On Sept. 18, a meeting of the Oakland City Council was shut down by Jerilynn and Adam Blueford and their supporters. The Blueford’s son Alan was killed by Oakland police officer Miguel Masso on May 6. Shutting down the council meeting was seen by the Bluefords as the only response left after the council had refused for four months to put any pressure on the Oakland Police Department to release a report about Alan’s death.
After the Sept. 18 meeting was ended due to relentless heckling and interruptions by the Blueford family and supporters, Jerilynn Blueford described the action as a success. If governmental bodies that theoretically serve community needs refuse to serve the community, asked the Bluefords, what choice do the people have but to shut them down?
Independent news sources across the Internet described the shutdown as a heroic example of a community demanding to be heard by its supposed representatives. But that is not the way the capitalist press of the Bay Area reacted. On Sept. 20, San Francisco Chronicle columnist Chip Johnson, who has made his career as an apologist for Bay Area cops and for calling for increased policing of “troubled neighborhoods,” wrote: “The Oakland City Council no longer controls its own house, the mob does. For years, city officials have stretched or bent the rules to accommodate every person who stepped to the podium.”
According to Johnson, then, the duty of the elected City Council is not to listen to the people of Oakland about their problems and concerns, but to conduct “city business” like approving contracts and paying bills—to run the city like a business rather than a community.
Capitalist media demonizes protesters, smear Alan Blueford
Johnson went on to describe the protesters as an unruly mob of “remnants of Oakland’s Occupy movement [that] have attached themselves to every cause that appealed to them,” without acknowledging the presence of the Blueford family at the meeting. To read Johnson’s column, you would think the City Council had been invaded by a gang of hooligans, not supporters of community members who had lost a loved one to police brutality. Johnson wrote, “It’s the council’s leniency that created the problem,” and went on to suggest “beefing up security at meetings, asking people to state their reasons for attending or some other measure.”
On Sept. 23, fellow Chronicle columnists Matier and Ross dutifully reported that unnamed “law enforcement sources” had found Alan’s prints on a gun the police claim to have found 20 feet from his body. The Bluefords deny Alan ever had a gun, and witnesses of the shooting have not reported that Alan pulled a gun. Instead, witnesses have asserted that Masso, who has a history of racist violence, fired into a crowd of children in order to shoot Blueford in the back and again on the ground. Despite these facts, Matier and Ross concluded that the supposed prints found by the cops, who have access to Alan’s body, managed to “bolster the [OPD]’s assertion that the officer was acting in self-defense.”
City Administrator Deanna Santana is apparently an avid reader of the Chronicle and a big fan of Chip Johnson. Santana unilaterally created new rules about the seating in the City Council chamber in Oakland City Hall, eliminating the upstairs gallery seating—representing 98 of 214 seats—and making it mandatory for the public to stay seated throughout the meeting, eliminating “standing room” observers. In other words, no more than 116 members of the public may now be present at a City Council meeting, and they must stay seated at all times unless speaking at the podium. None of these rules were voted on by the council, much less the people of Oakland who the City Council supposedly represents.
On Oct. 2, about 220 people again joined the Blueford family to address the City Council, and demand a police report about Alan’s death and the dismissal and arrest of Masso. When they tried to fill the council chamber, Santana’s new rules were revealed for the first time. Around 30 police officers were present. They allowed exactly 116 people to enter and then sealed off every entrance to the chamber. Inside, the Blueford family led chants of “Let them in! Let them in!”
The cops tried to stop late-arriving protesters from expressing themselves outside the chamber by blocking the stairs. However, two members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation discovered that the cops had forgotten to lock one of the elevators, and spent the evening guiding arriving protesters to the elevator so they could join the crowd.
New rules exclude, attempt to silence
Members of PSL members were both inside and outside the chamber. One of us on the outside demanded that the gallery doors be opened so as to provide seating for all present. When some tried to rush the gallery doors, the cops threw us to the ground and wrestled us away from the entrances. We surrounded the cops, forcing them to remain outside the chamber in order to keep us out, chanting “Let us in!” and “Justice for Alan Blueford!”
Inside the chamber, the Blueford family again addressed the council. Tiffany Montague, Alan’s cousin, asked why the Oakland police had not done a proper background check on Masso, and if they had, why he had been hired given that his violent behavior had resulted in the NYPD, one of his previous employers, being sued for millions of dollars.
The council refused to answer Montague’s questions. Montague went on to point out that the OPD had Alan’s body for at least two and a half hours before anybody, including the coroner’s office, had access to it. It was thus meaningless, Montague asserted, that the OPD had now “found” Alan’s fingerprints on a gun. “You held onto my cousin’s body for hours and you did what you wanted to with his body! That’s what you did!” she concluded.
The council repeatedly cut the Bluefords short, citing arbitrary time restrictions and refused to answer any of their questions. The crowd’s chants of “No Justice, No Peace! No Racist Police!” became deafening. There was a sea of signs reading “Justice 4 Alan Blueford” displayed by the crowd. Many of the Blueford family supporters stood up, challenging Santana’s new rules.
At one point, Council President Larry Reid said: “This council needs to conduct business. If you will not let us do that, I will recess and have this chamber cleared.” When the crowd would not be silent, Reid called for the chamber to be cleared by the cops. But a protester overheard a cop then say, “We don’t have the manpower for that. All of our forces are outside.” The cops did nothing.
Council members offered different excuses for why the Blueford family could not get answers that night. At one point, Council member Desley Brooks said to the Bluefords: “Do not let [the protesters] misguide you. … If you allow these people who come here not because of your son but just to shut down a meeting, you accomplish nothing.”
Brooks then referred to the claim that Oakland had “changed police regulations” since the police killing of Oscar Grant as evidence that the city would reform the police without interference from protesters. This was a strange logic to present to the Blueford family as their son was murdered by a cop in Oakland well after the “reforms” she was bragging about had been implemented.
Jerilynn seized the mike. She said: “You need to change things in order to bring the community and the council together. Because the community looks to you, and when we look at you and you turn your head … and shut off the mike … it’s like I don’t even have a voice. … At every turn we’ve been shut down, we’ve been discouraged. … We just feel as a family that it’s right that we should know what happened to our child. …”
Council president hands over police report
Reid then tried to move on to the “next item on the agenda” and get the Blueford family out of the spotlight. Kenneth Blye, one of Alan’s cousins, then seized the mike. He pointed out that basic protocol for a police report had not been followed for several months. He continued: “We collectively stand with the individuals who are standing behind us, who are standing for us, for over five months they’ve been standing here with us, helping us along the way to stay united. … We want change and we want change now. There’s been more police murders since Alan. … We demand answers now!”
Abruptly, Reid pulled out a copy of the police report, which he had not previously mentioned having, handed it to Adam and said, “Here, you can have my copy of the report.” While the copy was so redacted as to be almost devoid of information, its attainment still constituted a victory. The City Council had, in a compromised fashion, given in to the family’s first demand. A brief Occupy-style General Assembly overtook the council before the Bluefords led their supporters outside. Their struggle will continue.
The events of Oct. 2 reveal the true nature of “representational democracy” under capitalism. Whether at a national, state or city level, the people are allowed to vote for which hand-picked politician will ignore their needs and serve big business. Access to one’s own “representation” is barred by bureaucrats and their enforcers. Dissent is stifled by the cops through repression and through the media by misrepresentation.
