney
Woman Unarmed When Killed

Details of the killing of Yuvette Henderson by Emeryville police in 2015 were finally publicly revealed in a packed courtroom as Dan Siegel, an attorney retained by the Henderson family laid out the grisly last moments of the Oakland woman's life as part of a wrongful death civil case heard at the District Federal Court in Oakland Thursday.  Attorneys hired by the City of Emeryville, who contend Ms Henderson pointed a gun at the police and so were within their rights to kill the woman, attempted to stop the case in the hearing with a hoped for a summary judgment that will be decided by Magistrate Judge Donna Ryu on March 28th.
Mr Siegal showed forensic evidence that puts the Emeryville Police Department's claim that the woman "drew down" on one officer into question and further showed the last shots fired, including the kill shot by the police at the African American woman, were done after she had been incapacitated and unarmed.

Dan Siegel, the plaintiff's attorney in the emerging civil case said Ms Henderson may have had a gun but he noted that is immaterial to the illegal killing of her.  He testified that witnesses and a nearby security camera reveal there were three distinct volleys of fire from the Emeryville police officers on Ms Henderson.  Forensic evidence was presented that determined Ms Henderson was struck in the side of her chest on February 3rd, 2015 with a round from the police AR-15 rifle in volley two that passed through her right arm, shattering it and causing her gun to fly back at least six feet behind her.  After a pause, as Ms Henderson lay on the ground severely wounded and disarmed, is when the EPD officer with the assault rifle fired the kill shot from his assault rifle as part of volley three, striking Ms Henderson in the head as she attempted to lift her head Mr Siegel testified.

The police contend Ms Henderson had been involved in a shoplifting at Home Depot and she walked several blocks south to just inside Oakland on Hollis Street when they arrived at the scene. Officers maintain Ms Henderson was waiving the gun all around wildly when they got there.  They opened fire after yelling for Ms Henderson to drop her weapon.  She was not struck in volley one but after a pause she was shot in volley two when she faced one of the officers with the AR-15 and "drew down" on him with a pistol police said, regardless of the fact that she was struck in her side with the AR-15 round in the barrage of fire.  The other officer at the scene had a service revolver and was not successful in hitting Ms Henderson.  The police version of the 'draw down' was not corroborated by a witness questioned after the shooting.  The officers say they were fearful for their lives as a result of the gun in her possession.  After Ms Henderson was injured and on the ground they maintain she was attempting to get back up in order to rearm herself.  The video reveals the police did not yell out for the woman to stay down before they killed her.
The Emeryville Police Department admits Ms Henderson did not fire the revolver at their officers or anyone else at any time during the melee.  The two officers involved in the shooting had body-worn cameras but they were turned off according to the police.
Mr Siegel said there was testimony from the police taken after the shooting that changed after the existence of the security video was announced some days after the shooting took place.  Some of their testimony is contradicted by the video he said.

At a large gathering outside the Federal Courthouse on Clay Street after the hearing 11 AM, exiting courtroom attendees told the Tattler if Judge Ryu allows the case to go forward, the City of Emeryville will be forced to pay restitution to the family of Yuvette Henderson, an eventuality many gathered in solidarity with the Hendersons think likely.

There has been public outcry after the killing of Ms Henderson over the fact that the Emeryville police now routinely carry the high powered military style AR-15 rifle.  The killing of Yuvette Henderson is the first shooting by Emeryville police with their newly issued AR-15 rifles.  Colt AR-15 rifles have been determined to be assault rifles by the State of California and they have been banned for civilians.  The Chief of Police for the City of Emeryville says the State of California is wrong and the Colt AR-15 rifles Emeryville police carry are not assault rifles but rather simple sporting rifles as the NRA says.

The City of Emeryville Has Determined Colt AR-15 Assault Rifles Are NOT Assault Rifles

The AR-15, Weapon of Choice for Mass Shooters in America, is NOT an Assault Rifle Says Emeryville

News Analysis

Firepower on a truly epic scale;
The AR-15  can shoot through concrete block walls.

