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 

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.

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!

Defund the Emeryville Police Department

Defunding Is Our Best Hope For REAL 
Police Reform

Their Backs Against the Wall, Police Praise Protesters 
Against Police Racism

Next Will Come Phony Talk of 'Reform'

News Analysis/Opinion
After many retail establishments were broken into and merchandise stolen, the Chief of Police wrote a letter to the people last week telling us that looters in Emeryville are taking away from genuine and peaceful protests against the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd.  Chief Jennifer Tejada's letter told us she supports the peaceful protests going on and she said she wants “equality for all” and to “give voice to those who are marginalized” and that “racism is real”.
And with that, our chief of police is repeating what chiefs of police are saying all across the country.  Racism must end, the chiefs are saying and they're nearly tripping over themselves to announce they are allied with the peaceful protestors that have taken over America’s streets of late while denouncing looters (even as some are clearly ordering attacks against peaceful protesters).  Praising peaceful protesters against police racism has become the thing to do for police chiefs in America in June 2020.  Thus, ipso facto, each police department is not racist they would have us believe.  It must be other police departments that are the racist ones.

Next up in this archetype is massive ‘police reform’.  Like last time, police departments are going to tell us they’re going to self reform.  In fact that discussion is already being presented by many chiefs.  They say they recognize the problem police have with race and they’re ready for reform.
So what’s going to be offered up?  Sensitivity training, police attending seminars on race sensitivity, First Amendment rights and that kind of thing.  Virtually every police department in America is going to be on board because the police hear our frustrations they say.  Chief Tejada says it.  Should we feel hope and encouragement by these stirring words?  Is this going to be enough to solve this problem that Chief Tejada recognizes?

Emeryville's Chief of Police
Jennifer Tejada
She loves peaceful 
protest against police racism
in June 2020. In 2017,
she loved racist police 
blotter posts.

The answer to those questions is: we should look to what they do rather than what they say they’re going to do.

Broken Record
‘The police are going to reform themselves to address systemic racism’.  Where have we heard that before?
We’ve heard it every time the media grabs onto a compelling story with above the fold reports of a racist police culture, starting with the beating of Rodney King in 1991 and extending past the shooting of Michael Brown and the choking of Eric Garner.  Academic studies have shown it over and over; police are far more racist than the control group of average Americans.  There is an enduring  culture of anti-black racism among America's police departments and everybody knows it.
Police keep telling us during these crises that they ‘get it’ and they’re going to reform.  But policing in America doesn’t get fixed.  Since Rodney King, it’s actually gone in the opposite direction as departments get more and more militarized, police arming themselves with deadlier firepower leading to more killings of citizens, usually unarmed black men.  All this has evolved against police claiming wholesale persecution of them by the public.  They’re claiming there’s a ‘war on police’ despite the fact policing has never been safer in America than it is right now.  They’re presenting a narrative of the loathsome public that hates police that must be controlled or else police will be killed or attacked.  This is driving municipalities around the country to pour more money into police departments.  Constrained by budgets, cities increase spending on police at the expense of community services.  Emeryville's police budget now resembles the pentagon's budget as a percentage of government spending.

Where police departments across America goes, so goes Emeryville’s police department.  This is a broken paradigm.  We should never expect any police department, including the Emeryville police department to self reform.  Police departments will only change if we force them to.  That force is their budget.  We need to join with other cities who are now openly talking about changing the paradigm by going after police budgets.  We need to begin defunding the EPD.  That’s the only mechanism that will drive real change.

We must learn the only reason America's cops are talking so eloquently now about reform is their backs are against the wall.  They're hoping the talk will be enough to defuse the situation and they'll be able to stop real reform.  Indeed, every other time police faced this level of public outrage, it's been enough to eventually force a return to normal.  What’s normal?  Normal is when chiefs of police around the country feel emboldened enough for instance to castigate Colin Kaepernick for his peaceful protest of kneeling during the National Anthem.  Mr Kaepernick was outraged over racist police brutality in 2016 and so he peacefully protested.  But that was unacceptable said America’s police.  Now that their backs are against the wall, police say peaceful protest against police brutality is suddenly perfectly fine.  Just ask Chief Tejada.  Where was Jennifer Tejada when Mr Kaepernick was protesting peacefully.  We didn’t get any letters supporting him then, did we?

