Chief Greenwood, It’s Time to Go
By Paul Lee
Friends of Adeline
The following statement calling for the immediate resignation of Berkeley Police Chief Andrew Greenwood was written by Friends of Adeline (FoA) member Paul Lee, who was raised in South and West Berkeley.
He asked that it be read for him at the Berkeley City Council meetings on Oct. 26 and Nov. 10, which were scheduled to take up a no-confidence motion in Greenwood by council member Cheryl Davila, who supported a July 13 march against him by Berkeley High School students and demands for his dismissal by Berkeley Copwatch:
https://m.facebook.com/pg/Berkeley.Copwatchers/posts/
Too Traumatic
Mr. Lee, who believes that the dangerous, unscientific mythology of “race” is the root of the even more dangerous reality of racism and, therefore, encloses all “racial” terms in quotes so as not to legitimize either, explained why he couldn’t read his statement as follows:
“I’m not reading my own statement because writing it was deeply traumatic, and I simply can’t afford to psychically and emotionally retraumatize myself by reading it at a public meeting, particularly not during this time of national crisis for ‘black’ people.
“Every ‘black’ man that I’m related to or know, including my father, uncles, brothers, son, nephews, cousins, friends and acquaintances, has had ugly, demeaning, frightening and/or violent experiences with the police, including here in supposedly ‘liberal’ Berkeley.
“All of us could testify that these encounters have permanently distorted our nervous systems. That’s why I broke down when I read my statement to the Friends of Adeline — because it forced me to re-experience these dehumanizing personal and collective encounters. That’s when I knew then that someone else would have to read it tonite. Thank you.”
Stonewalling
On Oct. 26, fellow FoA member Mari Mendonca was only allowed to read one-minute of Mr. Lee’s statement. On Nov. 10, Berkeley NAACP President Mansour Id-Deen wasn’t allowed to read any of it because Mayor Jesse Arreguín used a cowardly procedural maneuver to again stonewall discussion of the no-confidence vote.
Therefore, to further public discussion of this urgent issue, we are publishing Mr. Lee’s statement in its entirety. — Friends of Adeline.
Good evening. I don’t know if Chief Andy Greenwood considers me to be a friend, even though we’re both Berkeleyans, graduated from high school in the same year and have always had honest and cordial relations. I like him and, no matter how he might feel, I consider him to be my friend.
Which is why it might be surprising that I’m here to say that, for the good of our hometown, the chief should resign his position as soon as possible.
No Faith
The reason is both simple and regrettable: He doesn’t have the faith of the “black” community. This is particularly egregious when “black” Americans are feeling more targeted by the police and “white” vigilantes than at any time since the dark days of lynching bees, when “black” people were burned, hung and cut into pieces as a uniquely American form of entertainment.
While this kind of racist violence is nearly as old in this country, the recording and broadcasting of it is new and has sparked unprecedented, nationwide demands for racial justice, involving millions of Americans, most of them — for the first time in our history — “white.”
News to You, Life to Us
Sadly, the estrangement between the Berkeley Police Department and the “black” community is also not new. Not in my lifetime — I’m 60 — has the department made any serious, sustained effort to establish trust with “black” Berkeleyans, who have historically felt surveilled, racially profiled, contained, harassed and abused by the police, rather than protected by them.
I suspect that most “white” Berkeleyans would find this hard to believe, but I would challenge all doubters to simply stop any “black” Berkeleyan, at random, and particularly any “black” male Berkeleyan, and ask him what his experience with this department has been.
If I’m right that they’ll report one, more or even all of the indignities and hazards that I listed, this is another reason that Chief Greenwood should resign — because we’re in a new day, and we need a chief who recognizes that it’s imperative that we break from this ugly past and work to establish a present and a future in which all Berkeleyans could feel safe, respected and protected — not just “white” Berkeleyans.
The Willard Incident
Instead of helping to create an environment that makes “black” Berkelyans feel this way, he’s developed a baffling and disturbing habit of telegraphing signals to the “black” community that, whether conscious or not, have heightened our justifiable suspicion and fear of the police.
Two years ago, outside of Willard elementary, an African American boy was playing with a “white” girl who he’d grown up with when two “white” motorists, stereotyping him as an aggressor, trapped him in a pincer move, with one of the motorists leaping from his truck, running down and grabbing the frightened boy, who he hurled threats at.
Quite naturally, the “black” community was outraged. But the chief, instead of speaking to our pain, wrote an op-ed in Berkeleyside defending the actions of the true aggressor as being justified by — and I quote — “Penal Code Section 837,” which “provides that any private party may make an arrest of a person committing a public offense in their presence.” What offense was this? According to the chief, his department — and again I quote — “determined that the passing motorist believed he was witnessing an assault.”