In order to stifle public debate and concern over Emeryville police now carrying assault rifles, the Chief of Police has determined that assault rifles are not assault rifles.  The City Council agrees with the Chief and the City of Emeryville has taken a lonely position among municipalities in their determination that Colt AR-15 rifles are not assault rifles.  The shooting of Yuvette Henderson by Emeryville police last year with an AR-15 has divided the community but unified the City of Emeryville; City Hall closing ranks with the Chief of Police.

Gun enthusiasts call the AR-15
'America's Gun'.

 When mass shooters in America wish to mete out epic carnage and pile up a huge body count in a few fleeting moments, the gun of choice is invariably the high powered Colt AR-15 assault rifle. That much everyone agrees upon.  The disagreements start when the word 'assault' is applied to this gun.  The State of California (who have banned the weapon) and police departments up and down the state acknowledge the lethal singularity of this weapon and they have designated the gun an assault rifle but the NRA and the City of Emeryville objects, insisting the AR-15 is nothing special...just a garden variety sporting rifle.
The City Manager Carolyn Lehr has made a contorted Nixonian finding to support Emeryville police carrying the weapon; in the hands of police, assault rifles are no longer assault rifles she told the Tattler yesterday.

The City of Emeryville and the City Council in their silence while their Chief of Police goes on a campaign in our town decrying the legislature of the State of California over the proper nomenclature have made it official by default: here in Emeryville, the AR-15 specifically is NOT an assault rifle.

Who disagrees with the City of Emeryville and the National Rifle Association?  Who says AR-15's ARE assault rifles?

• The President of the United States
• The Congress of the United States
• The Legislature of the State of California
• The Governor of the State of California
• San Francisco Police Department 
• Oakland Police Department
• San Jose Police Department 

Manly perhaps but the AR-15 is just an average
sporting rifle says the City of Emeryville.
Fine for our police to carry they say.

Emeryville Police Should NOT Carry AR-15 Assualt Rifles

Wrongheaded Policy on Police Weapons Hijacks 

Smart Public Policy

The Chief of Police Needs to Provide the Elected Officials 

With Objective, Trustworthy Information

Opinion/News Analysis
Should Emeryville police carry AR-15 assault rifles? That's a public debate that didn't happen; our police officers in fact already do carry these controversial high powered rifles with them.  Still, the City Council majority seems interested enough to begin an ex post facto debate on the issue. Last Thursday's Public Safety Committee was the opening salvo, so to speak, in the better-late-than-never debate.
So far what we've heard in this up until now one sided debate is that the Police Department has no choice about the weapons they carry; that's determined by the criminals and in the weapons the criminals happen to choose says our Chief of Police (the criminals in the aggregate presumably but unqualified nonetheless).

Councilwoman Nora Davis
We have no choice in the matter,
"Force must be met with force" she says.
On the table in the foreground are bullets,
the largest being a .50 caliber round
tank buster, the next weapon to be carried
by the Emeryville Police Department.

Public policy must be subverted we're told, all in service of a dubious meme that would lock us into an arms race with criminals.  The other side of the debate, promulgated by those who would advocate for a polity that doesn't lock us unnecessarily into that predetermined fate, those who say smart police tactics are what's called for and force need not slavishly be met with equal force, is countered by the Chief and also by Councilwoman Nora Davis as it turns out.  It's all being played out over the the Emeryville Police Department's use of the AR-15 assault rifle and its high powered rounds that can literally blow a person's head off, specifically, what's being debated is the wisdom of these new weapons being carried by officers in their day to day patrols.  Also at that consequential and revealing meeting, we watched the Chief present evidence that tantalizingly hints of a .50 caliber future; what's to come in Emeryville's  arms race with criminals.

Thursday's meeting revealed an unfortunate lack of cogency on the side of the police department and Machiavellian tactics being used to shut off honest debate by the Chief of Police Jennifer Tejada and her friend on the Public Safety Committee, member Nora Davis.

