Police Accountability NOW

On Thursday Nov 10, the Berkeley City Council received screen shots of racist, classist, white supremacist and anti-homeless texts that allude to arrest quotas — which are illegal in California. The texts were sent by the now-former president of the Berkeley Police Association, Sgt. D. Kacalek, to his fellow officers on the Downtown Bike Patrol. City Manager Dee Williams-Ridley’s response to these texts was to bury them and move forward with the appointment of the current Interim chief, Jen Louis, to chief of police. This appointment was on the agenda of the City Council meeting on Nov. 15.

The texts went public on Monday, Nov 14. Calls to halt the appointment of Louis resounded through the community and the Police Accountability Board. At the council meeting, Brandon Woods, the Alameda public defender, made an unexpected appearance. He urged the council to delay the confirmation of Louis as he has “no faith in the chief.”

This problem isn’t new. Interim Chief Louis was aware of significant issues as far back as the summer, when Mr. Woods sent three emails to her describing how Berkeley Police Department (BPD) officers were not following the Youth Miranda rights spelled out in SB 395 and 203. Here is an excerpt from one of the emails Mr. Woods sent to Louis:

“Unfortunately, recently some officers in the Berkeley Police Department have engaged in a practice of circumventing the legislative intent of both laws. Recently we have received calls from BPD to provide Miranda consultations where the officers have refused to mirandize the minor while we were on the phone. The officers have been initiating the call and allowing us to speak to the child, but as soon as we are done with the confidential consultation and the phone is handed back to the officer, they have been hanging up the phone before we have a chance to tell them that the child wants to remain silent.”

Upon hearing this, Louis did nothing. Mr. Woods received no response from her. In addition, thus far, Louis has not made any public statement about the texts leaked by former Officer Shedoudy. Shedoudy referred to the texts as the “tip of the iceberg.”

After Woods’ impassioned comments, Mayor Jesse Arreguin called for comments on the consent calendar. The item to appoint Louis as chief of police was on consent. Councilmembers Ben Bartlett, and Sophie Hahn, Vice Mayor Kate Harrison all mentioned that they wanted to move this item to the action calendar. The other five council members didn’t mention the item or the controversy; the mayor simply said that the item would be moved from consent to the end of the agenda.

Hours later, after 10p.m. City Manager Williams-Ridley said that she was pulling the appointment of Louis from the agenda and “we will return the item once an investigation has been completed.”

If Louis knew about the texts, that is a problem. If she didn’t know about the texts and the alleged arrest quotas, that reflects poorly on her oversight and management of the police department.

We join Berkeley Copwatch in respectfully demanding:

• Do not confirm Interim Chief Jen Louis as chief of police.
• Empower the Police Accountability Board’s investigation of misconduct.
• Remove Ceasefire from police supervision. The city has allocated two million dollars to create a gun violence prevention and reduction program. BPD doesn’t have enough credibility with young people and marginalized communities to be able to effectively reduce crime and violence. Civilian agencies should lead this program.

Finally, we support Secure Justice’s request of California’s Attorney General Rob Bonta to investigate BPD’s potential arrest quotas and racial profiling. May this investigation shed light on the larger patterns at play within our city government and whether or not there was a cover-up of these officers’ behavior.

This article was first published in the Berkeley Times on December 1, 2022.