THE REST OF THE HEARING
Eventually the scheduled council meeting was over, and the open forum resumed.
A woman in her twenties approached the mike. "Good evening, thank you for this opportunity to speak. My name is Kathy [ ]. I'm a resident of the Fruitvale district and I speak to you Mr. De La Fuente as my representative."
Here in Oakland, council members are elected by district, and Ignacio De La Fuente is from the Fruitvale district. Kathy was reading from a prepared statement, and some of it was hard to hear as she read it quickly, a bit nervously at first.
"I attended yesterday's picket line to personally bear witness against war profiteering. I came to join what had been advertised and organized and indeed was a peaceful non-confrontational protest. In contrast, the OPD's behavior was a violent abuse of power that many of us found deeply demoralizing.
"This council voted last year that the city would not implement certain measures of the Patriot Act because their violation of the civil liberties that we hold dear. Yesterday our own police department violated those civil liberties."
The next speaker was a young man, also in his twenties.
"Hello, my name is Damien McAnany and I am using my minute as well as the time of this gentleman here," he began, and pointed to a person in the seats behind him.
"Your name?" Ignacio asked.
"My name is Damien McAnany."
"Go ahead."
"I was at the protest yesterday and serving in the capacity of a street medic. I was not part of the [group] that was actually fired on, but I did treat people who were shot and gassed by the police. I won't go into those details because you can read from the police reports and hear from all the other people here just how brutal those attacks were.
"I want to cover some issues that perhaps have not been mentioned by some other people. I can't say I'm tremendously confident in an investigation having real consequences. I would like to see that, I would be hopeful of that happening, but I know that bureaucracy oftentimes even with good intentions does not end up bringing about real consequences. And what I would consider real consequences would be criminal charges - "
"Yeah!" "Yeah!" could be heard from the audience, which had burst into applause and loud cheering.
" - being brought against the people responsible no matter how high up the people giving orders were, including people above the police department. I would like to see a real investigation of any connection with the federal government - "
There was more applause.
"And what would truly give me confidence in an independent investigation would be to see people actually lose their jobs over this." - Applause - "I'd also like to ask the council what is going to be done in the meantime before this investigation to make sure that evidence is not going to be covered up and destroyed."
After Damien, there were one or two more speakers, followed eventually by a young woman with whom I'd been talking during the recess - the one with the triangular bruise on her shoulder. In her hand was a package, presumably the photos we'd been looking at.
"Hello. I don't have a whole lot to say tonight but I have a lot to show. I have - "
"Can you give me your name please?" said Ignacio.
"My name is Anna [ ]."
"Did you sign a card?"
"Did I? No I didn't."
"Sorry," Ignacio told her. "You have to sign a card to speak. Okay? I'm sorry."
Anna didn't argue with Ignacio, she just began speaking. "My point is that I have photographs here, taken first hand of what went on yesterday, of what went on to nonviolent peaceful protesters at a legal picket and I would like you all to look at them because this is first hand what the cops were doing out there." She held the package in her hand, waving it slightly as she spoke.
"I also would like to show you my - " she paused to set the photos on the table and turned around so the council could see the large triangular mark on the back of her right shoulder. " - I was hit with something called a concussion grenade."
"On the back! I was extremely burned. It knocked my hearing out. I couldn't hear for ten minutes! My ears were ringing for an hour. I was hit in the back while I was running away. At close range!"
Jim Webber appeared to be in his late seventies. He identified himself as a World War II veteran. He apparently had not been at the protest. He was an Oakland resident who was upset over the police attack, the war, and the current regime in Washington.
"We have an unelected president who's taken us into war," Jim told the Council. "The thing that's really bothering me is the betrayal by the cowards in Congress who supported this thing. It's yet to be determined how many local cowards we have - or heroes - if we have any, in the city government that will do something about what's happening here in relation to this war. I understand that the police chief is a decent civilized guy but there is somebody in the police department who is not decent, not civilized, who gave the go ahead for these monsters to brutalize these people and I think we need to find out who they were. They committed a crime against us just the way that Congress committed a crime by letting this war go on. These people committed a crime against the citizens of Oakland and they need to be pinned down, identified and prosecuted."
The protesters were of all ages. Johnny Nishinaga was in his twenties. "I was obeying police orders at every step of the way," he told the council. "I was nevertheless shot. And my hand, right here - " and he paused to hold up his bandaged right hand, " - is fractured. A number of fractures, it's fairly severe. I'm scheduled for surgery this Thursday."
He added, "It seems to me that the police line that they were provoked is just flat out wrong. I was there the entire time and I didn't see anything thrown."
Another protester who got shot was a white-haired, elderly lady. Her name was Joan Rojas (or Lohas):
"My friend was in her 50's, I'm 65. We started walking down towards the other docks, to see what happened, we heard that some people got shot down there. So we were going down there to see what we could see. We came past the ambulance, we saw all the people hurt there, then we kept walking. We didn't see anybody so we started to turn around. A cop said, ‘Oh no, you can't turn around. You just keep walking down where you're going.'
