The Berkeley Police Review Commission voted at a meeting Wednesday night to close a policy complaint raised earlier this year regarding police use of force and crowd control tactics at the protests on the UC Berkeley campus in March.
The complaint — brought March 17 by Copwatch member Andrea Pritchett — raised issue with the Berkeley Police Department’s possession of less lethal munitions, like pepper spray, at the protest and asked the commission to reevaluate the department’s mutual aid agreement between BPD and UCPD.
The decision made at the meeting was aligned with the conclusion reached by the commission’s investigation into the department’s crowd control tactics initiated in April.
The recommendation encourages the closing of the complaint, “because there is no evidence that BPD violated its Operational Agreement with UCPD or its crowd control policies.”
Pritchett contested the recommendation at the meeting and expressed concern that the mutual aid agreement could mean that BPD must defer to orders from UCPD that violate its crowd control policies, complaining specifically about the way BPD officers forced protesters and onlookers away from the Wheeler Hall steps during the ledge sit in March.
According to the recommendation, BPD acted within the constraints of its policies when dealing with that instance of crowd control. Berkeley police Sgt. Ed Spiller said at the meeting that BPD officers would not break their own department’s policies if UCPD told them to.
Pritchett also raised issue with the fact that the department requesting mutual aid — in this case, UCPD — during an emergency situation determines whether the situation is an emergency and said that this could result in BPD officers being deployed to situations unnecessarily.
Commissioner George Perezvelez emphasized the importance of mutual aid agreements for BPD as well as the departments it provides assistance for.
Though the vote did close the complaint, the commission discussed the possibility of forming subcommittees to evaluate current BPD policies concerning its use of force and crowd control tactics.
The meeting also marked the first meeting with UC Berkeley Junior Marco Amaral, who was recently appointed to the commission by City Councilmember Kriss Worthington.
“It’s really critical that there be student voices and generation voices (on the commission),” Worthington said.
Amaral, who has been involved in several student protests, was one of 17 protesters arrested on suspicion of trespassing after refusing to leave Wheeler Hall during the March 2 protest.
Sarah Burns is the lead crime reporter.
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The complaint was essentially about whether BPD should be deployed to help quell protests and not about whether they should respond to life threatening emergencies. The language in the mutual aid agreement currently doesn’t specify what situations would qualify for assistance. We know that UC invokes mutual aid days in advance when they suspect that a protest will be taking place. After all, that is why they gather intelligence and spy on student activists. They want to know how to plan for such things.
It was not an allegation of misconduct. The PRC officer persisted in trying to frame my concerns as a misconduct complaint but it wasn’t. I wanted the PRC to consider refining the language of our mutual aid agreement to exclude frivolous uses.
It was also about whether BPD officers should be forced to do things which violate their own policies simply because UC has “operational jurisdiction” during the protest. Do you think BPD officers should display munitions 2-3 feet from protesters? Should our officers push people down stairs and hit them in the back simply because UC wants to move people away from the front of the building? Is it right for BPD to spend thousands of dollars responding to a planned protest because the UC wants to make non-violent students look like they are dangerous criminals? Sarah, I think you should do a follow up and go a bit deeper into this issue. I promise, it is going to come back this year.
[Do you think BPD officers should display munitions 2-3 feet from protesters?]
If the protesters are getting violent and acting like assholes, why not?