People’s Hearing on Racism and Police Violence

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You can download the Motion, Declaration and the independent report on the October 25, 2011 raid on Occupy Oakland by the Oakland Police Department below:

Motion for federal receivership of OPD (PDF)
Declaration of federal receivership of OPD (PDF)
Frazier Group report (PDF) (independent report on OPD commissioned by the City Council)
Cato Institute article on the Policemen’s Bill of Rights

Alan Blueford

Picture of Alan Blueford Just after midnight on Saturday May 6th, Alan Blueford and two of his friends were waiting for some girls to pick them up on 90th Ave., in East Oakland, after the Floyd Mayweather fight. Not long after Alan had phoned his parents to check-in with them, a car slowly pulled up to them with its lights off. Alan ran. One officer gave chase. A few blocks later Alan was shot by OPD officer Miguel Masso. Masso also shot himself in the foot. Over a dozen witnesses all said that Alan had no weapon and posed no threat to the officer.

Why did the police approach Alan and his friends with their lights off? Why did they give chase when Alan had committed no crime and posed no threat to the officer? Why was Alan shot three times when he had no weapon? How did a trained officer shoot himself in the foot? From the witnesses’ statements, why was Alan not given emergency CPR by OPD? Why did the OPD change their story to the family several times in the days after the shooting? Why have they refused to release the coroner’s report, despite the fact that it has been
complete for weeks?

The family has gotten nothing but lies, distortions and stalling from the OPD. The Blueford family and the Justice 4 Alan Blueford Coalition are demanding:

  • Officer Miguel Masso be fired and charged with Alan’s murder.
  • OPD Chief Howard Jordan be held accountable for
    lying to the Blueford family.
  • An end to stop-and-frisk and other police practices
    of racial profiling.
  • The repeal of the Police Officers’ Bill of Rights, that shields violent cops from prosecution and keeps them on the street.

Web site: https://justice4alanblueford.org/

Malik Brown

Picture of Raheim Brown On Saturday, Jan. 22, 2010 20-year-old Raheim Malik Brown was shot and killed by the Oakland Unified School District’s police force near a Skyline High School dance. Police statements and media have reported that Brown tried to stab an officer with a screwdriver, and a second officer shot Brown five times – once in each arm, once in his chest and twice in his head – in defense of his partner.

On Thursday, Feb. 3, outside the OUSD headquarters, Brown’s mother, Lori Davis, spoke at a press conference. Calling the killing an “assassination,” she was horrified by the excessive use of force by school police officers. Davis believes that Sgts. Barhim Bhatt and Jonathan Bellusa, the two cops identified at the press conference as the two involved in Brown’s killing, should “never be able to work in another police department ever.”

Tamisha Stewart, the only civilian witness to the killing, who was in the car with Brown outside the Skyline High dance, spoke for the first time publicly about the event. The screwdriver Brown was accused of using as a weapon, according to Stewart, was being used in an attempt to hotwire the car, and it “never left the ignition.”

While hotwiring a car might be cause for police attention, it is not cause for five bullets, including two to the head. Stewart added, “There was nothing that Raheim did that he deserved to die.” According to statements at the press conference, after Brown was killed, Stewart was beaten badly and jailed for almost a week.

An Oakland teacher’s union representative also spoke at the Thursday press conference, saying that the union had voted to “support fully an independent investigation” into Brown’s killing and the OUSD Police Department.

Brown was one of three people killed by police in a single week in Oakland. In early 2010 former Oakland Police Chief Anthony Batts called on the FBI for an external investigation into the November police
killing of Derrick Jones. As initial police statements contrast sharply with Stewart’s account of Brown’s killing, further investigation into this case might also be warranted.