The Berkeley City Council heard from community members regarding its contentious mutual aid pact before deciding to move forward with the pact at its special meeting Tuesday night.
After hearing city residents’ worries over possible increased militarization in the city and suppression of civil rights during the public comment portion of the meeting, the council added amendments to the pact and directed the city manager to return with the changes incorporated in the pact for approval come September.
The pact was last brought to the council’s attention last November for reapproval — an annual procedure required by the Berkeley Municipal Code — but was postponed at council meetings over the course of a few months in the spring.
“I beg you to look at what is happening in this country and do what you can to reverse it,” said city resident Sydney Vilen.
The city’s mutual aid pact is a set of agreements between the Berkeley Police Department and other nearby security and law enforcement agencies to provide outside assistance when one agency lacks sufficient resources to address a situation.
Citizens also brought up the issue of the possibility of an armored vehicle — which UCPD, Berkeley Police Department and Albany Police Department recently partnered to seek funding for in hopes of sharing the vehicle during times when safety of the public is threatened.
The agencies plan to receive funding from the Urban Areas Security Initiative, a Department of Homeland Security nonprofit organization that is intended to financially support agencies in high risk of a terrorist attack with “security enhancements.”
“Please stay out of this urban warfare stuff,” said Berkeley resident and Occupy protester Daniel Borgström. “I mean it may sound great on paper, but the way it works, they shoot at people.”
Council members hope to increase transparency regarding the armored vehicle by having the Berkeley Police Department provide a report to the council about its involvement with the initiative, such as funding requested from the organization and training the department would participate in.
Residents also voiced concerns at the special meeting over possible limitations in free speech, surveillance of community members and unlawful detainment of immigrants in the city that would be a consequence of the passage of certain agreements in the mutual aid pact.
“Right now being undocumented is sadly a lot like being black in the age of slavery in the United States,” said Berkeley resident Pablo Perez. “What they do is circumvent that they are innocent until proven guilty.”
Council members also set limitations at the meeting on the circumstances under which suspicious activity reports could be submitted to the council during instances in which individuals or groups have been charged with crimes, exempting reports about nonviolent civil disobedience offenses.
The suspicious activity reports are part of the city’s agreement with the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center — a fusion center through which the city provides information on civil disobedience to the federal government in the form of the reports.
“I think we tried to do our best on the guidelines, but we want them reviewed constantly and not just by people who are part of the police or Homeland Security,” said Councilmember Gordon Wozniak. “It should be civilians (reviewing them as well).”
As part of its annual report, the Berkeley Police Department would also have to present a report to the city’s Police Review Commission and the council when mutual aid is requested. Mayor Tom Bates suggested sharing the mutual aid pact policies to surrounding Bay Area cities to gain further input on the city’s policies.
“If we do adopt these policies, which I think we probably will in September, I think it’s important for us to convey these policy changes to our surrounding neighborhoods and cities,” Bates said. “We’re all in this together.”
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Pablo Perez’s analogy is offensive. There is a huge difference between illegal immigrants and people who are brought to this country against their will as slaves. One gets huge benefits from our various levels of government, and the other has been subjected to things no person should ever experience. May Pablo never discover how bad it is to be a slave, and continue to live in his protected bubble where he can make ridiculous comparisons.
Bates said. “We’re all in this together.”
Except we’re not. When my “country” or “city” assembles a military force to be used to spy on me and repress any challenge to its corrupt mafia system, we’re not all in it together. The illusion is effing over.
More to the point, because the system itself is corrupt and unsalvagable, why would any rational person identify with it or want to be “all in it together” with any so-called leader?
This is what the liberals do not understand, because they are fundamentally about preserving the current system – patching it up, putting a smiley face on it, getting it to run just a little bit longer before it blows up. The right has figured out that we’re not all in it together, that this ship is going DOWN and it’s everyone for themselves. The herd buys in to that because they think they have to in order to preserve whatever token wealth or power they’ve accumulated, worthless though it may be. Meanwhile, anyone who is rational knows the system isn’t worth saving to begin with.
