Protest the Bratton/Wasserman Contract at Oakland City Hall

On Tuesday, January 22nd, come on back out to City Hall as the full City Council weighs what to do now that the Public Safety Committee has recommended moving forward on the Wasserman/Bratton consultancy proposal. In addition, the 22nd will be the 2 year anniversary of the murder of Raheim Brown by OUSD police officers Barhim Bhatt and Jonathan Bellusa. Please join us to come together for a rally to honor the lives of all of Oakland's sons and daughters murdered by the police. The City Council meeting will begin at 5:30 and the rally will start at 5:00.

Although Wasserman vehemently denied that he or the City Council were in any way trying to bring Stop and Frisk or gang injunctions or youth curfews or zero tolerance policing to Oakland, it is impossible to deny that the choice of a contract with Bill Bratton suggests the opposite. Bratton was on air the night before the Public Safety Committee meeting proudly proclaiming yet again his support of Stop and Frisk and his belief that any city that doesn't have a Stop and Frisk policy is "doomed to failure." Wasserman also kept repeating the importance of community involvement and bringing the community together (and even seemed to take credit for the hundreds who came out to protest the Bratton contract), but neither in his time consulting with the OPD nor when he and the city announced a month ago that the Bratton hiring was a done deal (it wasn't) did he ever bring the community in. How are we as a community supposed to believe what Wasserman says when he's been so clearly dishonest this far?

Perhaps more importantly, why is the city even thinking about spending $250,000 dollars from public coffers that are dryer than dry when they haven't taken the much more obvious step of simply listening to the community?

So I'm suggesting that we, as the community, head on back out to City Hall and give them some free advice.
Want to know how to improve trust with the community?
How about you start by not lying.

Want to know how to improve community relations?
How about not treating the community like a diseased monster that needs to be beaten into submission or simply murdered.

Want to know how to solve the problem of deficient leadership?
How about firing the leadership.

Want to know how to not deplete the budget?
How about stop trying to throw money at the problem by spending on fancy gadgets that don't work or that you never learn how to use. How about not paying hundreds of officers insane overtime to abuse nonviolent protesters or stand around city council meetings or sit around the house on paid medical leave after executing an unarmed teenager and shooting your own dumb self in the foot? How about training your police properly so that they don't keep getting sued every 5 minutes? How about not hiring Wasserman and Bratton?

Want to know how to get the community on your side?
How about they're not supposed to be on YOUR side. You're supposed to be on THEIR side. You're the employees. You're the public servants. You work for us (or at least you're supposed to).

Want to know how to bring down crime?
How about offering people alternatives to crime like jobs and healthcare and housing and food instead of shutting down schools and social programs left and right to further pad the OPD budget. How about not trying to shove people out of their own neighborhood so that they don't feel like they're already the enemy.

So come on out and bring your solutions. Don't forget to sign up for a speaker card and give City Hall a piece of your mind. Hell, a piece of your mind is probably the only thing they haven't yet tried to take from you.