The police use of deadly force was placed on the agenda by Vice Mayor and Committee Chair Scott Donahue and was intended to open up the debate, but it was seized upon by Chief Tejada as an opportunity to deceive the Council member decision makers present (at least the Vice Mayor) as she presented a 'war on police' narrative that necessitates a ramping up the firepower of the cops on the street.  Since criminals are carrying these assault weapons, so must the police apparently.
Further, she attempted to mollify would be concerned citizens and Council members by signaling the AR-15's ordinary and 'reasonable' status by claiming the rifle is not even illegal in California and that the police aren't therefore carrying anything more than can be bought by ordinary citizens, a patently false statement.

The Chief of Police is enthralled with the idea that police must carry at least the same weapons that the criminals carry, hinting next in the line-up will be .50 caliber weapons.  It was a sentiment echoed by Councilwoman Davis, "Force must be met with force" the Councilwoman stated, a fait accompli that would take the public out of public policy and place it instead in the control of criminals.  This democratically disempowering and cynical worldview was presented after an officer made a presentation to the Committee about how police had recently found a criminal's cache of .50 caliber weapons, a gun that can take out a tank on a battlefield, a gun that's being employed more and more by ordinary criminals the officer said.

Emeryville Police Chief
Jennifer Tejada
In her days as Sausalito Chief of Police.
Now, in Emeryville, she's not 
giving us an honest debate
on the AR-15 assault rifle.

To graphically show the special capacity for havoc .50 caliber weapons can wreak, the officer placed a round on the table next to other rounds, including the AR-15 round.  These .50 calibers are what's coming next for the EPD and it would appear the Chief of Police is preparing the City Council to wrap their heads around the idea of our officers carrying this tank busting gun...we have no choice, remember?  Councilwoman Davis was so impressed by the presentation, the dramatic sight of the huge .50 caliber round prompted her to demand the Emeryville Police Department weapon up and meet force with force.
To pause for a moment and express the obvious: this dumb line of argument makes no sense whatsoever and is reckless, frankly.  In fact, we are not boxed in, our hands are not tied by criminals in Emeryville.  This is not policy in the public interest and it's dangerous.

After the presentation that presaged our bleak future, Emeryville cops carrying .50 caliber weapons (mounted on the roofs of the cop cars?), the Chief of Police again told the assembled throng that AR-15s are not assault rifles...an opinion disguised as fact by our Chief.  As we have said in the past, the Congress of the United States and the State of California disagree with her on that.  It's unseemly that our Chief puts stock in the opinion of the NRA over the State of California on this issue.  It's noteworthy that the police departments of the City of Oakland, Berkeley, San Francisco, and San Jose all disagree with our Chief on the AR-15....they all agree with the State of California that these guns ARE assault rifles.  Nomenclature is important because the debate frame will drive public opinion and transparency and forthrightness by government officials should be the the operating principle here.

Coming Next to the Emeryville Police Department:
The 'Tank Buster' .50 Caliber Rifle
'Criminals are starting to arm themselves with it,
so therefore must we.'

But it's Chief Tejada's insistence that public policy be hijacked in Emeryville by the whims of criminals and their ever increasing firepower that we find most objectionable.  We urge the Chief of Police to stop this ham handed approach to policing.  To the Chief: if you think it's prudent for our officers to carry AR-15 assault rifles, or .50 caliber rifles, then you should made a cogent and persuasive argument and don't rely on these dishonest and unbecoming tactics.  Tell us why it's important for Emeryville police officer to carry whatever weapon you think is prudent and let's have a REAL and transparent debate.


To cut to the chase however, there's no war on police in America or in Emeryville and we believe its not appropriate for Emeryville police to carry AR-15 assault rifles (let alone .50 caliber guns).  Studies have shown police tend to use new weapons given to them with increasing and increasingly inappropriate frequency.  It's the old adage at play; when all you a have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail.  Police departments that issue tasers find their use by officers increases over time, increasingly with terrible effect on the public.  Already, one person has been killed by Emeryville police with the newly issued AR-15 rifle.