And what can we learn from our Chief of Police who wants us to rally behind the police who are rallying behind the peaceful protesters (she says) all while castigating the looters?  These are to be looked at as two separate groups of people she says; one good, the other bad.  What she isn’t saying (not part of the police narrative) or doesn’t know (even worse) is the peaceful protesters and the looters are one and the same.  America’s poor and working people of all colors, especially black people, have had their fill.  They’re using the only means available to them to try for change.  People pushed to the edge will turn to violence.  It’s totally to be expected.  The worse it gets for average Americans in contemporary America the more we can expect uprisings like this.  We can expect growing violence in such a downward spiral.  What isn’t helpful is our chief of police joining the chorus of chiefs everywhere trying to hang onto the narrative that empowers them at our expense.  She’s trying to keep the money flowing to the police and we’re trying to upset the dominant paradigm that only leads to more violence and more racism.  The looters and the vandals don't 'take away' from what the peaceful protesters are doing; it's all part of a greater whole, we're all in it together and it's all to be expected regardless of what Chief Tejada says.

We cannot expect vast numbers of people, the poor, working class and black people to behave in a manner that no other people would do.  People cannot be expected to be super human.  We can not have what Chief Tejada is driving us towards: a narrative that would posit black people’s civil rights are only as enduring as average people’s ability to not loot when they’re backs are against the wall and they’re rightfully angry.  We are not accepting attempts to divide us.

We should remember Chief Tejada’s record at the Emeryville Police Department.  After EPD shot and killed Yuvette Henderson, a black woman in 2015, Chief Tejada told us the State of California is wrong about the AR-15 assault rifle that killed Ms Henderson.  Chief Tejada told us that lawmakers in Sacramento who banned AR-15s have it all wrong about these weapons now carried by Emeryville police.  They are not assault rifles she says, rather simple sporting rifles.  This was her narrative when there was talk of taking away these guns from our police.  She was trying to downplay the deadly firepower of these assault weapons.  Incidentally, witnesses and forensic testimony reported the kill shot by an Emeryville police officer's AR-15 was made after Ms Henderson had been hit in the side and her gun she had flew back six feet behind her, making the kill shot unnecessary according to the testimony at the civil trial following the police clearing themselves of any wrong doing.
We should also remember Chief Tejada refused to stop posting racist crime reports in Emeryville’s official crime blotter in 2016/17.  It took nearly a year of Tattler reports for Ms Tejada to finally stop.

Emeryville should use this time to finally do something to change the unacceptable paradigm of anti-black police racism in our little neck of the woods.  It is our good fortune that our current Chief of Police is retiring now amid these epic protests.  We should use this time to drive real change and stop allowing soothing language from police attempting to save their funding, lull us back to sleep until the next crisis.  We need to think globally and act locally.  We need to use our nuclear option now at this propitious moment, and start defunding our police to force change now in the place that never changes.

Military Culture Permeates Emeryville Police Department

 Emeryville's Militarized Police Force:

A Modest Proposal

Opinion

by Brian Donahue

Grand Poobah / Il Duce

For a hot minute, after officers from the Minneapolis Police Department murdered George Floyd, the nation cried enough is enough and police reform seemed to be on everyone’s lips.  Even here in Emeryville, the City Council passed a proclamation supporting State legislation proscribing police militarization.  All the heated talk ended quickly however and the police went back to being the police.  Here at the Tattler, we didn’t see police reform as a bandwagon to hop on and hop off.  We still think reform is the goal.  For instance, we see no cogent reason why our police should routinely carry military weapons of war on Emeryville's streets as they do.  The police here are adamant: they need more firepower, they need to always be armed with assault rifles with enough power to blast through three house walls and still kill a civilian.

Against that backdrop, we introduced a new, largely symbolic effort to bring our police back into our community, to reflect community values.  We suggested the Emeryville Police Department throw off their military personnel ranking system they use and replace it with a civilian ranking model.  In this way, the Chief would become EPD#1, the Captains would become EPD#2, the Lieutenants EPD#3 and so on.  Current Lieutenant Fred Dauer for instance, would become EPD#3 Fred Dauer or just #3 Dauer.

Field Marshal Dauer

Alas, the police took to this proposal like a cat takes to water: they responded with a full throated NO.  They will keep their military modus operandi including all the trappings, they insisted.  But the United States military, as everyone knows, are liars.  They always lie to get us into wars.  And then they lie again when we inquire as to how well they are prosecuting the war.  The Emeryville Police Department is in the thrall of and wants to be associated with this government agency that can be counted on to lie to the people; right down to their military ranking.   Our police love governmental lying.
 

