Calendar
FIRST THEY CAME FOR THE HOMELESS IS ORGANIZING
Occupy the Sidewalks
DON’T STAND FOR SIT LIE
Stop the war on the poor
Section 168 of the San Francisco Police Code, makes it unlawful, with certain exceptions, to sit or lie on a public sidewalk, or on an object placed on a public sidewalk, between 7AM and 11PM.
(4) participating in or attending a parade, festival, performance, rally, demonstration, meeting or similar event conducted on a sidewalk under and in compliance with a street use or other applicable permit;
Protesting the law allows you to sit. The constitution guarantees you’re right to peaceably assemble in the commons. Remove their ability to prosecute and persecute the homeless. The commons belong to all!
The sidewalks of San Francisco have been a battleground if you are homeless. Sit lie is used to shuffle the poor out of sight. We take the shopping district on black Friday.
Join us for a speakout and rally against the recent white supremacist shootings against #4thPrecinctShutDown and #BlackLivesMatter demonstrators in North Minneapolis and in solidarity with the ongoing protests in Chicago in the wake of Laquan MacDonald horrific murder by police in 2014. From the growing white nationalism of Trump’s campaign to the now over 1,000 people shot down by law enforcement in 2015 alone, such systemic white supremacy has ushered in a new phase of the black liberation struggle. Now is the time to take sides and get organized.
Big ups to our comrades in Berkeley and East Oakland who have walked out of school and stood firm in the face of police terror.
Bring signs, banners, and noise makers!
Various community speakers will address the crowd as well as guests calling in from Minneapolis and Chicago!
#Oakland solidarity rally for #Justice4Jamar #Chicago #LaquanMcDonald #4thPrecinctShutDown. Fri November 27 5pm. pic.twitter.com/v2TyW1WcrD
— FireWorks (@FireWorksBAY) November 25, 2015
Information, discussion & community! Monday Night Forum!!
OccupyForum is an opportunity for open and respectful dialogue
on all sides of these critically important issues!
Occupyforum Night Out…
Reassessing and Recommitting
To Your Activism in Dire Times
We are coming to the end of another year of our activism, which invites us to reassess and hopefully recommit. This year has seen a surge of resistance: Black Lives Matter, anti-incarceration, climate justice and environmental justice locally and globally, immigration activism, anti-gentrification and protection of those victimized by it, Indigenous leadership, peace activism — way too much to list. At OccupyForum, we’ve been hearing from activists in all these battles and are an active part of this Movement.
But in our own circles, we take time out to express our frustration, anger and fear that what we see in the world is just too much. We have been to workshops and read books about taking care of ourselves when we are dealing with the world’s trauma, and getting help staying sane. The topic tonight, instead, is how to stay inspired (not just functioning!). How do we keep our work strong and focused when we are feeling afraid, defeated, and hopeless about our progress as a Movement?
“Much of life is sad, and there’s nothing to be done about it. (All my activist friends are more than a little disappointed in the complacency of a populous who still refuse to join us in the streets, even as our corporate masters destroy the planet.) Sometimes we ignore happiness and healing when it’s dangled in front of us… There is one, and only one solution, but people are too scared to embrace it. Suffering, when you’re used to it, can feel safe. That solution is: come together, right now, over us.” — Peter
“I personally need to make sure I name the whole spectrum of my feelings in order to redouble efforts in the face of the madness. I’m so angry about what’s going on with black lives in this country I don’t know what to do. We protest and it flies back up in our face. We are living in an insane asylum in Amerikkka…. but it doesn’t mean we can afford to give up. Gandhi says you have to keep tipping the scales drop by drop.” – Ruthie
This Forum is for YOU. Please come to share your own feelings in the face of insanity, and tell us what advice you have for the rest of us to help focus the rage and despair into productive activism.
We have a little extra $ to help pay for food if you’re broke!
Don’t let cost keep you away!
Family friendly bike ride and rally for a renewable energy economy
Locally: We ask city government, business leaders, and everyone to commit to smart resource use (reduce, reuse, recycle, rot), safe bike and pedestrian routes, and a swift transition to clean energy (solar, wind, geothermal)
Globally: This event is part of the Global Climate March asking world leaders who meet in Paris on November 30th to commit to 100% clean energy as part of the next global climate deal
The Community Democracy Project is your connection to direct democracy in Oakland! Convened out of Occupy Oakland in Fall 2011, we’re gathering steam on a campaign to bring the people back in touch with the city’s resources through participatory budgeting.