Pouring salt into the wound, word spread fast thruout “black” Berkeley that the chief opposed release of the videotape of this incident, supposedly over privacy concerns. In coordination with Mansour Id-Deen, president of the Berkeley NAACP branch, I appealed to a friend at the NAACP Legal Defense fund, which is still working to obtain the tape.
Trust me, the “black” community took note the chief’s actions, and it hasn’t forgotten.
Police Review Commission
During this same period, I attended with Mansour several meetings of the Police Review Commission, where the chief managed to find every way that he could to avoid releasing the results of an independent study, which would reveal the local “racial” statistics of police stops and arrests.
Again, “black” Berkelyans read the chief’s actions, however he might’ve reasoned them, as yet another failure to protect our interests. We didn’t have the slightest doubt what these statistics would reveal, but it would’ve been helpful for the doubters to see proof of the unequal treatment of “black” people in Berkeley.
2018 Juneteenth
That same year, during Berkeley’s annual Juneteenth celebration, which is really a reunion of displaced “black” Berkelyans, the chief had an information booth on Adeline near Fairview. To the amazement and disgust of passing “black” Berkeleyans, this booth was flanked by two military-style vehicles. Richie Smith, the unofficial mayor of South Berkeley, and native Berkeleyan and veteran community activist Willie Phillips remonstrated with the chief about this.
Chief Andy Greenwood with Mrs. Richie Smith, 2018 Juneteenth. Note the military-style vehicles on either side. (Chief Greenwood Photo)
The following year, I complained about this at a city council meeting. The chief, who was seated outside, sent one of his officers to ask if I would talk with him. When I pointed out that, as a graduate of a largely-“black” Berkeley High, he should’ve known that these vehicles would be read by “black” people as an act of intimidation, he asked, with precious innocence, “What about a squad car?” I nearly fell off my chair at his clear incomprehension of the “racial” and cultural dynamics of such a situation.
The Last Straw
Last June, during a public meeting, Berkeley City Council member Susan Wengraf asked the chief what “tools” his officers had “to protect themselves” during Black Lives Matters protests, which were escalating thruout the country, including in nearby Oakland, where Berkeley police backed up the Oakland PD.
Infamously, Chief Greenwood replied, “Firearms — we can shoot people. No, I don’t mean to be callus, but, if you don’t have less lethal force that can drive it back, then we are absent a tool.”
https://abc7news.com/berkeley-police-chief-andrew-greenwood-berkely/6241593/
He later claimed that he was speaking in jest, but “black” Berkeleyans saw this as merely confirmation of the historic attitude of the Berkeley Police Department towards them. That was the last straw. Since then, it has become an article of faith among “black” Berkeleyans that the chief has to go, that he’s proved himself tone deaf, not only to this painful history, but also to the fact that, for us, things haven’t fundamentally changed.
It’s Time to Go
However, I didn’t join this call — not then. Instead, I reached out to the chief, who, to my gratification, reached back. Quite earnestly, he requested that we meet in person to discuss the state of community-police relations. I wasn’t able to do so because I was having trouble dealing with the passing of my beloved mother, but, for a number of weeks, we exchanged views thru texts and email letters.
Without breaking any confidences, that’s when I finally concluded that my friend Chief Greenwood simply does not, and perhaps cannot, understand the relationship of his department to “black” Berkeley, historically or now. Of, if he can, it’s gonna take too long. We don’t have time for to him to play catch up. The times are too urgent; the needs are too great; and the situation is too potentially explosive.
A New Day Needs a New Chief
On the other hand, I’m not alone among “black” Berkelyans in being very impressed by several of his non-“white” staff officers, including a female Latinx lieutenant sergeant and the African American public information officer. I was personally struck that, when I met these officers, they immediately told me about their own experiences with or sensitivity to “racial” profiling.
That’s what “black” Berkeley needs and deserves — someone whose attitude and actions are informed by personal experience, not book learning, no matter how well-meaning; someone who’s from the community, or at least from a similar community, who would understand why our blood runs cold whenever we’re stopped by a cop; why we’re anxious about calling the police; and why we are afraid when they come.
So, let’s thank the chief for whatever good that he might’ve done, for his high-minded ideals, but also ask him to step aside — which would be an affirmation of those noble ideals. The time is now. It’s time to go, to open up a new chapter, a fairer, more just chapter — for all Berkeleyans. Thank you.