So after years trying to get a less militaristic, more community friendly police department, we’re ready to throw in the towel.  Let’s give them what they want.  Let’s hyper-militarize the Emeryville Police Department.  If EPD Captain Oliver Collins is feared by the people with the military epithet 'captain', imagine how much better it would be if he were known as Generalissimo Oliver Collins.  Lieutenant Fred Dauer too will be even more fearsome as Field Marshall Fred Dauer.  That a militarized police department is cast as a good thing, why then equivocate Emeryville?  Let's start thanking them for their service, why not?  Let's wallow in military grandeur and idolatry.

Here’s our modest proposal:

Past Emery Superintendent Tony Smith Implicated in Witness Tampering Cover-Up in Oakland Police Shooting Case

Former Emery School District Superintendent Tony Smith has been implicated in a witness tampering cover-up incident involving an Oakland School District Police shooting in 2011 according to an involved police officer.  The story, relayed by San Francisco Bayview News and corroborated by NBC Bay Area News is re-posted below.  The complainant officer, Jonathan Bellusa, alleges Mr Smith, Oakland's School District Superintendent attempted to coach him on particulars of a shooting that had happened moments before.  Mr Smith allegedly tried to get Officer Bellusa's recollections to match those of the shooter, Officer Bhatt, Officer Bellusa's partner.  The story alleges Mr Smith quickly worked on getting the two officer's stories to match before regular Oakland Police officers arrived on the scene.  The victim who died in the hail of police bullets was a twenty year old man in a parked car near a school dance.  The story broke right after Mr Smith mysteriously and suddenly announced his resignation from his job as Oakland's schools chief in April.

Tony Smith, as Emery's Superintendent, was an early proponent of the Center of Community Life and was instrumental in it's early planning.  He cast a large shadow at Emery and his influence is still felt in the incipient Center of Community Life and the District itself.

Here's the San Francisco Bayview News story and the accompanying NBC Bay Area News video:

Superintendent implicated in cover-up of Oakland School Police killing of Raheim Brown

April 27, 2013

47

by Laura Savage

Perhaps you’ve heard or read the name Raheim Brown Jr. He’s the 20-year-old Black man who was beaten then shot and killed by Oakland School Police Department Sgt. Bhatt.

In the Oscar Grant Memorial March and Rally on the third anniversary of Oscar’s murder on New Year’s Day 2009 by BART police, supporters of Raheim Brown and all victims of law enforcement demanded justice. – Photo: Bradley Stuart, Indybay

In January 2011 Brown and a female companion were parked in a vehicle in the Oakland Hills when they were approached by officers Barhin Bhatt and Jonathan Bellusa, who were working as hired security guards for an Oakland School District dance being held at Skyline High School.

The officers reported that they first approached the vehicle, which was not parked at the school or on campus, because the hazard lights were flashing. Brown and his friend didn’t need help. As a justification for questioning them, the officers claimed they smelled marijuana coming from the vehicle after approaching it. Other reports have claimed the officers thought the car was stolen. The officers also reported Brown threatened to stab Barhin with a screwdriver that he had in the car.

As Brown and his companion sat, buckled-up, in the car, the officers began beating them both.

What exactly happened next, no one is certain because the requests for the full reports of the shooting by Lori Davis, mother of Raheim Brown, and her attorney, John Burris, have yet to be fulfilled by the Oakland Unified School District.

What is known is that Bellusa, who was outside the car on the passenger side where Brown was sitting, ordered a first round of shots. The shots were fired by Bhatt, who was outside the car on the driver side near the female driver. Bhatt fired at Brown across the driver multiple times, but Brown remained living at this time. Bhatt’s gun jammed. He cleared it, then a second round of shots was fired, killing Brown.

Davis filed a wrongful death suit against OUSD, which operates and employs the district police officers who shot and killed Brown.

Breaking ‘Code Blue’

This case is highly suspicious for many reasons: 1) A complete report containing all the details has yet to be made available to the public, Ms. Davis or her attorney; 2) there was definite mismanagement on the part of OUSD Superintendent Tony Smith directly following the shooting, as well as by OSPD Chief Williams; 3) an Oakland School Police Department officer is calling foul against his own department.

Raheim Brown

What has come as a “whistle-blowing” effort by Bellusa has also rocked the community and the department’s claims.

