East Bay News

On February 9, farm defenders halted construction on the Gill Tract farm in Albany once again. Five farm defenders sat in silent meditation in the path of heavy machinery that was removing topsoil. Contractors attempted to operate the heavy machinery around them despite the risks to the safety of those on site. Three were arrested and two were taken to jail. The two were released later in the day.

Norman “Wounded Knee” DeOcampo (Miwok), a long-time resident of Vallejo, will be taking part in the Longest Walk 5 beginning February 13 at La Jolla Shores in San Diego, California. Wounded Knee is the Founding Executive Director of the Vallejo based organization Sacred Sites Protection and Rights of Indigenous Tribes. (SSPRIT). He is the only person who will have participated in all five Longest Walks.

On January 11, construction work began on the southern portion of the Gill Tract. The UC is privatizing this section for a high-end senior assisted living facility, a Sprouts supermarket, and a parking lot. The next day after working hours, about fifteen individuals entered the Gill Tract to remove surveying stakes marking the paths for the heavy machinery brought to pave over land. On January 28, farm defenders chained themselves to an excavator that was removing valuable topsoil, halting a day of construction.

Hundreds of people from more than two dozen groupings responded to the Anti Police-Terror Project’s (APTP) call to come together for 96 hours of direct action over the Martin Luther King Day weekend, January 15-18, in San Francisco and Oakland. Mayors and police chiefs were targeted for protest. The weekend’s events culminated in a Reclaiming King’s Radical Legacy March and a surprise shutdown of the Bay Bridge on January 18.

On January 1, family and friends marked the seventh anniversary of the police murder of Oscar Grant at the Oakland BART station where his death sparked a justice movement that has caught fire nationally in recent years. About 125 people attended the afternoon vigil at Fruitvale BART Station to hear words from family, faith leaders and activists, and poetry and song in memory of Grant and Black youth lost to violence.

On Black Friday 2014, following the grand jury announcement it would not recommend indicting police officer Darren Wilson for the murder of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, fourteen Black activists chained themselves together on a BART transit platform “to prevent trains from moving at the West Oakland station, in response to the seemingly unending war against Black communities.” District Attorney Nancy O'Malley and BART pursued criminal charges and originally ,000 in restitution. Now, after a year-long campaign by the Black Friday 14 and a broad coalition of allies, the DA has dropped all the charges.

An activist who was pursued by the City of Oakland for criminal vandalism and restitution is challenging his conviction four years later. César Aguirre was convicted for allegedly smashing the windows of the OPD Internal Affairs and Recruiting Offices during the Occupy Oakland General Strike of November 2-3, 2011. Aguirre has now filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus challenging his conviction based on the prosecution's failure to disclose material evidence.

Eleven people who were clubbed, teargassed, slammed to the ground, shot with impact munitions or groundlessly arrested by the police during a December 6, 2014, Berkeley demonstration filed a civil rights lawsuit against the City of Berkeley, then-City Manager Christine Daniel, Chief Michael Meehan, the City of Hayward, and Berkeley and Hayward officers in federal court on November 23, 2015. The plaintiffs include journalists who were covering the demonstration, as well as demonstrators.

Before dawn on November 15th, about 700 cars showed up to an “LA to the Bay” sideshow in East Oakland. An OPD patrol car was smashed as those gathered chanted, "Fuck the Police!" Later that same day, responding to another sideshow just after dark at about 5:30pm, Oakland police were in the process of impounding several motorcycles when they killed Richard Perkins near 90th and Bancroft Avenues in East Oakland. The killing has been protested with a student walk-out and march from Fruitvale BART.

The ACLU of Northern California and the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office have reached a settlement agreement that will ensure that women are able to choose whether they receive pregnancy testing in the county’s jails. The agreement is the result of a lawsuit, Harman v. Ahern, which argued the policy was a violation of the California Constitution, the U.S. Constitution and state statutory law.

Immediately following the Paris attacks of November 13, France announced the prohibition of mass marches in cities across the country. Large rallies scheduled for November 29 and December 12 in Paris during the UN climate conference have been forbidden due to this new ban. French rally mobilizers are asking why demonstrations are prohibited while sporting events and Christmas markets are being permitted. In Northern California, climate activists marched in Oakland and Santa Cruz during the weekend of November 21-22 in a lead-up to the Paris climate summit.

In an example of collaboration with privacy advocates, on November 17, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors passed a comprehensive privacy policy regulating the county's use of cell phone interceptor equipment (often referred to in the press by “Stingray” or “Hailstorm”) before approving the purchase of an equipment upgrade. The policy requires a warrant before any deployment of the device and periodic audits of use.

In a show of solidarity, labor unions and Black Lives Matter activists staged a protest on November 10 which targeted Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O'Malley. Some two hundred protesters gathered outside D.A. O'Malley's offices demanding that she “Drop the charges against the Black Friday 14!” They declared that the struggles for economic justice and racial justice were two sides of the same struggle. Inside the courthouse, a delegation of labor leaders occupied O'Malley's office. No arrests were made.

On November 13, the San Francisco Public Defender’s office released video of two Alameda County Sheriff's Office (ACSO) Deputies beating a man who is curled up on the ground. The first deputy tackles and punches the man and then both proceed to hit him with their batons for nearly a minute, repeatedly striking the man in the head and all over his body. They only stop beating him after other ACSO deputies and SF police arrive on the scene. Instead of rendering medical aid, the arriving police walk around the seriously wounded man, shining flashlights on him as he moans in pain, crying out for help.