Picture this: Across Oakland, Neighborhood Assemblies are regularly
held in every community. People come together to tackle the important issues of their neighborhoods and of the city. At these assemblies, people don’t just have discussions–they learn from one another, from city staff, and they make fundamental decisions about how the city should run. They decide the city budget.
Democratic, community budgeting is a powerful step toward building strong communities, real democracy, and economic justice–and it’s being done all over the world.
The budget of the City Oakland totals more than $1 billion per year. Although part of the budget must be used for specific purposes, still over half of the budget–over $500 billion per year–consists of general purpose funds paid by the taxes, fees, and fines of the people of Oakland. The Mayor and the City Council decide the city budget, with minimal input from the community.
Working together, we will not only get a seat at the table–we will REBUILD the table itself. Participatory democracy is real democracy–join us to say: Local People, Local Resources, Local Power!
Discussion / brainstorm of ideas for Leap Day Action Night 2016 in the Bay Area (February 29, 2016).
Leap Day — February 29, 2016 — is an extra day that gives us a chance to look at how we spend most of our days and wonder if we can’t do a little better? If the answer is “yes”, Leap Day can be an arbitrary but overdue moment to create decentralized, militant and yet creative and hilarious uprisings against the various oppressive systems that vex us.
Systems of inequality, racism, police violence and environmental destruction are vulnerable, but they won’t collapse on their own. They need our help. Everyone is standing around waiting for something to happen or just focused on the latest outrage. We need to take the initiative and throw the first punch every once in a while.
The call for decentralized revolt on Leap Day 2016 is open-ended in terms of tactics, goals and strategy. Leap day can be a laboratory to articulate our vision for the future in dynamic, emotionally resonant, new ways. Leap Day Action night aims to break down the artificial separation between “activism” and living our lives full of enjoyment and freedom.
Folks last week figured they would be scattered around for the Holidaze. But we’ll be meeting at 1 PM next week on the 6th for a potluck!
We are mobilizing an EMERGENCY PROTEST. This is serious.
People in solitary confinement have been loudly awakened by guards every 30 minutes 24/7 since the night of August 2nd, almost 4 months! Please participate in an emergency protest in Sacramento to stop these every 30 minute so-called “security/welfare checks” being done in the Pelican Bay SHU and other solitary units in CA prisons. Sleep deprivation is torture, and that is what these loud, intrusive checks are causing. For people in solitary cells 23-24 hours a day, the noise and disruption every 30 minutes is unavoidable, endless torture. They are experiencing severe stress, weight loss, dizziness, nausea, headaches, eye problems, stomach and bowel problems, faintness, depression, and sped-up heart rates. They cannot concentrate, exercise, read, do legal work, or anything that helps them survive, and they can’t sleep!
An emergency demo is warranted. 119 days and nights of torment!
Please help make this a powerful convergence in front of the California Department of Corrections in Sacramento.
Protest at 1515 S St, Sacramento, CA 95811 from 10am to 2pm. Rideshares will leave from MacArthur BART in Oakland at 8am. To offer or find rides from Oakland or other CA locales, please call Verbena at 510.426.5322 or email phssreachingout@gmail.com
Come out and show solidarity with our comrade who is finally getting an evidentiary hearing! After two years of fighting for it, this hearing will finally be held to show that César did not get a fair trial because the DA and OPD illegally withheld lots of favorable evidence from the defense. This is a case from Occupy and it would be great to have a big show of solidarity and support for this comrade from everyone! Please come out and spread the word!
Please note that this court date is expected to maybe be a 2 day thing, so it is likely court support will be needed on 11/30 AND 12/1!
CHECK THE FACEBOOK EVENT PAGE FOR UPDATED INFO, POSTPONEMENTS OR CANCELLATIONS
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Please come out and support this comrade! This court date is likely to last for 2 days, so court support is likely to be needed on both 11/30 and 12/1! Dept. 10
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Kickin it on the eve of the Tues. Dec. 1st city council meeting…
Music by Dave (Redd) Welsh on Hammond organ, Dwan on drums, plus sax, congas, and the people’s choir… music, songs and sing-along in solidarity with the homeless, now Occupying the grounds of Old City Hall in protest of anti-homeless legislation and in support of services and housing for those without a place to call their own.
Berkeley Copwatch is tired of unjust policing and lack of accountability. We stand in solidarity with those protesting the murders of black people across the nation and say that this must end! We have our unique problems in Berkeley and the East Bay and we must take local action to stand up and demand justice!
We Demand:
- End racial profiling in Berkeley! Get the statistics on who is really being detained and arrested and stop handcuffing men of color for no reason!