Bellusa filed a federal complaint against the OSPD claiming retaliation for his refusal to lie about the second round of shots that killed Brown. In his complaint, Bellusa claims that the second round of shots weren’t necessary because Brown was no longer a threat, after being shot with the first round.

According to Davis, who cited testimony by former Sgt. Bellusa of OSPD, Superintendent Tony Smith was accompanied by some Oakland School Board members at the crime scene – directly following the shooting.

“Based on Bellusa’s testimony in his deposition,” said Davis, “Tony Smith came down there and tried to get him to do witness tampering. He tried to get their (Bhatt and Bellusa’s) stories together.”

Bellusa, who is now on paid administrative leave is accusing the OSPD of a pattern of corruption.

For the Davis wrongful-death case, the Bellusa complaint and the federal investigation underway bring light to the issue of a cover-up by the OSPD.

“You don’t get one officer to lie for the other one,” said Davis.

Problems with guns

Incidents like the Raheim Brown killing highlight a huge debate going on in America right now about the necessity of armed district staff in schools. This comes after the terrible December 2012 mass shooting in Newtown, Conn., where 20 children, six teachers, the shooter and his mother were shot and killed.

For people of color, the issue may be more of a concern regarding security officers being armed when working at schools with large numbers of students of color. Communities of color are extremely reluctant to put guns in the hands of those who terrorize Black children and youth the most: the police. To whites, police officers are there to protect civilians.

Raheim Brown’s mother, Lori Davis, was one of the parents of young Black men killed by police who spoke out in passionate protest at a press conference held two days after San Francisco police murdered Kenneth Harding on the spot, at Third and Oakdale, where Kenny died on July 16, 2011, a few months after Raheim’s death. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

When asked whether OUSD needs a police department, Davis said; “They don’t need police – just regular security.”

The rate of officer involved shootings seems to be increasing.

In an update, posted July 16, 2012, to a report by the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement that was originally released April 6, 2012, MXGM wrote:

“Invasive policing is only one aspect of the U.S. states’ comprehensive containment strategies to exploit Black people and to smother resistance … The U.S. state maintains and reinforces these economic injustices with the militarized occupation of Black communities by the police and a web of racist legislation like the ‘war on drugs,’ discriminatory policies like ‘three strikes’ and ‘mandatory minimum’ sentencing. The result is a social system that mandates the prison warehousing of millions of Black people and extrajudicial killings where the killers act with impunity and more often than not are rewarded and promoted for murder.”

These views are backed by data tracking police killings, or “extrajudicial killings,” over many months. The latest data collected by MXGM shows that a Black person in the U.S. is killed every 28 hours by law enforcement.

The nearby Oakland Police Department is so plagued that it has been appointed a court monitor, former Baltimore commissioner Thomas Frazier, by U.S. District Court Judge Thelton Henderson to oversee mandated changes to the department.

What post-racial America?

What does this mean? It means that as the Black community and its organizers and leaders have justly claimed and proven, a post-racial society DOES NOT exist in America.

Barhin Bhatt, the Oakland School Police officer who killed Raheim Brown, keeps protesters out of Fremont High School on March 4, 2011, three months after the murder. In August of the same year, the appointment of Bhatt as chief of the Oakland School Police sparked outrage that led to his removal about two weeks later. Forty angry speakers testified to the Oakland School Board, including civil rights attorney Anne Butterfield Weills, who said that to “appoint the shooter of Raheim Brown Jr. to be the acting chief of OUSD ... what a role model for our young people, particularly for our Black and Brown young males and women who are in our schools.” – Photo: KALW

Blacks are still falling victim to racist law enforcement organizations intent on sending them to prison if not to the graveyard. Why is it that our Black youth must endure officers at their presumed “educational safe havens” or when they are merely enjoying some leisure?

What real justification can there be for officers – who were hired to secure a school dance on a school campus – to venture from their assigned duty posts and beat, shoot and kill innocent youth? Furthermore, what justification does Tony Smith have for not releasing the details of the incident as reported by his staff?

When Smith started as superintendent he was quoted in an Oakland North article as saying, “For me, you have to examine the effects of institutional racism, institutional classism, institutional bias, language bias and say, ‘At this point, the system that we have – even if we do it really, really well – isn’t going to close and transform that gap.’”

Apparently that was only talk and didn’t extend to his school police department. Not only has Smith championed school closures, he hasn’t brought in valuable resources such as librarians, music programs etc. In the same interview he said:

“I’m incredibly committed to thinking about new kinds of relationships with local communities. We have to become beacons and be able to infuse into those neighborhoods expectations and ways of being. That takes partnership and leadership and expectations and being honest about how hard it is.”

