What was the first thing your police officers on Fruitvale platform did after they shot Oscar Grant in the back? They tried to confiscate video footage taken by passengers.
Let that to sink in for a moment.
What was the first thing that BART cops did, as an innocent man lay dying because of their lack of self control, and because of their mistake? Did they call an ambulance? Did they perform CPR? No. They ran around the platform confiscating passenger cell phones to prevent video of their actions from reaching the general public.
Shutting us up didn’t work then. And it is not going to work now.
But that message doesn’t seem to have gotten to you. You believe you can figure out a way to shield BART from accountability for the violent and deadly mistakes of its police. And you believe that the BART police force can, and will eventually silence our demands for justice. And so you let them shut off cell service, endangering passengers. You let them, also, lock down stations full of people, closing metal gates over all the entrances and exits, and then issue commands to 100s of people inside, to immediately evacuate the station through a single door. God forbid, if there was an earthquake Monday evening, you would have some serious hell to pay.
So let me repeat. Your counter-protest "strategy" IS NOT WORKING. Bob Franklin’s wishful thinking notwithstanding, your police are not getting better at handling protests. Your counter-protest "strategy" IS FAILING MISERABLY.
And our protest strategies, THEY ARE WORKING. You are learning what it feels like to be accountable to the public. YOU are being forced to respond to criticism instead of hiding from it. And we know you don’t care about public safety. If you cared you would not barricade exits in stations that are still full of passengers and then demand they evacuate. And you wouldn’t turn off their ability to call 911.
And we know you don’t care about the law, because if you did you wouldnt violate the Constitution, the fire code, the California and FCC codes on communications.
BUT we know that you DO care about your image. We know you hate attention. And we know you hate, hate, hate it when people get a whiff of how bad the BART administration stinks.
No Justice No BART has been around for 3 years. And we know that our protests, these protests, are the reason, the ONLY reason you are even having this kind of a discussion right now. What we are doing is working.
Now, since you are listening, for once, let me tell you what we are NOT asking.
We are not asking you to "improve" your police "services". Certainly, there is a lot of room for improvement. You could stop letting your police get away with murdering passengers. You could hire a police chief who won’t lie to the public. You could fire deranged, racist, corrupt cops like Marisol Domenici and Tony Pirone.
But the time for making token "improvements" to your embarrassment of a police force passed decades ago. We don’t want your slightly improved version of a murderous, unaccountable, corrupt police force. So we aren’t asking you to try to fix anything. We simply do not trust you to run a police force at all.
We also don’t want you to "improve" your free speech policy. We already have a free speech policy. It is called the constitution. And we didn’t elect you to, nor would we trust you to, interpret our constitution.
And we are not asking you for permission to protest. We are going to do it anyway, regardless of your policies. Our free speech zone is wherever we happen to be standing. We find it offensive and insulting that you even think you are entitled to determine what the constitutional limits on our freedom of speech and assembly are.
Yes, right about now, you really, really want these protests to end. You want to go back to “business as usual”. But there is no going back, not if “business as usual” includes an out of control police department that brutalizes and murders innocent passengers. These protests will end when you DISBAND YOUR POLICE FORCE.
Shutting down our cell phones won't stop the protests. Arresting people won't stop the protests. Backing down and apologizing for the cell phone shutdown, while probably a good idea, won't stop the protests. If you want to stop the protests, DISBAND THE BART POLICE.
And yes, I know you all feel some sense of loyalty to these cops. And who knows, deep down, some of them might be good people and all, and maybe they have kids to feed. But none of them have any business running around our trains with guns, and none of you have any business being in charge of anyone with a gun. And this is not a fringe opinion. Even former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, who, let me assure you, is no fan of us ‘protesters’, has stated publicly that the BART cops aren’t real police and shouldn’t carry guns.
And with that in mind, let me tell you something really sad, something that will bring this full circle. At the murder trial of your BART officer Johannes Mehserle, it was revealed that the only resistance offered by Oscar Grant and his friends was a verbal protest of their mistreatment by the BART police. Specifically, we learned that Oscar Grant said: 'Why are you fucking with me. You guys aren't even real police." Sound familiar? And it was upon hearing their authority challenged that these BART cops worked themselves into a frenzied, murderous rage. In the end, we understand that BART police beat and executed Oscar Grant… because he spoke out and criticized them.
NO JUSTICE
NO PEACE.
DISBAND THE BART POLICE.
[the full meeting is viewable here]