The AR-15 is a high powered weapon and it can blast through a concrete block wall or penetrate three people and still have enough power to kill the fourth.  It has the power to decapitate people.  We don't need our police carrying that kind of firepower in their day to day patrols in our town.  Perhaps these guns could be stored at the police station for use in the unlikely case one were ever needed.
But what we cannot countenance is for the Police Department to be used to purposefully obscure and now engage in forwarding actual misinformation to the decision makers and the citizens as they give us their opinion that they should continue to be allowed to carry AR-15's.  Our Emeryville Police Department has a stellar reputation; it's a shame to see it unnecessarily marred like this.

Letter to the Tattler: John Lindsay-Poland

Special to the Tattler-
Guest blogger John Linsay-Poland is drawn to Emeryville on the anniversary, today, of the shooting of Yuvette Henderson by the Emeryville Police Department.  

Police Assault Weapons in Emeryville

By John Lindsay-Poland

John Lindsay-Poland

A year ago today, Emeryville Police shot and killed 38-year-old Yuvette Henderson, using an AR-15 assault weapon. Henderson had just dropped off her kids at school, and allegedly had shoplifted at Home Depot, was injured, and left when police gunned her down. According to the autopsy report, she was shot in the back.

Emeryville PD’s Sgt. Fred Dauer told me that the advantages of the AR-15 are that it is highly accurate at a distance, and that it pierces body armor. Yet Henderson was killed from a short distance, and she wore no body armor. Besides Yuvette’s death, the AR-15’s extra capacity to go through people and objects and penetrate others creates additional hazards. Police shooting last February 3, for example, also shattered the car windows of a bystander.

In December, a number of community members addressed policing, militarization, racism, immigration enforcement, and the Yuvette Henderson case at a forum in Emeryville (see the video here). There, we talked about some uncomfortable facts: in 2015, Black people were more than twice as likely as White people to be killed by police. But if Black people were unarmed, they were three and a half times as likely to be killed by police.

Just six blocks from where Henderson was killed, less than a week before, a White marijuana grower pursued police deputies in Oakland and fired a high-powered gun at the officers, but they did not even return fire.

People often say that police need assault weapons because criminals are killing them. Folks can be forgiven if they think there is a “war on police,” since some media promote this idea. But in fact, the number of police killed by others in the line of duty is at an all-time low, according to data compiled by the American Enterprise Institute.

EPD chief Jennifer Tejada has claimed in public that the AR-15 is not an assault weapon, but the gun industry has long said otherwise – at least when it wants to capture a certain market. As the Violence Policy Center notes, “The NRA, the gun industry, the gun press, and other pro-gun “experts” today claim that there is no such thing as a civilian ‘assault weapon.’ They prefer to call them ‘tactical rifles’ or ‘modern sporting rifles.’ But before these types of guns came under fire, these same experts enthusiastically described exactly these civilian versions as ‘assault rifles,’ ‘assault pistols,’ and ‘military assault’ weapons.” Private possession of assault weapons is illegal in California.

Emeryville PD officers said that when Yuvette Henderson was killed, they were protecting the public, because, they say, Henderson had a gun pointed at them (though it is unclear then how they shot her in the back). The officers also say that the only time they have fired an AR-15 since the force acquired them in 2002 was when they killed Henderson. Chief Tejada told me that no police report is made about the AR-15’s use it unless it is fired. In other words, if police go out and take the AR-15 out of the patrol car, but do not fire it, they do not include that in their report of the incident. This makes it difficult to evaluate their claim that the AR-15 is protecting public safety, since the only record of its use in Emeryville resulted in police killing someone. That actually demonstrates the opposite.

EPD officers did a training in December around ‘officer involved shootings’ which lasted a full week, costing more than $7,000. That appears to indicate the Department believes that officers’ judgment in using lethal force needs improvement.

Meanwhile, Chief Tejada is attempting to shore up her political support by getting members of the City Council to attend a “force options” training between now and April to put themselves in the positions of police officers walking into situations and then decide on use of force.

If Emeryville PD has not done so already, it should do some training of officers in implicit bias. Study after study shows that even well-intentioned people – of all races – have unconscious biases against African-Americans. When police face individuals suspected of a crime, those biases can quickly become deadly. Two hundred fifty police agencies have already done some form of such implicit bias training. The aggregate results of this testing should be made public, so we may know where EPD stands in our common imperative to reduce and eliminate the hurtful practices of racism.