It is safe to say that the beacon light is out when it comes to Tony Smith and the Oakland Unified School District. His failure to demonstrate unwavering, transparent leadership has continued to damage Oakland schools and district departments – as evidenced with the OSPD.

Smith has only been in Oakland four years and he conveniently is moving to Chicago, just as a wrongful death suit surfaces and a federal investigation is taking place, with him as lead culprit.

In his letter to the Oakland School Board, he cited family illness as the reason for the move. That very well may be true.

What is also true is that, on Smith’s watch in Oakland, we have lost another young Black life.

Laura Savage is a graduating senior in journalism at San Francisco State University and is interning with the SF Bay View this semester. She can be reached at lsavage26@gmail.com.

Emeryville City Hall Celebrates 'Peace in the Park' While Supporting the War in Gaza

 'Peace in the Park' : Government Propaganda

City Council Likes War Depending on Who is Being Killed

“Government propaganda is the systematic dissemination of information and ideas by a government to influence public opinion and behavior in order to promote a particular agenda. It often uses emotional appeals, selective facts, or misleading information to shape how people perceive political realities.“ -Wiki

Despite the City Council’s refusal to support a resolution calling for a ceasefire in the war in Gaza, the City of Emeryville held a city wide celebration of world peace in October, seemingly oblivious to that two year war that has killed some 70,000 Palestinians including 20,000 children.  The City is instead focused on celebrating world peace by hosting an event in Christie Avenue Park filled with fun and frivolity, 7500 miles away from the war.  To people not paying close attention, the message received would be that Emeryville likes peace.  That was probably the idea.

Emeryville’s counter factual anti-war propaganda campaign has recently taken the form of the City sanctioned event October 18th called “Peace in the Park”, an event that represents the antithesis of an earlier Council majority vote to not allow council discussion of peace in Gaza.  This Council majority is so pro-war, they will not even allow discussion amongst themselves of a proposal to resolve they are against the killing of Palestinian children.  The five Council members made it be known they are against  Ukrainian children being killed however.

The City Council voted to not allow any discussion of a resolution for a ceasefire in Gaza (4-1 Priforce dissenting),  December 5th 2023, after they earlier voted unanimously for a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Ukraine.  Responding to Tattler questions about that double standard, Mayor David Mourra said the City of Emeryville “should not get involved in international politics, including foreign wars” despite the fact that he himself voted for the ceasefire in Ukraine on the Council.  Follow up questions about the Council double standard went unanswered by Mr Mourra and by the rest of the Ukraine supporting Council majority.

The sparsely attended Peace in the Park event at Christie Avenue Park featured booths and tents calling for world peace with some not for profit organizations, church groups and private companies taking part as well as tents for the Emeryville Police Department and Emery Unified School District. 
 

On a side note, the editor of the Tattler distributed flyers at the event, alerting celebrants of the City’s double standard for resolutions concerning foreign wars.  Taking umbrage with the open leaflet distributing, an Emeryville police officer physically battered the Tattler editor.  An investigation of the incident is currently underway by the police department's internal affairs division. 

Emeryville's 'Peace in the Park' celebration was
sparsely attended despite the City's wall to wall
advertising for the event.

Because no one at City Hall would speak about the Council majority’s support for a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Russia’s war against Ukraine while refusing a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Israel’s war against Palestinians in Gaza, it is taken as a self-evident fact that this Council majority dislikes some wars but they like some other wars.  Some would question: is it a matter of the ethnicity of the people that are being killed in the war that determines the Council's support or rejection? Are Palestinian children more expendable than Ukrainian children?   None on the City Council majority that voted against the ceasefire in Gaza would answer that question.  But the whole City Council and City Hall want us to know they are in favor of world peace (at least in the park).

Here's how the votes on the two proposed war resolutions went:

Russia/Ukraine War Resolution (is Emeryville against the war?)

(former) Mayor John Bauters:           YES

Council member David Mourra:        YES

Council member Sukhdeep Kaur:    YES

Council member Courtney Welch:    YES

Council member Kalimah Priforce:    YES

Israel/Gaza War Resolution (is Emeryville against the war?)

(former) Mayor John Bauters:        NO

Council member David Mourra:    NO

Council member Sukdeep Kaur:     NO

Council member Courtney Welch:    NO

Council Member Kalimah Priforce:     YES

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.