"We said, ‘We want to go back to BART'
"He said, ‘You just keep walking down there, you'll be all right. There's an outlet down there.'
"We went down there. We passed the police. We viewed some protesters standing on the other side of the street. We walked over there. I no sooner got across, I happened to look back. I saw them putting their gas masks on. I had my coat in my hand because it was hot. I quickly put my coat on because I knew they were going to shoot. And they just started shooting. They didn't say ‘disperse.'
"They didn't say nothing. All they did was start spraying them things. They weren't shooting in the air. They were shooting directly at people."
Joan told of finding her way to a tunnel that went under 7th Street, and at that point Ignacio cut her off.
Joan was followed by David Clark, a fellow in his twenties.
"I learned a couple of really important things," David said. "I know what state-sponsored terrorism looks like, and I now know more than ever the desperate importance of the freedom of speech, which is under direct attack."
Lea Hess was a white-haired lady in her 60s, wearing a "NO WAR" patch on her shoulder.
"I went to the demonstration yesterday. It was peaceful despite the police claim that rocks and missiles were thrown at them. The evidence speaks differently. As well as my own experience there. … Most of the people were shot in the back."
Lea went on to speak about the rules of civil disobedience, and how the police had misinterpreted them.
Jane Maxwell was a middle-aged woman.
"I was at the protest yesterday," Jane said. "I don't know the Oakland port layout very well so I don't know exactly where I was. I think it was at the corner of Seventh and something. We walked in. I would guess it was about three quarters of a mile. There were people in a circulating picket. Very peaceful. There were police standing by them. It all looked very peaceful. It was suggested that some of us go this way and some of us go that way. I thought we were going to form some more of those. I sometimes think I should have a sign that says ‘Sissies for peace,' because I stay on the sidewalk. I don't cross when I don't have the light. So I was walking on the verge as we walked down the side. I was conversing, I don't even remember chanting. I was having a conversation with the people I was walking with. We were walking along. I heard no orders. The motorcycles revved up. They charged at us. That was frightening in itself. And then everything just burst. I mean there were flames and bangs.
"I picked up this while it was hot," Jane said, showed a black object that looked like a piece of a rubber ball, and then motioned to someone in the seats behind her. "It was what she was hit with. I saw her on Seventh Street. It was much more dramatic when I saw her then because she was still wearing the shirt that she had been wearing. That area on her back that is red now. Her shirt had been vaporized. There was a crispy black edge around that."
The "her" that Jane Maxwell was referring to must've been Anna, the woman with the bruised right shoulder.
Rafael Sperry was in his twenties and a volunteer for Direct Action. "If no action is taken against the Oakland police for their action," he warned, "[many people] will get the message that what happened was okay. And it's not okay. It's very not okay. We were peaceful. It was wrong it was unjust and it was brutal. You the council represent Oakland and you need to send a message that Oakland does not tolerate police violence.
"Yes, we need an investigation. We need public input and control of that investigation. It should not be internal to the police. It must include the people and the workers affected by their violence. But right now we need to hear that the city council of Oakland denounces police violence. You can do that tonight. As you've heard, the whole world has been watching Oakland."
Rebecca Kaplan wore a T-shirt reading: ‘Code Pink - Women for Peace.'
"I know that all of you know that just because George Bush says something doesn't make it true. And I want to ask all of you to have the courage to know that just because Jerry Brown says something doesn't make it true."
The Police Mobile Command Post at the docks had been a paddy wagon, and one of the prisoners in it had been June Brashears, who'd been arrested by 7:30 a.m.
"Where I sat in the Paddy wagon there was an opening in the window and I could see through the front and I could hear what was going on over the police radio. And Officers L. [ ] and M. Powell engaged in the following conversation while I was there. When they talked about shooting the beanbags, M. Powel commented, ‘Oh yes, they should give me that. If I had that I'd be picking them off!'"
At that point Ignacio cut her off, telling her that her time was up. However, according to the rules in effect here, anyone who'd signed up to speak could give his time to another person, and someone in the audience called out to tell June that she could have his time.
Ignacio was still trying to cut her off, and the audience was now booing him. June ignored him, and turned to the person sitting behind her. "What's your name?" June asked the fellow, then turned back and named the person who was giving her his time.
"No, no," said Ignacio. "I'm the one who's giving the time."
"I think people want to know what Officer M. Powell had to say," June replied firmly. "Let me finish."
She continued, and Ignacio didn't interrupt for a while.
"So then when the motorcycles were lining up, and over the police radio it said to the other motorcyclists, ‘Move forward and bump them!' to which M. Powell then said, ‘Yes! Bump them! Bump them! Bump them!' very excitedly.