The City’s Public Safety Committee will consider its use of force, including AR-15s, next Thursday, February 11 at 11 a.m. You can make a public comment or listen. The meeting will be at the Emeryville PD, 2449 Powell St.

John Lindsay-Poland is Wage Peace Coordinator with the American Friends Service Committee. He blogs for Huffington Post and is the author of  Emperors in the Jungle: The Hidden History of the U.S. in Panama (Duke University Press).  He lives in the Bay Area. 

Emeryville Police: What's Next? AR-15 Assault Rifles on Bikes?

Shouldn't Cops on Bikes Be Able to Shoot Through Concrete Block Walls Like their Car Driving Counterparts?

Opinion
Emeryville's new Chief of Police Jennifer Tejada commented at the 'Goal Setting Workshop' meeting on Saturday at City Hall, she would like to see electric bicycles for the police to patrol with.  She seemed to be very passionate about it.  We think it's a great idea...get the police out of their cars and mix with the community more.  You know, 'community policing' and all.

We have a modest proposal to add to that; how about if Chief Tejada adds some AR-15 assault rifles to the bikes?  The Chief says the bad guys are arming themselves with these high powered assault rifles and there's a 'war on police' so we figure just because our police officers are on bikes, why should they be exposed?  Shouldn't they be armed to the teeth with 3200 ft/sec armor piercing projectile velocity, 1300 foot pounds of muzzle kinetic energy weapons just like Emeryville's car riding cops are?  Rounds from these rifles can go right through a concrete block wall or three bad guys standing in a line so why shouldn't our guys riding the bikes be able to do likewise?  We think this is a wonderful marriage between Chief Tejada's insistence that Emeryville police be driving around armed with AR-15 assault rifles and her new found love of cops on bikes.

Next year watch for rocket propelled grenade launchers mounted on Emeryville police bicycles as the 'war on police' continues.  Coming soon to your neighborhood; cops on bikes with RPG launchers (can SAM Surface to Air Missile launchers be far off?).

An AR-15 slung over the shoulder is nice but...

Look how much better this rear mount scabbard is.
All that's missing is the Emeryville Police Department logo
on the bike.

The front handlebar mount style is great
for rapid aim and fire. Wonderful for
rapidly "raining death" on punks.

Then of course there's the ever popular
front scabbard mount to deliver a wall of
lead to the bad guys.

Let's not forget Emeryville motorcycle cops need
massive firepower too.  AR-15's for everybody!

This nice piece of flaming deadly firepower
could be drawn in seconds.

But we like the 'shoot 'n skoot' headstock mount the best.
No need to even stop riding.
Emeryville cops could REALLY put the hurt on the
bad guys with these!

Protest March in Emeryville May Have Been Largest in History

Monday's Martin Luther King Day protest march in Emeryville was joined by "hundreds" according to the Emeryville Police Department.  The civil disobedience was peaceful; no vandalism or criminal activity save the blocking of streets was reported by the police.
Protestors are concerned about the Emeryville police shooting of Yuvette Henderson last year with a high powered AR-15 assault rifle, a weapon the citizens have recently learned the EPD now carries as a matter of routine in their patrol cars.  The arming by Emeryville police of these assault rifles has sparked a debate among residents and the City Council promises to look into the issue with police use of deadly force protocols being reviewed according to Councilman Scott Donahue, Chair of the Public Safety Committee.

The crowd started out in Oakland's
Oscar Grant Plaza at city hall thousands strong...
all ages, races & demographics.

East Bay Bridge Mall
Emeryville's suburban style shopping malls were
transected along the march route.

Over the 40th Street Bridge and past another
Emeryville shopping icon: Ikea...

Many 'inconvenienced'' drivers were supportive.

The Bay Street Mall
Into the holy of holies for Emeryville: the BSM,
what passes for our city center downtown.
A substantive protest has never ventured into
this mall before Monday.

Down Shellmound Street...

