Honoring the Legacy of George Floyd
May 25, 2023 marked the third anniversary of George Floyd’s brutal murder by Minneapolis police officers. In response, three years ago Berkeley erupted with outrage and collective action to eradicate racism and racist policing, including commitments made by the Berkeley City Council to reimagine public safety that made national news. During the summer of 2020, Berkeley was poised to lead the country in actually creating a city where everyone feels safe.
To support this vision of a new era for community safety, in November 2020 nearly 85% of Berkeley voters approved Measure ii which amended the city charter and established the Police Accountability Board (PAB) to provide oversight to the Berkeley Police Department (BPD).
Three years later, Berkeley has relinquished their mantle of leadership. First, according to BPD 2022 stop data, Black people are stopped by the police because of “reasonable suspicion” almost 5 times more than expected based on Berkeley’s Black population. Even worse, Black people are 6 times more likely to be stopped for “reasonable suspicion” in response to a call for service — meaning someone sees a Black person and calls the police.
Second, on May 9 the city council promoted Jen Louis to police chief, even though investigations by the PAB and the law firm hired by the city are still underway and there’s data — analyzed by Human Rights Data Analysis Group and Berkeley Copwatch — that substantiates the text allegations of arrest quotas, which are illegal and unethical.
Cheryl Owens, who was leading the PAB’s investigation of the text allegations, resigned from the PAB the day after Louis was promoted to permanent chief. Before tendering her resignation, she said, “There is no collaboration on any front in this city, nor do I believe there’s a commitment to civilian oversight [of the BPD] by the city manager, the city attorney or the chief of police. When the PAB and the police chief disagree on a complaint finding, the city manager always sides with the chief. I don’t trust the city manager to give much weight to findings from the investigations into the text allegations if there are findings against the police department staff or the chief.”
The one initiative followed through on from the summer of 2020 is the Specialized Care Unit (SCU) due to be implemented this summer. The SCU will be a civilian non-criminal crisis response team. Let’s follow Antioch’s lead and name this program after someone who didn’t survive a mental health crisis once the police arrived. In Berkeley, that’s Kayla Moore, the transgender, Black woman who tragically died in BPD custody in 2013.
Our city’s political leaders have not demonstrated the courage required for a true racial reckoning in Berkeley, but we can!
Refuse to call the police if a person of color looks “suspicious“ to you or you don’t know them. Instead, ask yourself, “If a friend or neighbor were acting like that, would I call the police? Are they committing a crime or endangering anyone?” If the answer is no, and you still want to call someone, call the Options Navigators Crisis Response Team at 510.346.6328. They are on call Monday to Friday from 9am to 10pm.
Let’s recommit to the legacy of George Floyd and show that Black Lives Matter in Berkeley!
This article was first published in the Berkeley Times on May 25, 2023.