So tell me – when Bates and Obama say “we’re all in this together” – who are they kidding? Every time in the last 50 years when that choice has been presented, Americans and/or their elite masters have chosen the option that says “we are NOT all in this together” – see JFK/MLK/RFK assassinations, re-electing Nixon, standing down on opposing Vietnam and foreign intervention generally once the draft was abolished, Reagan over Carter, the ascension of rightwing bootlicking and money worshipping ideology, Bush over Gore, putting the tea tards into Congress. Bill Clinton was a numerical default because he had Perot, then he lucked out with the economy. Obama was a practical default because of the Bush economy but four years later he can’t blame Bush and there is no third party to siphon votes the other guy, yet Obama is running on the “we’re all in this together” line which has never succeeded in my lifetime. It’s not going to work this time either.
The most frightening issues of Police militarization in Urban Communities is it is not always the Police Department making the ‘Rules of Conduct’, but those that Finance the Departments with military weapons, surveillance equipment, and military training making the decisions in exchange for financing.
It is the very reason this Country was established and why nearly every American calls this Country home, to avoid a Military State such as is developing in our communities now.
The Constitution forbade this, the Bill of Rights denounced its implementation, and we as Citizens, or living in this Country, all share a History of persecution from one tyrannical government or another, spreading over countless generations and centuries.
What ever an individual’s ethnicity and background, chances are excellent that if not the current living generation, or those with ancestors coming here sometime in the last 3-4 centuries, we all share the common thread of hope of freedom from totalitarian or Militant governments, and the foundation of this Country to not live the lives imposed by same, and why we collectively call this country ‘Home’.
We are only deluding ourselves of ‘security’ if it is in exchange for ‘freedom’. How will we stay ‘secure’ when it is our own Civil Police that become our enemy or worse? We need to halt all attempts to Militarize our Urban communities, as it is against our own Constitution and what the United States stands for and the premise for entirely.
Please oppose this in every level of Government by Voting against any Ballot issue pertaining to allow this; against any politician/ lawmaker in Local, county, State and Federal running or already in office as they are not using their best judgement nor representing their constituents by allowing this to happen. They are also Violating Every Oath of Office to ‘Uphold the Constitution of the United States of America’, and this is the Greater issue by far.
Not to be overly dramatic, this is very real and already started in place, and is not a joke.
Read the Agreements, the recent laws passed both State and Federal levels that clearly eliminate ‘due process’ and allow Citizens to be treated as Military prisoners’ and under Military and/ or Martial Law which is not what we want, nor need because of the ‘masked enemy’ called ‘terrorism’. Terrorism is real, but we need to be sure it is not our own Government committing those terrorist acts against its own Citizens. We have all seen the Peaceful Occupy Movement, and the unnecessary force used to ‘contain’ the protestors, it will only escalate from here when any ‘Protest’ group congregates. It can not be allowed to be treated as a reason for Martial Law and/or as a Combat Ground on our own City Hall sidewalks and inside our Parks.
The Council now serving Berkeley, should be aware that they may be faced with a massive recall election for the reasons cited above if they approve any Mutual Aid for this Police Department, or any City funding or police funding to arm our Civil Police Department with any Military Equipment. It is Unconstitutional, unnecessary, and can not be allowed.
Thanks for reading.
From the Daily Cal:Residents also voiced concerns at the special meeting over possible limitations in free speech, surveillance of community members and unlawful detainment of immigrants in the city that would be a consequence of the passage of certain agreements in the mutual aid pact.
“Right now being undocumented is sadly a lot like being black in the age of slavery in the United States,” said Berkeley resident Pablo Perez. “What they do is circumvent that they are innocent until proven guilty.”
What sheer, unmitigated bullshit! We keep getting these absurd analogies from the loony life: “being undocumented is akin to slavery, the police are acting like Nazis, Israel is an apartheid state,” etc.
No wonder every time local activists open their mouths, they discredit their own “cause” (if indeed their cause had any credit to begin with)…