The intersection of 40th and Ohlone street was blocked
for an hour and a half.

Emeryville Enters Battle Over Definition of 'Assault Rifle'

If AR-15's Are Assault Weapons, Emeryville Residents Might Not Want Them

News Analysis
Battle lines are being drawn in town over the definition of the term 'assault rifle' after the children of Yuvette Henderson filed suit against the City of Emeryville for her February 3rd wrongful death at the hands of the Emeryville Police Department using such a rifle.  Chief of Police Jennifer Tejada has entered into the fray with a campaign to assure Emeryville residents the AR-15 assault rifles carried by the Emeryville police and specifically used in the shooting of Ms Henderson, are merely regular rifles, with nothing 'assault' about them.

While firearm nomenclature may seem arcane, Emeryville's foray onto the battle ground for control of the term assault rifle is also a consequential nation-wide phenomenon breaking along familiar pro-gun right and anti-gun left positions. The issue it would seem is a matter of opinion with each side using the definition to bolster their side.  Cal Berkeley linguistics professor George Lakeoff notably says it's not really possible to settle on a definition because guns in America have evolved into an issue of personal identity.

Chief Tejada's rejection of the word assault to describe the AR-15 squarely places her in the company of the NRA, the Republican Party as well as Fox News and many other right wing pro-gun groups and radio personalities.  On the other side, those arguing that AR-15's are assault rifles is the 1994 United States Congress and the Democratic Party.  In Emeryville the issue has split the blogosphere; the pro-business opinion blog the E'Ville Eye has sided with Chief Tejada and the NRA, insisting that AR-15's are not assault rifles while the Tattler has sided with the Democrats.

'Emeryville's Police Chief

and the NRA Agree:

These are NOT Assault Rifles' 

The problem the NRA and Chief Tejada has with calling the AR-15 an assault rifle is that only fully automatic guns or guns with "selective fire" should carry the 'assault' designation they say.  The AR-15 it should be noted is semi-automatic, meaning a trigger pull must accompany each bullet fired.
Interestingly however, early on, it was the gun industry itself that started calling the AR-15 and other semi-automatic weapons like it assault weapons.  The industry started a program in the 1970's for the militarization of civilian weapons in look, feel, operation and branding.  Later after Congress attempted to reauthorize the Assault Weapons Ban of 1994, the NRA and the gun industry attempted to re-brand assault weapons as "modern sporting rifles".  Now, the NRA defines an assault rifle as "a selective-fire rifle chambered for a cartridge of intermediate power".  To ward off anyone trying to define an AR-15 as an assault rifle, the NRA kicks in the following in their official definition,  "If applied to any semi-automatic firearm regardless of its cosmetic similarity to a true assault rifle, the term is incorrect".
The change at the NRA to redefine assault weapons it should be noted followed the Congressional ban on these weapons.  Early on in its effort to support the gun industry who had interest in increasing sales of these military style guns, the gun lobby was happy to call them assault weapons.  They later sharply reversed themselves after it became clear the assault designation would drive public opinion against them as Congress sought a ban.

The suit filed against the City of Emeryville (see below) will presumably harden Chief Tejada's insistence that AR-15's are not assault rifles but it should be noted she made these claims before the initiation of the October 29th suit.

  Yuvette Henderson Suit  12111954-0--25328 (2)

Do Emeryville Police Need AR-15 Assault Rifles?

Where's the Public Debate About the Militarization of Emeryville's Police?

Opinion

The Colt AR-15 Assault Rifle
Carried by Emeryville police
and banned by Congress.

The recent shooting of Yuvette Henderson from an AR-15 military style semi-automatic assault rifle by the Emeryville Police Department begs the question; why are Emeryville police officers driving around our town with these rifles, the same guns banned by the United States Congress in 1994's Federal Assault Weapons Ban.  Disturbingly, the Emeryville Police Department has followed the nation-wide trend of the militarization of police weaponry and like within the rest of the nation, this has happened without a public debate.
The shooting of Ms Henderson is vexing and makes reasonable people note there was a time, not long ago, when our Emeryville police didn't carry assault weapons...then at some point these military style weapons were quietly issued.  The public was never consulted or even notified of this substantial increase in the potential lethality of the weaponry if not the culture at our police department.
In the wake of the killing of a citizen by the Emeryville Police Department with one of these new rifles and with a new chief of police, Jennifer Tejada bringing substantive administrative change, now is the time for the necessary public debate about the militarization of our Emeryville police.

