Let’s take a look at yet another group whose mission is to make life hard for Oakland cops: The Coalition for Police Accountability (CPA).
You’d think that there are already too many organizations or individuals that fancy themselves watchdogs of the Oakland Police Department. After all, we have the Police Commission, which is notoriously tough on cops; Cat Brooks’ Police Anti-Terror Project, which seeks to abolish the entire department; Mr. Warshaw’s twenty-year reign of terror over OPD (now, prayerfully, entering its final year); a clutch of ambulance-chasing plaintiff’s lawyers who make a living suing OPD; and of course the Oakland City Council, leftwing elements of which remain determined to defund the police.
So do we really need another anti-cop group?
What is CPA? They’re a private nonprofit with no formal connection to Oakland city government. Here’s their mission statement:
The mission of the Coalition for Police Accountability (“the Coalition” or CPA) is to advocate for accountability of the Oakland Police Department to the community so that the Oakland Police Department operates with equitable, just, constitutional, transparent policies and practices that reflect the values and engender the trust of the community.
Sounds good, doesn’t it? Who isn’t in favor of equity, justice and constitutional values? The problem, as we’ve seen over and over again in Oakland, is that these police watchdog groups begin with the premise that cops behave badly, that police departments are racist, that police officials engage in all sorts of horrible behavior they try to keep secret, and that criminals—and not the people they prey upon--are the true victims of a white privilege, capitalist society. These groups seek to weaken, undermine and demoralize OPD. They dress their nefarious aims up in fancy-sounding inspirational language that sounds like it was written by Thomas Jefferson. But their real purpose is only too apparent: keep cops on a short leash and don’t let them do their job.
I’ve tried constantly to understand what drives these people. One meme out there among progressives is that it’s impossible for a white person, particularly a white man, to comprehend how POC feel about cops, since we can never live in their shoes. This meme has become so well established that it’s practically a given: since I, a white man, have benefited from white privilege all my life, it’s impossible for me to have the slightest idea what it’s like to be black, and poor, raised in a terrible neighborhood in which cops are widely loathed.
There’s no real way to counter this fictional narrative, but what one can do is look at OPD objectively and see if there’s any truth to the charge that cops are racist thugs who need to be constantly monitored by adults, like rowdy children in a playground. I have looked at OPD closely for a long time. Since becoming President of the Coalition for a Better Oakland, I’ve met with a wide variety of cops, including the Chief. I’ve attended police training classes. I’ve strapped a police weapon to my hip in simulations of violence. I’ve read nearly everything pertaining to OPD, and I can tell you this: We have here in Oakland the best-trained police department in America. We have a department that, under Warshaw’s prodding, is acutely aware of the necessity for accountability and transparency. We have, in Chief Armstrong, a leader determined to make OPD the model for every police department in America. We have, in short, a police department that bears nothing in common with the out-of-control rogues that CPA portrays them as. Which means that CPA is peddling a lie.
Here’s how their game works. The people that run CPA are politicians, and like all politicians, they have ambitions. Who knows what fantasies they harbor in their private moments? But they love the power and attention they get. They depend on the fears and resentments of regular people to donate money to them—people who don’t really have the time to research issues, but believe in quick-and-dirty slogans like this one from CPA: “We advocate law enforcement policies that protect Oaklanders.”
If you’re a young man or woman living in Oakland and you hear something like that, of course you’re going to like CPA. We all want to be protected from the bad guys. But who are the bad guys? Let’s be honest. Are you afraid of cops? Is that cop on the beat a threat to you? Of course not. Who is a threat to you? Murderers, gangbangers, thieves, smash-and-grabbers, carjackers, addicts, muggers—those are the people we need to be protected from. Not cops. Yet you never, ever hear any criticism of criminals by the likes of CPA, or Cat Brooks and her ilk.
So that’s what CPA is, just another tawdry, self-serving collection of cop bashers. This is why we created the Coalition for a Better Oakland: cops need someone to stand up for them, because they stand up for us--and we are that someone!
Steve Heimoff