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Superintendent implicated in cover-up of Oakland School Police killing of Raheim Brown
April 27, 2013
Perhaps you’ve heard or read the name Raheim Brown Jr. He’s the 20-year-old Black man who was beaten then shot and killed by Oakland School Police Department Sgt. Bhatt. What real justification can there be for officers – who were hired to secure a school dance on a school campus – to venture from their assigned duty posts and beat, shoot and kill innocent youth?
Crime, criminalization and gun control: Oakland leads the way in crime hysteria
March 8, 2013
Oakland may seem like a local anomaly with its big increase in homicides in 2011-12 and the anti-crime hysteria which now engulfs it. But Oakland is just a prime example of the intertwining of crime and criminalization under capitalism, in which the ruling class divides working people one from another and targets particular groups for victimization.
Cop-on-cop crime in LA: American blowback
February 8, 2013
In a letter titled only “Last Resort” and addressed to “America,” Christopher Dorner makes clear his grievances, his objectives and the rationale behind his actions – a chilling declaration of war on the Los Angeles Police Department. The LAPD has long played a vanguard role in white supremacist policing in the United States.
No Bratton-style policing in Oakland: Unraveling the fraying edges of zero tolerance
January 22, 2013
Hundreds turned out for Oakland City Council’s Public Safety Committee meeting on Jan. 15, 2013, to oppose paying $250,000 to bring “supercop” William Bratton and his “stop and frisk” and other zero tolerance police policies to Oakland. The bid for Bratton’s consult seems to be simply Oakland throwing good money after bad.
Stop the supercop! All out to Oakland City Hall Tuesday!
January 14, 2013
Oakland’s mayor, chief of police, and city manager announced their intentions to contract with William Bratton as a consultant to the Oakland Police Department. Oakland has become the epicenter of anti-brutality campaigns, so those who want the brutality to continue are bringing in their big guns. Join the Justice for Alan Blueford Coalition and allies on Tuesday, Jan. 15, to tell the Oakland City Council that we reject Bill Bratton and his racist, fascist policies. Meet up at 5:00 for a rally with the meeting at 5:30.
De La Fuente out: Oakland voters send a clear message on gang injunctions
November 7, 2012
With election results in, Oakland residents sent a clear message against gang injunctions. Voting out the most strident and vocal proponent of the use of gang injunctions – Ignacio de la Fuente – and voting in injunction opponents Dan Kalb and Lynette Gibson-McElhaney in Districts 3 and 5 respectively.
In celebration of true revolutionaries
November 6, 2012
A now famous quote from Ernesto Che Guevara says, “At the risk of sounding ridiculous, the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love.”
The legacy of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense has proven this repeatedly, even though the city in which the party was born continues to shower those who struggle within her boundaries with the most heinous disrespect.
Look who’s punishing violent cops now!
October 25, 2012
On Oct. 12, Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan announced that 44 of his officers would face some manner of punishment for their abuse of Occupy protesters last year. Some have hailed this decision as a sign that the Oakland Police Department is finally going to start holding its officers accountable. A look at the recent decisions by Jordan and the OPD, however, dispels any such hope.
Blueford family exposes City Council lies
September 29, 2012
On Sept. 18, many people in the Bay Area came together to support one family’s struggle for justice. Hundreds of supporters joined Jerilynn and Adam Blueford and many of their relatives as they confronted Oakland City Council to demand that it pressure the police department to investigate the death of their son, Alan.
Oakland police shoot Oscar Grant’s cousin
February 23, 2012
Oakland Police shot Tony Jones, 24, late Sunday. He is a cousin of Oscar Grant, whose murder by BART police officer Johannes Mehserle sparked a movement for justice that presaged the Occupy movement. Unarmed, Jones was running from police, “but that does not give them the right to shoot him in the back,” declared his attorney, Waukeen McCoy.
Oakland parents question need for school police
December 12, 2011
Since the lethal shooting of 20-year-old Raheim Brown in January by an on-duty Oakland Unified School District police sergeant, some community activists and residents have questioned the role of the police on school grounds. Some parents are even calling for the dismantling of the district’s school police force.
Buy Black Wednesdays 8: Occupy Black Wall Street!
November 18, 2011
Join the Occupy movement. But join with caution and ask yourselves of any movement: Does this group have a collective goal or game plan to work on which assures that we, Black people, are making progress for our people every day, if not every hour?
Whose streets? Oakland’s shadow government presses City Hall to end the occupation
November 11, 2011
The interests of big business have become the law of the land. The fictive “people of Oakland” invoked by business improvement districts (BIDs) LMUDA and DOA are nothing more than the personified corporations who want to turn Oakland into a gentrified metropolis devoid of any real public space.
The police raid on Occupy Oakland was nothing new for this city
November 11, 2011
All of this was more than a reaction to the Occupy movement. It’s best understood as the latest battle between police and residents in at least two years of civil unrest in the city, beginning with the killing of Oscar Grant by ex-transit officer Johannes Mehserle on New Year’s Day 2009.
Unnamed young Black man killed by Oakland police
October 6, 2011
According to neighborhood witnesses, white Oakland police officers chased an African American man appearing to be about 20 years old from the corner, up 99th and south on Cherry Street toward 100th Avenue. Before he reached the corner house, he tossed a bag and put his hands in the air. Once his hands were in the air, the police shot and killed him.
Criminalizing our youth to excuse police murder
August 23, 2011
After the London riots in August, the theorist Paul Gilroy made a rousing yet frighteningly honest speech to a crowd of community leaders and activists in Tottenham, North London. In his speech, Gilroy argued that Black and poor youth had been subjected to what he called “processes of criminalization,” re-creating them in an image they did not choose.
A life worth less than train fare
July 21, 2011
Another young, unarmed Black man, Kenneth Harding, has been gunned down in broad daylight. He was shot numerous times in the back as he fled, his empty hands held in the air. His crime had been a simple train fare evasion for which San Francisco police executed him in the street.
Oakland gang injunction is deceptive and wrong
June 8, 2011
At the heart of a gang injunction is usually an overreaching district attorney. Say No to John Russo! Pack the courtroom Friday, June 24, 2 p.m., Department 20, Rene C. Davidson Courthouse, 1225 Fallon St., Oakland.
Gang injunctions, unfettered police power gentrify Oakland
May 4, 2011
Labeled a crime fighting tool, gang injunctions are ineffective, counter-productive and further strain the relationship between residents and police. Pack the courtroom Friday, May 6, 2 p.m., 1225 Fallon, Dept. 20, Oakland, for a hearing on the Fruitvale gang injunction.
Two trials and an anniversary: Bonds, Bailey and Mixon
March 25, 2011
AT&T Park shook so hard I thought I was on a pogo stick the night Barry Bonds crushed a 3-2 Mike Bacsik pitch into right center to go past the great Hank Aaron and crown himself Major League Baseball’s all-time home-run king. He circled those bases to a deafening hometown roar.