OccupyOakland

Occupy Oakland

No one has the right to throw rocks, bottle or paint at a police officer.  This is true for at least a couple of reasons.  The first and foremost is that according to the 1985 U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Tennessee v. Garner (471 U.S. 1), when rocks, etc., are thrown, the police can notch up their response in their own defense.  Throwing rocks is a stupid thing to do.  Sometimes it is done to deliberately try to incite a violent response by the police.  Which is a stupid thing to do.  

What I find distressing is the automatic bashing of the police by the media in these confrontations.  Having been in public office, I know that it is politicians on City Councils or County Boards of Supervisors (in California) who establish the atmosphere in which the police or deputies function.  One of the reasons I ran for County Supervisor was that the Board at that time was totally dysfunctional.  They bickered and sniped at each other during the meetings, much to the embarrassment of both staff and the public, and they treated staff with a total lack of respect.  The morale on all levels of our county government was at an extremely low level.  Our locally elected sheriff was known as Barbeque George.  Not exactly a role model for the rest of the Department. 

A new sheriff was elected who clamped down on being drunk on the job, and sexual harassment was zero tolerance.  Another new Supervisor was elected when I was, and we determined before being sworn in that the nastiness at the Board would stop.  The first six months or so were pretty difficult, but then one of the longer term Supes came in to see me with the comment that he thought the new way was a lot healthier!  From then on it became much easier.  The public responded, mostly, to our new atmosphere, although after I became Chair I had to ask a deputy to escort a non-compliant gentleman out of the chambers.  I only had to do it once.  The new atmosphere permeated the entire government bureaucracy, and by the time I left, it had become routine.  I also have to give credit to the then CAO who instituted several good programs for staff, as well. 

My point in telling this is that when police respond as they did in Oakland in an unprofessional manner generally they are either terribly understaffed because of budget constraints, or there is an atmosphere in Oakland which negatively permeates Oakland government, including the police department.  As a result of being terribly understaffed, Oakland called for reinforcements from other agencies, but these agencies have different protocols from Oakland and each other, which is simply the nature of things.  Each agency has its own rhythm which makes working together a problem. 

I am not going to attempt to second guess what happened in Oakland.  My “agenda” here is to point out that automatically bashing the police is one-dimensional thinking.  They may have been instructed to use force.  Then I can hear people say that they shouldn’t obey those instructions.  OK.  Most people, whatever their occupation, are survivors.  In short, they have families, mortgages, credit card debt, whatever, and they need the job.  Also, in the heat of a confrontation, each officer cannot decide on his or her own what order to obey because they do not know what has happened outside their own vicinity.  Nor can an officer, in the heat of a confrontation, differentiate between protesters as to which are violent and which are non-violent.  There simply isn’t time to interrogate each individual to determine intent! 

Which brings me to my next point.  When one is in a crowd of protesters attempting to be non-violent, and one sees someone else preparing to throw something at the police, stop them!  It may take two or three people to stop the throwing, but it must happen.  The protesters themselves must take some responsibility for each other’s behavior.  It certainly has happened before in other protests in years past where “outsiders” were brought in to create a disturbance to smear the reputations of those who were there intending to be non-violent.

I totally support the non-violent Occupy Wall Street movement.  And I totally support the police who are attempting under some difficult times to protect the protesters, the public, and themselves.  I hear a lot of talk about what do the protesters want.  I can’t speak for all of the #OWS movement, but what I want in our country is a just society, or to put it more succinctly – justice.  Most of the protesters and the police I know want the same thing as the rest of us. 

“Let justice roll like a river, washing oppression away”.   Amos 5:24