"When there was a vehicle approaching on the right side, there was some discussion about it and M. Powell said, ‘Who's this ILWU fuck?' Within five minutes Jack Heyman had been pulled out of that vehicle and was in the back of the paddy wagon.
"I also listened to them strategize about who they were going to pick off, which mainly consisted of legal observers, which even with my view through the window of the paddy wagon, I could see the clear green tags saying ‘Legal Observer.' The green tags [were] on their arms and they were writing down information, very much behaving as legal observers, when you would hear [the police] saying, ‘Her! The one in the brown! The one in the knit cap! Get her!' And then the legal observer was put into the paddy wagon."
Apparently the police had given no thought to the possibility that their prisoners might be observing them and telling about it later to an audience. One got the feeling that the Oakland Police don't plan things very well.
Ignacio interrupted again. "I've given you more time than anybody!" he said.
"Okay," June replied, but continued with her story. "My final thing is I was in jail with twelve women. Three of them were legal observers. One had been run over by a police motorcycle. One had been hit in the leg by a pellet.
"None of us planned on doing any civil disobedience or getting arrested. We all planned to engage in a legal picket."
"Excuse me Ma'am," Ignacio said yet again. "I've given you more time than anybody. All right?"
This time June stepped down.
It was, of course, Ignacio's job as chair of this meeting to enforce time limits, and he had given June extra time. Nevertheless, he'd tried to squelch her from the beginning, when she let it be known that she had information from inside the police command post. It had been her assertiveness and the audience's backing that got her message heard.
Ironically, there was probably some benefit to having Ignacio there. That was because most of the council seemed sympathetic, and without Ignacio present, we wouldn't have had a bad guy for this part of the drama. It may seem bizarre, but one of the things I discovered in the antiwar movement was that when you're trying to make a political point you are on stage and you are doing theater - even if you don't like to think of it that way. A good script needs a villain, and for that role, Ignacio was well cast.
This hearing was broadcast on KPFA radio as well as Channel 10, and brief segments were shown on TV news. It looked very much like a session in the British House of Commons, especially the scene where Ignacio was walking towards the door with the audience chanting a chorus of "Shame!" - "Shame!" - "Shame!"
Judy Goff of the Central Labor Council of Alameda County was among the last to speak. She summed up how the unions, the ILWU as well as others, formally viewed the matter.
"Working people want to know why police would fire on nonviolent demonstrators and workers who were trying to get to work. They came to work on Monday morning, they found a community picket line, and they stepped aside in order to wait for the arbitrator to tell them if it was safe to go in to work. They listened to their business agent who told them, ‘Step back a hundred yards and stay out of harm's way till the arbitrator comes.'
"It's my understanding that the employer came. The employer called the arbitrator. This is part of their collective bargaining agreement. Immediate arbitration when they are faced with a picket line at the dock. This is a collective bargaining agreement. The way to handle it agreed to by the shippers and the union. These workers obeyed their collective bargaining agreement with every intention to go in to work if their arbitrator ruled it was safe. They stepped aside out of the line of the picketers, and waited for process.
"And instead, nine dockworkers came away injured. Five of them went to the hospital. And the business agent was sent to [the jail in] Santa Rita till 2 o'clock in the morning.
"I want to thank council members Brunner and Quan and Nadel for calling a meeting with the police chief and the city manager yesterday. I came as an impartial person. I just wanted to hear. I was not at the demonstration. I just wanted answers to why dockworkers who were waiting to go to work came away injured. [City Manager] Robert Bobb was there. [Police Chief] Richard Word was there. There were no satisfactory answers. I came away with more questions than answers. They remain unanswered.
"Why did the police go in with full riot gear, with gas masks and weapons of that nature? First thing, without any indication of any violence. Those people were out on the street by the port. There's no way to be violent out there. There's nothing to damage. This was another attack on the fundamental civil liberties and civil rights that we are supposed to be able to enjoy and that our country stands for.
"The police forgot that they are supposed to keep the peace and that they are supposed to protect people. They were not protecting the demonstrators and their civil liberties and they were not protecting the workers who were trying to go to work.
"I don't know what the instructions were that the police commander did in the morning as the watch commander sent them off. But there was a mentality there. That they were going to show somebody something. And this demonstration wasn't going to happen down at the port at the city of Oakland.
"And that's a fundamental problem that has to be fixed. This town is better than that. The city council needs to do the investigation. You are our elected officials. We call on you, as our elected officials. To do the investigation. Hear all the complaints. Find out what happened to the police, and come back and tell us what went wrong and what you're going to do about it. Thank you."
Nobody spoke in support of the police that evening - not in front of the City Council, that is. But on my way to the restroom during the recess I saw TV crews interviewing a guy in a closet-sized niche just beyond the men's restroom. It seemed like such an undignified place to hold a press conference - behind the toilet. Later that night, on returning home and watching the TV news, I recognized the man. He was police spokesperson Lt. Paul Figueroa, and he was telling the newsmen, "We know that rocks were thrown at police."