In the city of Alameda, rent increases and evictions remain unregulated. Landlords are pushing rents up sky high and/or evicting people out of homes they've been able to afford for decades. On November 4, an estimated 200 Alamedan renters went to their city council to demand an end to unfair rent hikes and displacement. City Official Bob Haun shoved a 68-year-old Alameda Rental Coalition leader and police tackled another protester to the ground where he lay bleeding while police restrained him. After a hearing that lasted past 1am, the council voted for a temporary 65-day limit of 8% on rent increases and ban on no cause evictions.

On October 11, a group of indigenous people held a sacred ceremony and observance on the historic Gill Tract Farm to honor the land and the ancestors who lived on the land for over 10,000 years. The gathering was convened by the Indigenous Land Access Committee (ILAC) — a group of Ohlone and other native people who envision reclaiming land stolen from them, and restoring spiritual and cultural lifeways in solidarity with indigenous people on every continent harmed by colonization.

A "Stingray" is a device that simulates a cellphone tower and intercepts all phone traffic in its range. A new California law set to go into effect this January requires most state and local agencies to conduct a public hearing and to create a privacy policy before acquiring a Stingray or equivalent device. But on Tuesday, October 13, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors is scheduled to consider whether to approve a request by the Alameda County District Attorney to accept money from the state to acquire an upgraded Stingray known as a "Hailstorm." If approved, and if the purchase is consummated before the new year, the new Stingray law would not apply.
UPDATE: The decision on approving the grant money for a Stingray upgrade was postponed to an indefinite date, probably December.

On September 12, about 60 people showed up outside Uncle Sam's Liquors in Richmond to remember Pedie Perez who was shot dead at that location on September 14, 2014 by Richmond police officer Wallace Jensen. Although Jensen claims that Pedie had tried to take his gun, witnesses dispute this and the store's surveillance video shows that after a struggle on the ground Jensen got up and backed away with his gun still holstered. He then shot Pedie from about six feet away.

Dan Rush, a former union organizer for United Food and Commercial Workers Local 5, was recently named in a federal arrest warrant that alleges he engaged in bad-faith negotiations with cannabis dispensary owners while acting in his capacity as a union official. Rush is also accused of holding a private financial interest in a medical cannabis company seeking a dispensary permit in Oakland in 2010.

August 27 marked the sixth officer-involved shooting by Oakland police in 2015, and the fourth resulting in death. This does not count Richard Linyard, who police claim suffocated to death after he squeezed himself between two buildings during a police chase. All of OPD's victims this year have been of African descent. The victim was Yonas Alehegne and it's been reported that he was homeless and an immigrant, possibly from West Africa.

The Richmond Progressive Alliance sent out the following notice on August 27: We are reaching out to notify you of a misleading petition to repeal the new rent control ordinance in Richmond, CA. [W]e have received dozens of reports from residents and have cause to believe that up to half of their signatures are from supporters who have been otherwise fooled. This petition if validated will SUSPEND the ordinance for up to Nov. 2016, during which landlords will be free to unfairly raise rents and evict tenants without just cause.

Defend Knowland Park issued a call-out for direct action in the Oakland hills: "As we have stated before, we need to resist the destructive and gentrifying Zoo development to protect the animals, land, and neighborhood. We invite everyone who feels compassionate about environmental justice, animal rights, and tenant rights to join us, organize, and take direct action." On Friday, August 21, a Knowland Park Defence Convergence Festival and Campout is scheduled with bands, workshops, films, and more.

In 2015, Oakland Police have already been involved in three fatal shootings, as well as a mysterious death where a man died while trapped between two houses following a chase. On the afternoon of August 12, Nathaniel Wilks, 27, born August 26 in New York City and father to a tiny baby girl named Kai’lei, was fatally shot as he slowed down after a car and foot chase by police, saying, “Ok, Ok, Ok,” shortly before he was shot.

The Humanist Hall is being attacked by newcomers who live in condos built right next door only about ten years ago. The Humanist Hall has opened its doors for countless radical and under-served organizations over the past 75 years, yet now it is being labelled a public nuisance by the City of Oakland due to complaints from the new neighbors. An online petition calls on Mayor Schaaf to “encourage condo owners and renters to respect the social norms of the neighborhood – our neighborhood – that they have moved into.."

The year 2013 was a busy one for animal liberation actions across the U.S., primarily at businesses that breed and/or sell fur. Tyler Lang and Kevin Johnson of Los Angeles recently pled guilty and currently await sentencing for a related charge of violating the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA). On July 24, the FBI arrested two more animal rights activists. Joseph Buddenburg and Nicole Kissane of Oakland were charged under AETA for 2013 actions. At a court hearing on July 28, Judge Ryu released Nicole from electronic monitoring but ordered that Joseph remain on home lockdown with continued monitoring.

For two months, the Muwekma Farm thrived at its location on the corner of 31st Avenue and International Blvd in Oakland. On July 9, however, the City of Oakland and OPD destroyed every single plant, raised bed, and bench. Muwekma Farm writes: We have no specific date for retaking the land, but when we do there will be another announcement. To those who desire a world free of environmental destruction and economic slavery, we would like to remind you that there is an inordinate amount of vacant land in the City of Oakland.