Jacorey Calhoun and the outsourcing of Oakland police violence

This fact of life for policing in Oakland is nothing new, as both the Alameda County Sheriff and the California Highway Patrol have had contracts to patrol the city at different times over the last few years. What is apparently new is that these and other agencies are now more responsible for many of the visible incidents of police violence in the city than the city’s police department.

For example, the policing of the Black Lives Matter movement saw many outrageous police actions, but mostly from other agencies. Two of the most egregious incidents during the Oakland marches--an officer shooting a less-lethal shotgun at random marchers from Highway 24, and an outed undercover officer pointing his gun at marchers and journalists--were carried out by the CHP.

The killings of Oakland residents by non-OPD law enforcement highlights this trend more than anything else. Since January 2014, people in Oakland have been shot and killed by the CHP, Alameda County Sheriff, private security, San Leandro Police Department and most recently by the Emeryville Police Department. It would seem that nearly every local law enforcement agency--if private security can even be placed under that label--that operates in Oakland have killed somebody since last January. The fact that none of these are at the hands of an OPD officer is hardly a consolation.

Of all of these incidents, one in particular stands out in its similarity to the killings in Ferguson, Missouri and Staten Island, New York, that fueled the anger of the Black Lives Matter movement.

The execution of Jacorey Calhoun

In August of last year, an unarmed African-American man was shot several times and killed by a white law enforcement officer who later claimed the man was reaching into his waistband. His lifeless body was left for hours in a puddle of his own blood and the police would later claim that the man was suspected of a robbery.

This incident describes the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, but it also describes the killing of Jacorey Calhoun who was shot and killed by an Alameda County Sheriff’s Deputy in Oakland six days earlier.

The details of Calhoun’s killing have been largely ignored by the local media and city leaders after a brief series of articles in the days following the incident, but the Alameda County Coroner’s report on his case sheds light on the brutal nature of his killing and the callous disregard for his family.

According to the report, the incident began at 3:57am on August 3 when an Oakland police officer attempted to stop Calhoun’s vehicle, which was associated with a robbery warrant. It is not clear why the officer ran his license plate or if he even did this before the chase began. We know now that the Oakland police regularly scan license plates, disproportionately in poor and non-white neighborhoods, although it is not clear Calhoun’s plate was run by an automated scanner. We also know, from their own data, that traffic stops by OPD disproportionately target African-Americans. Regardless, Calhoun fled on foot when reinforcements were called in, including nine Oakland Police officers and an Alameda County Sheriff’s Deputy from the K-9 unit, Deputy Derek Thoms.

Calhoun was eventually found in the backyard of an East Oakland residence where Deputy Thoms assisted his police dog over the fence. “The dog had engaged the suspect prior to the Deputy getting over the fence,” the report states. “The Deputy was on top of a GMC pickup truck, which was parked next to the fence, when he saw the suspect reach for his waistband. The Deputy fired several shots hitting the suspect.”

No gun was reported on Calhoun. In other words, Calhoun was unarmed and under attack from the police dog just before he was shot at least seven times, according to the autopsy. One of these shots hit the top right of his head downward and the bullet was later retrieved from his neck, likely a result of Thoms’s position on top of the truck. Most of the other seven bullets struck him on the left side, and an eighth probably grazed a finger on his right hand. The Coroner also describes extensive damage to his left leg above and below the knee from the dog attack.

The confrontation is described as occurring at 5:50am and the report describes paramedics arriving at 5:57am. “[H]e was not breathing and did not have a pulse. EKG pads were attached and death was determined at 0558 hours.” However, his official time of death is listed at 5:51, one minute after being shot.

Mandy Monaghan, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Deputy who is listed as the investigator in the report, describes arriving at the scene “about 0905 hours,” over three hours after the time of death. “Jacorey CALHOUN was on the ground in between the truck and trailer,” she writes. “Blood was on the ground around his head and torso. I could see what appeared to be bodily tissue on the top his head.”

The next time listed is 11:05am, when they arrived back at the morgue where the body was processed. He was partially identified by his tattoos, one of a panther and another which read “RIP DAVON.”

Contacting the family

The Coroner’s report describes efforts to reach out the the family on the day Calhoun was killed. Eventually tracking down an address in Concord, the Sheriff’s Deputy called the Concord Police Department and asked them to make a death notification at the address. The Concord Sergeant reportedly said “he was not comfortable attempting a notification on an officer involved shooting death.” The Deputy told the Concord Sergeant that “he didn’t need to disclose the circumstances of the death but only notify family of the death and have them contact our office for further information.” Unsurprisingly, the Sergeant stated again that he was uncomfortable doing this.

Eventually, a phone number for Calhoun’s father was found. He was told by an Alameda County Sheriff’s Deputy that another Deputy had killed his son and that there was an outstanding $321 Coroner’s fee for body removal and preparation.

A Facebook page checked in January belonging to a Mandy Monaghan, the same name as the investigator who wrote the report, had a “Blue Lives Matter 2015” profile picture with a blue American flag, referencing the pro-police response to the Black Lives Matter movement. This raises the question, as with every police killing, of how inappropriate it is for the agency responsible for killing somebody to investigate itself, though outside agencies have hardly been more objective, especially the Alameda County District Attorney. The DA is also investigating this case, though this still has not been completed five months later. The Oakland Police Department also has a homicide report into the incident but has so far refused to release it.

Thoms is currently a defendant in two civil lawsuits from two separate incidents in 2013 partly regarding his use of the dog in attacking people. In one of these cases, the court filing states that the plaintiff was attacked by Thoms, the dog and another Deputy. He then awoke handcuffed to a hospital bed and was not allowed to leave or make a phone call until he signed a confession prepared by Thoms.

If pressed, the Sheriff’s Office and city and county leaders will likely point to the warrant on Calhoun as some sort of evidence of how dangerous he was, even though he posed no threat to the officers at the time he was killed. Calhoun’s death is simply another incident of an unarmed Black man who was shot and killed by a white officer claiming after the fact that his victim was reaching for his waistband.

The Oakland Police Department, under court watch for over a decade, claims that they have made great strides though the recent traffic stop statistics suggest quite the opposite. With years of scrutiny on the police force, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office and the other agencies that operate in Oakland have avoided media scrutiny. The killing of Jacorey Calhoun and four others suggests that this has gone on for far too long.

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, City Council President Lynette Gibson McElhaney and OPD Chief Sean When can applaud the lack of shootings by Oakland police for nearly two years. Nonetheless, people in Oakland, especially people of color, continue to be shot and killed by law enforcement while city leaders pat themselves on the back.