Statement of the April 7 Response Coalition
ENDING POLICE VIOLENCE: AT THE PORT AND IN THE COMMUNITY
We are Oakland residents, community organizations, and labor unions speaking out in response to the unprovoked and unnecessary violence inflicted by police on peaceful protesters, and on workers standing by, at the Port of Oakland on April 7, 2003. In addition, we are speaking out more broadly about the behavior of the Oakland Police Department, because we see the events at the Port as part of a pattern.
The Oakland City Council has demonstrated that it stands for peaceful solutions in the face of violence through its resolution to oppose the United States military action in Iraq. Additionally, the Council expressed its strong support for the First Amendment rights of workers and residents by prohibiting city funds from being used to enforce the unconstitutional provisions of the US Patriot Act.
Unfortunately, on April 7 the Oakland Police Department violated the principles the council has endorsed.
Chief Richard Word of the Oakland Police admits that OPD action at the port was a preemptive strike to prevent larger groups of protestors from gathering. Word is quoted in the Oakland Tribune on April 8th saying, "It had to be done early, or else more protestors would have arrived." We also take issue with the fact that the police in conjunction with certain private corporations not the people or the City Council of Oakland came up with a response plan against peaceful protestors that ended in injuries (Oakland Tribune, April 8th).
We join the Oakland City Council in its call for a nonviolent response to conditions in the Middle East. We now ask the City Council to join with us in calling for a nonviolent response to conditions in the city of Oakland. Use of force by the Police, like all use of force, should be rare and judicious. We therefore call for a team of Peacekeepers, not a violent force, on the streets of Oakland.
We believe that these problems with the Oakland Police Department, far from representing an unusual "overreaction," are consistent with the past violent actions of the force, and indeed represent the day to day activities of the Department in many of Oakland's communities. For this reason, we will continue to monitor and follow up with the Council on our demands listed below.
We call upon the Oakland City Council to take a proactive stance in response to this violence as follows:
1. Initiate an independent investigation of police actions on the morning of April 7, 2003 at the Port, including all of the following:
- We want investigators who are not police, and who the OPD does
not control or oversee in any way;
- We want to know the names of all the responsible parties who
gave orders;
- We want to know why police were in riot gear and carrying riot control
weaponry when they arrived;
- We want to know why and in what ways the shipping companies were
involved in making the decision about what kind of policing this rally
required;
- We want to know what roles Jerry Brown, Robert Bobb, Richard Word and Port
officials played in the decision-making;
- We want to know whether the Department of Homeland Security or any other
Federal Government representative was involved;
- We want to know why the police continued to shoot rubber and
wooden bullets at a dispersing crowd in the back for two hours;
- We want investigators who will be hired by the Oakland CPRB in the
future, so that we are not constantly reinventing the wheel every time
there is an investigation into OPD activities.
2. Fire those responsible for what happened on April 7.
3. Provide the Citizen's Police Review Board (CPRB) with a full complement of investigators, and fill open positions on the CPRB with members who reflect Oakland's diverse community.
4. Apologize for the deceitful portrayal that April 7 protestors initiated the violence.
5. Adopt a "cite and release" policy for protestors, so that individuals arrested for nonviolent protest do not have to wait hours or days in detention in city jails.
6. Change outdated existing municipal codes to ensure that the right to peacefully protest, and the right of labor to picket, is clearly stated in a city ordinance.
The APRIL 7 RESPONSE COALITION includes the ILWU and other Labor Groups, PUEBLO (People United for a Better Oakland), the Green Party of Alameda County, the People's Nonviolent Response Committee, and others.