Activism

OPD Detains Homeless Aid Volunteers, Violates Mask Policy

Published

4 years ago

May 21, 2020

Cassidy Taylor, a volunteer for the mutual aid and protest group, the United Front Against Displacement (UFAD), poses in front of a hand washing station before a protest against police activity on and near Wood Street in West Oakland, where a large community if unhoused Oakland residents live. Photo by Zack Haber.

Oakland Police Department (OPD) officers detained and handcuffed two volunteers last Saturday who were maintaining a freshwater supply for a large community of unhoused residents that live near Wood Street in West Oakland for possession of a stolen vehicle, but let them go after approximately five minutes when they determined the vehicle wasn’t stolen.

Cassidy Taylor, one of the volunteers OPD detained, says she feels at least one of the four officers present recognized her, and that their actions were in retaliation.

“He definitely recognized me. I feel like I was targeted. The police know that we’re trying to build links with the community and that we have a history of resisting attempts to evict homeless folks. I think they want to antagonize us because of that,” said Taylor.

A video of Taylor’s detainment shows one officer not wearing a mask while handcuffing her. In an email to The Oakland Post, OPD confirmed that officers not wearing a face covering while “engaged in essential government functions…where the public is present or likely to be” violates an Alameda County Health Official Order that, since April 17, the department has committed to upholding due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

While OPD did not say whether or not the officer would face consequences for violating the order, they did say “The incident has been forwarded to our Internal Affairs Division.”

OPD has tested over 330 of its over 700 officers. In a press release published on May 19, OPD announced that “In the evening of May 18, the Oakland Police Department had their 4th reported case where a member tested positive for COVID-19.” A May 20 press release confirmed a 5th officer tested positive. Both officers are currently in quarantine.

Taylor is a member of the United Front Against Displacement (UFAD), a group that provides survival and life enrichment services for unhoused Wood Street residents while advocating and protesting for the city of Oakland to provide permanent housing for all its residents.

UFAD has constructed and maintained three water tanks and seven hand washing stations in the area. A separate volunteer organization, the Berkeley Free Clinic (BFC), has installed and maintained four handwashing stations and one water barrel near Wood Street.

Although the city of Oakland has arranged for a nonprofit, Lava Mae, to provide showers to unhoused residents in the area on Thursdays, daily use of water comes largely from UFAD’s and BFC’s resources, resources the city isn’t providing.

UFAD’s work means they’re at the site often. Dale Smith, who’s worked with UFAD for over a year and is on or near Wood Street at least three to four times a week says he sees police there every time he’s on-site, “a noticeable increase” from before shelter in place, when he says he’d only see them sometimes on Wood Street, as opposed to now, when he sees them just west of Wood Street, closer to where more people live.

“I see them driving kind of recklessly down [the site’s] dirt roads” said Smith.

Smith expressed concern about this way of driving because he says people live right next to the site’s dirt roads, and reckless driving puts residents in danger.

In a May 17 press release, OPD said “The Department has increased its presence in West Oakland as a result of challenges with crimes. Residents have continued to voice concerns about criminal activity in [the Wood Street] area including shootings, assaults, sale and use of narcotics. Within the last two months, eight stolen vehicles have been recovered from [the Wood Street] area.”

Jesse Parker, a long term unhoused resident of Wood Street and lifelong Oakland resident expressed concern about the increased police presence.

“[The increased police presence] doesn’t feel good at all. They’re taking the wrong people to jail. You got a couple [officers] wearing masks but the rest of them don’t,” said Parker.

OPD said they’ve arrested five people for possession of the stolen vehicle in the last two months. One of the five arrested told the Oakland Post they didn’t steal but only temporarily sought shelter inside the vehicle they were arrested for stealing. Since the vehicle wasn’t running they said they assumed it was abandoned.

On May 18, Taylor and over a dozen members of the UFAD as well as unhoused Wood Street residents, protested OPD’s increased presence at Wood Street.

“I think [police] were [at Wood Street] to intimidate us…because we’re not just building handwashing stations for our homeless, we’re building people power. We’re building a future for people where they can determine their own lives,” said Taylor at the protest outside of Oakland’s City Hall.

Zack Haber

Posts by Zack Haber

Related Topics:featured Oakland Police Department (OPD)

Up Next

City Council Places Oakland Youth Vote Measure on November Ballot

Don't Miss

Frontline Healers East Oakland Collective ‘Protectors of the Last Frontier’ Extend Food Service During COVID-19 Pandemic

Zack Haber

Click to comment

Activism

‘Respect Our Vote’ Mass Meeting Rejects Oakland, Alameda County Recalls

The mass meeting, attended mostly by members of local Asian American communities, was held in a large banquet room in a Chinese restaurant in Alameda. The Respect Our Vote (ROV) coalition, consisting of concerned community members and groups, is organizing meetings in Oakland and around Alameda County leading up to the November election.

