December 2014 – San Leandro Talk

Thursday Dec. 18: Celebrate Mike with Free Speech in San Leandro!

Thursday Dec. 18: Celebrate Mike with Free Speech in San Leandro! Community, Event, People No Responses »

Dec 172014

Mike Katz-Lacabe speaking with students and community members at his Free Speech Day.

Update

For an event organized in 3 days, the Free Speech Day was very successful.

The day started with Mike speaking about his work as a human rights activist and then as a privacy rights researcher/activist.

Then SLHS students spoke about their concerns and experiences. One girl asked question of whether Martin Luther King’s dream had come true (it has not), others mentioned their disappointment at how City and School authorities are not transparent about issues that concern students, such as the COPS grant. One student brought up the fact that they see many more military recruiters than college recruiters at school, which sets out rather low expectations for students.

Throughout the day, there were speeches and one-to-one discussions. One speaker addressed the issue of neoliberalism, another spoke about pesticides. A man spoke about his religious experience, another one performed a beautiful, spiritual poem. A Jewish rebbe spoke about the freedom of speech aspect of the Hannukkah story.

Some speakers spoke about issues related to San Leandro. Some mentioned their concerns about the growing police power. Rob Rich spoke about Joey, the young man who was found murdered in front of his home last week, and whom the police groundlessly accused of being a criminal.

Their words were powerful and I look forward to posting the videos.

It was wonderful despite the cold, and we are planning to hold another such Free Speech Day in the spring during a weekend day, to make it more accessible to everyone.

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The City of San Leandro has declared December 18th, 2014 to be “Mike Katz-Lacabe day“. We agree that Mike Katz-Lacabe – not only an outgoing School Board member, but a champion of civil liberties in San Leandro – deserves to be honored. And what better way to do it than with a Free Speech Fest!

Please join us for an afternoon/evening of, well, speech. All speech. Any speech. Your speech. (Can’t come? See below)

Come and tell us:

what you think
what you want
what you hope
what you are thankful for
what you are fearful
a story
a poem
a song
a haiku
an anecdote
an experience
an opinion
an idea
a recipe
a helpful hint
your analysis of the current political situation and what can we do to reach the liberty, equality and justice we all deserve.

Tell us with words, with music, with signs.

Tell me, tell a new found friend, tell the police (you know they’ll come by) and/or tell our camera so others can see it later.

But speak. Speak here, in San Leandro, while we still have that right. They have taken so many other rights away from us, let’s exercise those we have left while we still have them.

This last-minute Free Speech Fest will take place on Thursday, Dec. 18th – Mike Katz-Lacabe’s day – between 3:30 PM and 8:30 PM. Stop by whenever you can, we can’t promise there will be more than one person there, but that’s all you need to have a conversation. We know you are busy – yes, there are lots of protests, rallies and meetings to attend, but we really hope to see you here.

As a location, we have decided in the area around the beautiful Holiday tree in the patio between City Hall and the Police Department here in San Leandro. You can’t miss it, it’s really tall.

Bring your friends, your children, your parents, your neighbors, your students. Grab your coats and scarfs and Guy Fawkes masks. Come!

Mike Katz-Lacabe Day Free Speech Fest
Thursday, Dec. 18th, 2014
3:30 – 8:30 PM
Around the Holiday Tree outside San Leandro City Hall

Can’t come? Don’t worry. Just e-mail me a video, or something you want me to read and we’ll make sure to share it during the event.

I give up

I give up City Hall, Community, Police 4 Responses »

Dec 162014

giveupdemotivator I give up. Local democracy does not work at any level. Tonight, a plethora of mostly white, middle-class, middle-aged parents told the San Leandro City Council: “This is where we draw the line. Don’t spy on our kids, don’t criminalize them from kindergarten on”. In essence they said: “this is your chance to release some steam, show that you are something other than a rubber stamp for the police, show that citizens have a chance to have their voices heard”.

The arguments were intelligent, well-reasoned and researched and made politely. They came from a law professor, a poverty expert, a public health researcher, a former School Board member who had just been recognized with his own day (Dec. 18th), two respected community leaders. They came from parents. They all fell in deaf ears. “We know you are moving your lips but even if we could hear you, we would disagree with you on principle” dead ears.

If there was any doubt that there is nothing that anyone can say or do that would ever influence the San Leandro City Council to vote against anything proposed by the police department, that doubt went away tonight – and with that, any incentive for anyone that has any concerns about the police department to dialogue with city authorities.

If you have a City Council which is institutionally unable to respond to public concerns, then social change cannot be accomplished using the extant political system. I am not suggesting any alternatives right now, but I’m willing to listen to suggestions.

(ML)

San Leandro City Council To Vote Tonight to Spy on School Children

San Leandro City Council To Vote Tonight to Spy on School Children Police, Schools No Responses »

Dec 152014

SAFE Asks City Council to Vote Against COPS Grant

Update: The City Council voted to accept the COPS grant. All but one of the speakers spoke against having SROs in Schools.

prisonpipeline
Last week, Students And Families for Education (SAFE) helped defeat the proposal to spend $1.7 of the San Leandro School District’s education fund on police in schools. Tonight, the San Leandro City Council votes on accepting the COPS Grant.

In addition to requiring the city spend money on new police positions, the grant proposal lays out Police Chief Sandra Spagnoli‘s plan to use the grant money to start a program of identifying and monitoring children labeled as “at risk” by the SLPD, beginning in elementary school. SLPD also proposes to track children through social media and private messaging systems.

The money requirement of the COPS Grant will spend much of the Measure HH funds on a few police, without public transparency. This is not how the tax measure was sold to San Leandro citizens.