- No tasers in Berkeley! Spend money to study how to end racial profiling – not acquire tasers!
- End the militarization of the police! No boats, no armored personnel carriers, no more weapons and no more military games. Withdraw from Urban Shield!
- Justice For Kayla Moore!
- Decriminalize Mental Illness! Police with no training in mental health crisis are most often the first responders to these kinds of situations. Berkeley must fully fund emergency mental health response in the city and prevent militarized cops from being the first point of contact for members of the public who need help in dealing with emergency mental health situations. No more putting spit hoods over the heads of people with mental illness! No taser use on mentally ill people! Counselors not cops!
Meetings at 7pm every Monday!
Rally on the Old City Hall Steps beginning at 4:00 in support of the Homeless Occupation and Protest now ensconced on the grounds, in support of #BlackLivesMatter and against Berkeley’s participation in Urban Shield, an annual militarized police training and military-style equipment show.
Items concerning these issues will be on the City Council Agenda this evening – three anti-homeless ordinances, a spineless report about the Berkeley Police and their actions during the Black Lives Matters protests a year ago when people were tear gassed, shot at with bean-bag rounds and struck with batons, and something to continue Berkeley’s relationship with UASI, the funder for Urban Shield.
There will be a march commencing at 6:00 PM to the Longfellow School at Derby & Sacramento; there will be a press conference at 6:30 PM; and then the regular City Council meeting will begin at Longfellow at 7:00 PM.
SUPPORT
Subject: Requiring More Effective Training In The Use Of Force
From: Members Of The Public (100 Black Men Of The Bay Area)
Recommendation: Receive A Report And Recommendations Regarding Adopting
Policies And Procedures Which Require OPD To Train Officers More Effectively In The
Use Of Force, Especially Lethal Force; Such Training Should Not Only Define
Conditions In Which Officers May Use Lethal Force But Also, More Broadly, Show
Them How To Avoid It
SUPPORT
Subject: Blue Wall Code Of Silence
From: 100 Black Men Of The Bay Area
Recommendation: Receive A Report And Recommendations Regarding Adopting
Legislation To Eradicate The Persistent Widespread Custom Or Practice Of
Concealing Or Suppressing Investigations Into Police Officer Misconduct; In Order For
The Public To Be Safe We Must Break Down The “Blue Wall Code Of Silence” That
Exists In Law Enforcement Agencies Throughout This Nation. Good Officers Must Not
Defend Bad Officers Or Their Misconduct.
SUPPORT
Subject: Adopting Reporting Requirements For Officers In All Use Of Force Cases
From: Members Of The Public (100 Black Men Of The Bay Area)
Recommendation: Receive A Report And Recommendations Regarding Adopting
Officer Reporting And Disclosure Requirements For Both Responding And On-Scene
Officers In All Use Of Force Cases; Mandatory Firing And Criminal Prosecution For
Failure To Report And/Or Disclose Officer Misconduct And For Providing False
Information
OPPOSE
Subject: FY 2015 UASI Program Grant Agreement
From: Oakland Fire Department
Recommendation: Adopt A Resolution Authorizing The City Administrator Or Her
Designee To (1) Enter Into The Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) Grant
Administration Agreement With The City And County Of San Francisco To Accept And
Appropriate Up To One Million One Hundred Thousand Dollars (1,100,000.00) For
Federal Fiscal Year 2015 UASI Grant Funds; And (2) Accept, Appropriate, And
Administer Said UASI Federal Grant Funds; And 3. Approve The 2015 UASI
Recommended Proposed Spending Plan And Authorize A Contribution From The
General Purpose Fund In An Amount Equivalent To Central Services Overhead (CSO)
Charges Affiliated With Said Grant Estimated At Thirty-One Thousand One Hundred
Ninety Five Dollars ($31,195.00) For Fiscal Year 2015-16 And Thirty-Seven Thousand
Four Hundred Thirty Three Dollars ($37,433.00) For Fiscal Year 2016-17; And 4.
Expend Funds In Accordance With Said Recommended Proposed Spending Plan
Without Further Council Approval Provided The City’s Hiring And Contracting
Requirements And Programs/Policies Are Followed.
Berkeley city council members will be discussing the city’s involvement and participation in Urban Shield, a highly militarized SWAT training and weapons expo. Join the Stop Urban Shield Coalition as we demand that Berkeley withdraw their participation in the policing program.