Published

1 week ago

September 28, 2024

Oakland Post

Some of the leaders who spoke at the Respect Our Vote – No Recalls!” mass meeting were (left to right): Elaine Peng, Mariano Contreras, Pastor Servant B.K. Woodson, and Stewart Chen. Photo by Ken Epstein.

By Ken Epstein

A recently organized coalition, “Respect Our Vote – No Recalls!,” held a standing-room only mass meeting on Sept. 14, urging residents to vote ‘No’ on the two East Bay recalls funded by conservative billionaires and millionaires with the help of corporate media and instead to support the campaign to protect residents’ democratic right to choose their representatives.

The mass meeting, attended mostly by members of local Asian American communities, was held in a large banquet room in a Chinese restaurant in Alameda.

The Respect Our Vote (ROV) coalition, consisting of concerned community members and groups, is organizing meetings in Oakland and around Alameda County leading up to the November election.

Speaking at the meeting, prominent East Bay leader Stewart Chen said that local leaders, like Alameda County D.A. Pamela Price and Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, worked hard to get elected, and our system says they get four years to carry out their policies and campaign promises. But rich people have “broken” that system.

Within two months after they took office, they were facing recalls paid for by billionaires, he said. “(Billionaires’) candidate did not get elected, so they want to change the system.”

“(Our elected leaders) were elected through the process, and the people spoke,” said Chen. “It’s the entire system that the billionaires are trying to (overturn).”

“If a candidate does something wrong or enacts a policy that we do not like, we let it play out, and in four years, we do not have to vote for them.

“The democratic system that we have had in place for a couple of hundred years, it needs our help,” said Chen.

Pastor Servant B.K. Woodson, a leader of the coalition, emphasized the diversity and solidarity needed to defend democracy. “We need each other’s wisdom to make our nation great, to make it safe. We are deliberately African American, English-speaking, Latino American, Spanish-speaking, and all the wonderful dialects in the Asian communities. We want to be together, grow together, and have a good world together.”

Mariano Contreras of the Latino Task Force said that people need to understand what is at stake now.

The recall leaders are connected to conservative forces that will undermine public education, and bilingual education, he said. “The people behind (the recalls) are being used by outside dark money,” he said. The spokespeople of these recalls are themselves conservatives “who are wearing a mask that says they are progressives.”

In 2017, Oakland passed an ordinance that gave teeth to its “Sanctuary City” policy, which was brought to the City Council and passed because it was supported by progressive members on the council.

“That would not be possible anymore if the progressive alliance – Sheng Thao, Nikki Fortunato Bas, and Carroll Fife – if they are pushed out,” he said.

Elaine Peng, president of Asian Americans for Progressive America, said, “I strongly oppose the recalls of Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao and Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price.”

Citing statistics, she said Alameda County’s murder rate was higher when Alameda County D.A. Nancy O’Malley was in office, before Pamela Price was elected to that position.

“The recall campaign has been misleading the public,” said Peng.

She said Oakland is making progress under Thao. “Crime rates are falling in Oakland,” and the City is building more affordable housing than ever before and is creating more jobs.

Attorney Victor Ochoa said, this recall is “not by accident in Oakland – it is a political strategy.”

“There is a strategy that has been launched nationwide. What we’re seeing is oligarchs, (such as Phillip Dreyfuss from Piedmont), right wingers, conservatives, who can write a check for $400,000 like some of us can write a check for $10.”

“They aligned themselves with so-called moderate forces, but they’re not moderates. They align themselves with the money, and that’s what we have seen in Oakland.”

Ochoa continued, “You got to put up signs, you’ve got to talk to your neighbors, volunteer whatever hours you can, have a house meeting. That’s the way progressives win.”

Pecolia Manigo of Oakland Rising Action spoke about what it will take to defeat the recalls. “This is the time when you are not only deputized to go out and do outreach, we need to make sure that people actually vote.

“We need everyone to vote not just for the president, but all the way down the ballot to where these questions will be. Remind people to fill out their ballot, and mail it back.”

Former Oakland Mayor Jean Quan, who had herself faced a recall attempt, said, “In this recall, they used a lot of money, had paid signature gatherers, and they moved very fast. I talked to many of the people gathering signatures. They didn’t know what was going on. Many of them didn’t live in Oakland. It was just money for them.”

“Sam Singer, the guy who is their spokesperson, is a paid PR guy. He has media ties, so they’ve swamped the media against Sheng,” Quan said.

‘Oakland is… a city that implemented some of the first rent control protections in the country. So, developers and big apartment owners would love to get rid of rent control,” said Quan.

“We also established ranked-choice voting, which allows people with less money to coalesce and win elections,” she said. “That’s too democratic for people with big money. They would rather have elections the way they were.”