SAFE invites all concerned parents, students and community member to come out tonight to the City Council meeting at 7pm to express opposition to this surveillance plan and misuse of funds in San Leandro.

The following is the SLPD’s planned used for the COPS grant funds, as stated in page 10, item 14 of the COPS grant application (emphasis added):

The San Leandro Police Department is committed to improving its technology capabilities, both as it relates to monitoring and public communications. We feel strongly that it is essential to understand and use technology that our youth are reliant on in today’s expanding technological world. The four additional SRO officers would be tasked with working with the city’s technology experts to create an online system that can monitor youth from first signs of risk through the school system. As school administration and officers change, this would enable our SROs to know when to check-in with youth, engage them in positive opportunities and connect them to necessary preventive services. Our goal is to build relationships in elementary school years that last through graduation. It is essential for information to be readily available to SROs and to be able to save and monitor data/changes to enable the SRO time to interact with students and develop positive trust-based relationships. The additional SROs will the SLPD time to be actively involved in the community, identifying and discovering how to best work with and engage youth as well as the community and establishing a positive rapport. With funding, the SLPD also plans to increase its use of social media (Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat) to monitor youth activities as well as communicate with students and our community. We plan to utilize posts on these sites to alert the public about available activities and warn them of threats.

Information from the SLPD Forum on Broadmoor Ave. Shooting

Information from the SLPD Forum on Broadmoor Ave. Shooting Police 6 Responses »

Dec 112014

Officer Luis Torres answering questions

On Thursday, Dec. 11, the San Leandro Police Department had an hour-long community meeting to address the shooting that took place on Broadmoor Ave. Mike Katz-Lacabe attended, filmed and tweeted from the meeting. The SLPD did not call on him, so he was unable to ask any questions. The following are his tweets, in chronological order followed by the video of the meeting.

The meeting concerns the December 4 shooting in San Leandro’s Broadmoor neighborhood.

In response to a question from the audience, SLPD Officer Robert McManus says Oct. 5 Woodland Ave. officer-involved shooting is not related.

San Leandro police officer had no chance to get out of way of fleeing vehicle. His leg is why there wasn’t more damage to police car.

Injured San Leandro police officer underwent third surgery today. SLPD says that the officer’s prognosis is unknown.

In response to questions, McManus says they will not share where bullets were found nor how many shots were fired because there are ongoing investigations by the Oakland PD and Alameda Co. DA.

McManus says that both officers fired at the suspect, in response to an audience question.

Reports from local residents described multiple shots (at least 5-6) fired during the San Leandro officer-involved shooting.

McManus says that there is no evidence of a bullet crossing Bancroft Avenue and striking a car in 500 block of Broadmoor.

No weapons were found on the suspect arrested at the scene of the San Leandro officer-involved shooting nor the stolen car.

San Leandro Police Chief Sandra Spagnoli says purpose of meeting was to dispel rumors and answer questions, even though they can’t answer some questions.

Chief says this child was making adult decisions and operated the vehicle as a deadly weapon.

One audience member: “I don’t care how many shots were fired at that car…I hoped that she would end up like that other gentleman.”

Speaker wants police to “work with public works to make that [Oakland] border crossing more difficult.”

Chief says that surveillance & license plate cameras will be used to solve crime in response to speaker about border crossing.

Chief says of suspects: “We feel that they were there for some sort of criminal activity.”

Meeting Video, Part 1

This is a drawing of the scene before the suspect’s car moved. The suspect’s car is the one on the street closest to Kensworth. Two private cars are parked in front of it. The two cars in the middle of the street are the police cars. The injured officer was standing by the car closest to Bancroft, which was blocking the street at an angle.

Note: I removed a note I’d made on how the officer was injured, after Tim’s comment which provides more accurate information. I urge you to read Christine and Tim’s comments below for more information on the meeting.

SLT Facebook Page Has Moved

SLT Facebook Page Has Moved Admin No Responses »

Dec 112014

If you are one of our faithful Facebook friends, you may have noticed that the San Leandro Talk account has disappeared off the face of the earth – or at least off Facebook.

For years, people who objected to the views I express there, have complained to Facebook about the name of the account. Facebook requires real names of people to have a usual “friends” account, and requires that organizations, companies or even artists who perform under a pseudonym, set up a “page” or a “group” instead of a regular account. When I first set up SLT’s FB account there were some significant advantages at having a regular account instead of a FB page, so I decided to go that route knowing that eventually it was going to shut down. Frankly, I was surprised it took so many years – but Facebook seems to be cracking down on this. They can make more money off “pages” by charging their owners to promote their posts.

In any case, I set up a San Leandro Talk Facebook page years ago for exactly this eventuality, and if you miss us, you can “like” it and follow it. There will be a couple of differences in how it operates than the old Facebook page, however:

1- Only administrators posting under a page’s name (San Leandro Talk in this instance) can post directly to a page’s timeline. Post by others show up in the left margin under “Posts to Page”. To make it easier for SLT community members to reach other community members, I’ll be setting up any regular user who asks as an administrator. That means that posts to the page that appear as “San Leandro Talk” are not necessarily written by me. Administrators will try to remember to post their name/initials in their posts. Any post that says ML will be from me, Marga Lacabe.

2-While the old SLT’s FB account had very minimal rules, the ones for the new page will be more stringent. Basically, I will not tolerate trolls or xenophobic or racist comments. I also will not tolerate post or comment spam or personal attacks. Action against abusers will be taken after consultation with other administrators.

I am a big believer in the concept of “borrón y cuenta nueva” (wiping the slate clean). I tend to not seek change, so I see forced change as opportunity. Let’s all work together to make the new San Leandro Talk facebook page a useful space.

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