The city council will also be discussing the Berkeley police’s crackdown of a protest last December, in which people who came out to stand up against the murders of Black people at the hands of police were brutalized. Police claim that Urban Shield provides them with better training and skills to be able to handle emergency situations. Yet as we see with their increasingly militarized response to protests and everyday situations, Urban Shield doesn’t increase safety, but only leads to police gaining more tools, tactics, and power in their repression and control of our communities.
Press Conference at 6:30p
City Council Meeting at 7p
The Oscar Grant Committee Against Police Brutality & State Repression (OGC) is a grassroots democratic organization that was formed as a conscious united front for justice against police brutality. The OGC is involved in the struggle for police accountability and is committed to stopping police brutality.
We meet on the 1st Tuesday of each month at 7 pm at the Neibyl Proctor Library, 6501 Telegraph Avenue (near Alcatraz) in Oakland. For more information please call us at 925/798-3698 or e-mail us.
You can join our discussion list by sending a blank (doesn’t even need a subject) email to oscargrantcommittee-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
Come to SF City Hall on Dec 2 & 8 to speak out against the new jail. #NoMoreJails#NoNewSFJail Must Watch: https://t.co/N9frIRKBgV
— Ella Baker Center (@ellabakercenter) November 30, 2015
Our organizing has been successful in building opposition to a new jail in SF, both among Board of Supervisors and the broader public. However, those supporting the jail are trying to rush the plan, waiving a 30-day review period and denying a request from the Youth Commission to change the time so that youth can participate in the discussion. Join us as we show up in force at the Budget and Finance Committee meeting this Wednesday at 10am in Room 250 of City Hall to stand against the jail proposal. Additionally, call the supervisors and demand no new jail in SF!
In Solidarity,
Critical Resistance Oakland
WHAT: Civil liberties advocates speak out on proposed SFPD body camera policy
WHEN: Weds., Dec. 2, 5pm
WHERE: In front of City Hall (Polk Street between Grove and McAllister)
The Police Commission is meeting at 5:30pm in City Hall, room 400 and has this on its agenda.
Public awareness of routine police violence, a serious problem in many parts of the world, has perhaps never been higher. The problem is not new of course, but thanks to the widespread use of video recording devices it has become much more visible.
In the United States, the deaths at police hands of victims like Freddie Gray, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Walter Scott, and many others have become national news and led to uprisings and clashes in places like Baltimore and Ferguson. Locally, victims like Alex Nieto, Idriss Stelley, Amilcar Perez-Lopez, Kenneth Harding, and others have been shot and killed by members of the SFPD under often dubious circumstances.
This epidemic of police violence isn’t the fault of police officers alone. Officers are expected to enforce too many bad laws. Government programs like the failed War on Drugs, asset forfeiture – having your cash or property seized by police, often without ever being charged with a crime, and the burden falling on you to get it back – and statutes criminalizing victimless “crimes” like prostitution, gaming, carrying a weapon for self-defense, unlicensed economic activity (e.g. Eric Garner selling loose cigarettes), or just sitting on the sidewalk, are unjust and should have never been on the books.
Nevertheless, police officers have discretion in whether to issue a citation, make an arrest, or stop someone in the first place. When an officer chooses to take action to enforce an unjust law or obey an unconstitutional order, or uses excessive force in carrying out legitimate objectives, s/he becomes morally responsible for that choice. When Nazis at the Nuremberg trials protested that they were just following orders, this did not absolve them of guilt for the crimes they committed.
Until recently, law enforcers who commit serious crimes have rarely been charged, let alone jailed, for their offenses. In fact, officers involved in suspected wrongful shooting or excessive use of force incidents are often given paid vacations (when you hear the term “administrative leave,” that’s what it means).
To be clear, most of the egregious police shootings and brutality incidents we hear about are committed by a small percentage of officers. Too often though, their colleagues fail to report and speak out against these abuses, or even cover for the bad cops, making themselves complicit and giving the police as a whole a bad reputation.
With growing demands for reform, hopefully this culture is beginning to change. But the public also wants officers to commit fewer abuses in the first place. Toward this end, one reform that’s received much attention is the idea of requiring police officers to wear body cameras to videotape for the record their interactions with members of the public.
In a number of cities, police departments have been ordered to start using such cameras, and a similar effort is underway here in San Francisco. This past summer a working group held several meetings and produced a proposed body camera policy, which has been presented to the Police Commission.
