When we started the Coalition for a Better Oakland three years ago, we decided to focus on two issues: cops and encampments. Concerning the former, we were insulted by the hostility exhibited toward the Oakland Police Department from so many quarters of the city: the mayor, the City Council, the Police Commission, the media, and from too many ignorant residents, whose views had been contaminated by all the above.
My own journey toward realizing how disgraceful cop-hating in Oakland had become was slow in forming. Several individual incidents contributed to my awakening. One was when former Mayor Jean Quan was shown on T.V. news leading an anti-police demonstration downtown. I remember being shocked and disgusted. The mayor of Oakland, whose primary responsibility is to keep the people safe, protesting against her own police department!
Another contributing incident occurred on October 25, 2011, when the young protester Scott Olsen was hit by a police-fired projectile during a riot at City Hall—a riot sparked by Occupy Oakland, which then was at the height of its popularity. My sympathies had been entirely with Occupy Oakland. I walked down to Frank Ogawa Plaza, where they had established a tent city, frequently, to meet the occupiers and learn more about the movement that purported to represent the “99% of us” who felt locked out of power.
There were about 800 occupiers that night. They had surrounded City Hall. In response, a huge force of cops had gathered to protect lives and property. Occupy Oakland already had engaged in massive civil unrest and downtown was on edge. The two sides squared off. A cop used an amplified sound system to inform the crowd that it was being asked to disperse in a peaceful manner. The cop warned the crowd that if it did not disperse, they—police—might use chemical and other means to force them.
I had embedded myself in the crowd and was fairly close to the front line. The cop repeated his warning at least ten times—I remember that distinctly. “They can’t say they haven’t been warned,” I said to myself. Then I realized that I, too, was being warned. The cops weren’t just babbling; they were telling us what they were going to do.
Things speeded up. The crowd was nearing violence; you could sense it in the air. That’s when I backed up about 30 yards. Whatever “chemical and other means” the cops were going to use, I didn’t want to be part of it. And then everything erupted. There were sonic booms, smoke in the air, and the acrid smell of tear gas. The crowd broke up into frenzied segments, as everyone tried to make their way out of the Plaza.
I found myself fleeing too. About a block away, somewhere around Broadway and 16th Street, I was in a group of perhaps 30 people who were still running, when I noticed a young man, his face obscured with a bandana. He reached into his pants and pull out a crowbar. With it, he began smashing everything in sight: store windows, car windows, and so on. It blew my mind. What was he doing? Why was he randomly destroying things? I approached him and asked. His response was to punch me in the chest.
That night there was great violence downtown, and, in retrospect, it marked the demise of Occupy Oakland. The public hated what they had deliberately done to our city. That incident, and the one with Quan, were enough to convince me that something had gone dreadfully wrong with the “progressive” movement in Oakland. What had begun in peace, love and constructive criticism had devolved into insanity.
That is the story of my transformation, and how I came to be such a supporter of cops. Occupy had been warned, repeatedly, clearly and politely, what was going to happen. They chose to disregard the warnings. Scott Olsen, the ex-marine hit by the projectile, eventually made a lot of money settling his case with the city, but to this day I don’t know why. He brought his misfortune upon himself. If anything, the city should have arrested and prosecuted him.
In the last 12 years things have not gotten better for the Oakland Police Department. With the rise of a new vanguard of cop haters such as Carroll Fife, Cat Brooks, Nikki Bas, Sheng Thao and Pamela Price, our cops are more threatened than ever. I don’t like injustice. I was raised to believe in fairness. The progressives in this town constantly complain that people of color are treated unjustly and unfairly. But so too are our cops. These progressives can’t have it both ways. If they want to be respected, they and their followers have to show respect for the rest of us, and for the law. As long as we have out-of-control crime in Oakland—crime that is abetted and encouraged by progressives—then we, the good people of Oakland, will fight back. You can only turn the other cheek so many times.
Steve Heimoff