The situation with the lack police accountability in Berkeley has become critical. At this point, the police and their union have been able to compel the city to continue its participation in the Urban Shield military style exercises, scuttle the proposal for an empowered police commission and extract a 9% raise for their already well paid officers.
Despite the known dangers of cyber stalking, we have seen BPD tweet out the identities of anti-fascist protestors and secretly record police stops and then leak the information to the press as a way to humiliate an African American City Councilmember. While refusing to provide basic information via Public Record Act requests and denying the most basic right to watch even to Police Review Commissioners Berkeley police are a partisan political entity unto themselves.
This has got to stop.
We need a powerful coalition to take charge of policy and practice regarding the Berkeley Police Department. It is not tolerable to allow the abdication of power to a department that is more than willing to conceal or release information as suits its need to “control the narrative”.
Please join us! Berkeley Copwatch along with The Way Church and more organizations to a meeting to discuss new strategies for Public Safety and Community Control of the Police. We need a new vision of how to control police functioning and break the structural barriers that allow and lead to police misconduct.