Unfortunately, this draft policy as written has some serious problems. Advocates of civil and human rights have pointed out at subsequent Police Commission hearings in September, October, and November that:
– The policy contains no specified consequences for police officers who fail to turn their cameras on when they are supposed to, or otherwise violate the policy
– The policy would allow officers to legally turn off their cameras during an incident if told to do so by a superior officer – and does not say under what specific conditions a superior can legally give such an order
– The policy would give the SFPD control over access to recorded video footage, instead of requiring it to be turned over to an independent agency like the Police Commission
– The policy contains no public transparency provisions to require recordings of suspected use of excessive force incidents filmed in public places (i.e. not inside private homes without the consent of residents) to be made available to members of the press and the public
The points above are just the tip of the iceberg – there is no space here for a discussion of all the document’s troubling details.
How did this happen? Given the composition and process of the working group, which started with a document prepared by SFPD staff and met with little publicity and few if any non-members present, it is little surprise. Participants included several representatives of the Police Officers Association and other law enforcement groups, but only one member of the public and apparently only one outspoken defender of civil liberties (Rebecca Young of the Public Defender’s Office).
For members of the SFPD to be in the working group at all was a conflict of interest. Persons drafting policy should listen to input from police officers along with everyone else, but for the employees whom a policy is designed to hold accountable to be directly involved in writing its rules themselves is improper and should not be allowed
The police chief, Greg Suhr, is also allowed to sit on the panel with members of the Police Commission during commission meetings, and to remain with commissioners when members of the public are asked to leave the room for a closed session. During one recent meeting, the head of the Police Commission even accidentally addressed the chief as “Commissioner Suhr” before correcting herself.
This kind of cozy arrangement in which the boundaries between the regulators and the regulated are blurred, and police exercising life-and-death powers are effectively allowed to police themselves, is one reason why misuse of force has reached crisis levels – truly independent oversight is lacking.
San Francisco residents need to make sure this pattern does not continue when it comes to the SFPD’s use of body cameras. If it does, then the plan to spend hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to outfit officers with these cameras (not to mention equipment maintenance and record-keeping costs) will be a waste of money which will solve nothing.
The biggest point of controversy concerning the draft policy so far has been its loose rules regarding officers viewing footage captured on their cameras. The police union representatives who’ve spoken at Commission hearings all want officers to be free to look at these recordings prior to writing police reports about incidents that have been filmed. But few if any of the dozens of members of the public who’ve testified, not to mention representatives of civil rights groups present including the Bay Area Civil Liberties Coalition, the Libertarian Party, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the American Civil Liberties Union among others who’ve given testimony at the hearings, agree with them.
The draft policy (latest version online at http://sf-police.org/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=27671 ) would let SFPD members view footage on their cameras, “except when the member is the subject of the investigation” (criminal or internal) in “an officer-involved shooting or in-custody death” that was “captured by the body worn camera.”
So an officer who behaves improperly, and wants to think up a story after the fact that comports with the evidence in order to justify his behavior, can look at the video to aid him in doing so as long as he has not been declared the subject of the investigation. And even if he eventually does become “the subject of the investigation”, he can still review the video before he is questioned about the incident, subject to the discretion of the Chief of Police and/or the lead administrative or criminal investigator on scene. Again this is the police policing themselves, with no objective standards.
Police union reps insist they just want to ensure that officer reports and testimony are as accurate as possible. They say those who want officers to write their reports before reviewing video footage of an incident are just trying to play gotcha. But if other people involved in an incident arrestees, victims, and civilian witnesses are not allowed to watch body camera videos prior to giving statements, then officers must be held to the same standard.
Considering how rarely police officers face serious criminal charges, someone who’s been arrested usually has a lot more to worry about in terms of “gotcha” moments than an officer does. As Commissioner Petra DeJesus and others have noted, an officer can always write a supplemental report if, upon viewing a video, s/he sees that it shows something different than what s/he wrote in an initial report. But having initial reports written based on an officer’s own recollections, not just what video shows, is critical in terms of preserving a record of the officer’s state of mind regarding an incident prior to being influenced by video evidence.
December monthly membership meeting –
This is the last membership meeting of the year! Let’s go out with a pop, not a whimper! If you’re curious about what we do and how we do it, there is no better time than to celebrate the year’s work and get involved with EBC! It will be a great way for people to meet the current members, learn about what the members have been up to and sign up for membership.
Our members have formed an Outreach Committee to support getting the word out about Prop 47. To join this committee contact Lauren at Lauren@ellabakercenter.org.
Hit the Streets tomorrow 9am-noon Montgomery BART in SF for the #climate & against #policeshooting in #SF by #SFPD https://t.co/JSBykhk7LO
— Occupy Oakland (@OccupyOakland) December 3, 2015
In conjunction will the rally in solidarity with Climate Change protesters in Paris.