'War on Police' a Right Wing Meme 
Police work is getting safer over time.
In fact it's never been safer than today.

'War on Police'?
Unfortunately, there exists a ready and pat answer from many of the nation's chiefs of police about the rising militarization of police in America and it comes in the form of a false meme about a rising danger to police from criminal's use of increased fire power, what has been referred to as a "war on police".   To the extent that our new Chief of Police may use this fatuous argument, the people of Emeryville stand ready to refute it.  There is no war on police.  In fact the reality is quite the opposite.  Every study conducted on the safety of police work is definitive; it's a safe profession and it's getting safer over time.  Police work doesn't even make it into the 10 deadliest professions in America.  Actuarial studies show construction laborers as facing more deadly threats than cops do.

The 10 Deadliest Jobs: Deaths per 100,000

1. Logging workers: 128.8
2. Fishers and related fishing workers: 117
3. Aircraft pilot and flight engineers: 53.4
4. Roofers: 40.5
5. Structural iron and steel workers: 37
6. Refuse and recyclable material collectors: 27.1
7. Electrical power-line installers and repairers: 23
8. Drivers/sales workers and truck drivers: 22.1
9. Farmers, ranchers, and other agricultural managers: 21.3
10. Construction laborers: 17.4

Out of approximately one million police and law enforcement personnel, with 126 deaths per year, the death rate for police is 12.6 per hundred thousand.

• From 1970 to 1980 police deaths averaged 231 per year.
• 1980 to 1989: police deaths averaged 190.7
• 1990 to 1999: police deaths averaged 161.5
• 2000 to 2009: police deaths averaged 165
• 2013 to 2014: police deaths averaged 113.

From Washington Monthly

Further, many chiefs of police and gun lobbying groups nation-wide have used the larger debate on assault weapons to take away from the demonstrative lethality of these AR-15 rifles.  This has come in a denial that the word "assault" be applied to AR-15s from these quarters.  Those loudly asserting the word assault should not be applied to these guns are entitled to their opinions but to use this denial as an attempt to discredit the special deadly effect as recognized by the Congress these weapons have, is not going to be allowed in our local public debate.  We accept what our President and our Congress said about the special lethality of these AR-15 rifles and we hope our new Chief of Police doesn't add her name to those attempting to take anything away from our legitimate concerns regarding these weapons.

Police in Emeryville are well compensated.  They are protected by an able union, their wage provides enough for them to comfortably buy a house in the Bay Area and they receive a generous package of benefits from the people of Emeryville, and that's the way it should be.  Implicit in the bargain is that police officers accept the risk that comes with the job.  We don't want to hear that in order to keep our forces safe, we need to engage in an ever escalating arms race with criminals.  Where do we go next with that argument, rocket propelled grenade launchers?  Are we soon to see RPGs brandished by Emeryville Police?  We hope we don't have to make these absurd points as we begin our public debate.
Are these weapons that the Congress and the President of the United States find so deadly that they were specifically called out in 1994's ban, something we want our Emeryville police driving around with?  Back when police work was much more dangerous than it is today, Emeryville police were armed with their Police Department issued side arms, not assault rifles.  The force could have been issued military style assault weapons back then but in those days, that level of lethality was considered unreasonable.  Why is it an emergency now for this militarization of our police? 

Our police force is ours; it belongs to us.  Are we at least owed a chance to weigh in on this move towards the militarization of our police?
We want answers: why are these military assault weapons necessary for our police to drive around with?  Why has it been considered good policy up until now to leave us in the dark about this?

It's better late than never, so let's start the public debate about the militarization of the Emeryville Police Department now.  We, the people of Emeryville, the owners of the police force, have a right to say how our police are used.

From Newsweek