Archive for the ‘Black Lives Matter’ Category

BPD chief: Lessons learned in 2014 ‘Black Lives Matter’ protests guided us during Milo demonstrations – Berkeleyside

The Berkeley Police chief has said he did not want a repeat of the 2014 Black Lives Matter protests (shown above), where police used tear gas to clear Telegraph Avenue and sparked extensive public outcry. Photo: Pete Rosos

Two years ago, the Berkeley Police Department used tear gas and force to disperse crowdsfrom Telegraph Avenue after an hours-longBlack Lives Matter demonstration, sparking months of public outrage and dialogue, and leading BPD to take an in-depth look at what it might have done differently.

The night of the tear gas use, Dec. 6, 2014, police said some members of the crowd attackedofficers with projectiles, and that the police force later becamesurrounded at Telegraph Avenue and Bancroft Way. That night, BPD gave many dispersal orders, which the departmentsaid itlater realized only served in the end to make the crowd larger. Police ultimately used an estimated 50 tear gas grenades and blast rounds to clear Telegraph Avenue, and some people reported being struck and clubbed by police at different times throughout the night.

Last week, a preliminary settlement was reached between the city andseven plaintiffs in a civil rights lawsuit that challenged how police respondedDec. 6, 2014. According to some reports, the city has agreed to a payment of $125,000, as well as policy changes that would require officers to document force better, and work toward equipping officers withbody cameras. (A Berkeleyside story is forthcoming.)

After last weeksdemonstrations, sparked by a campus visit by conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, Interim Berkeley Police Chief Andrew Greenwood said in a memo to city officialsthat the lessons learned in 2014 absolutely played a role in decision-making Wednesday night.

In the hours and days following Wednesday nights protests, many particularly outside the Bay Area decried the police response on campus and in the city of Berkeley. Two entirely separate law enforcement agencies handle those jurisdictions: the University of California Police Department, a statewide agency, handles securityon university property including campus, and the Berkeley Police Department, which deals with the rest of the city.

Berkeleyside had an in-depth conversation Friday with UCPD Police Chief Margo Bennett about how she handled Wednesdaysdemonstrations. And Berkeleyside has spoken with BPD about why the agency made no arrests and did little to intervene in intensive vandalism to more than a dozen Berkeley businesses. But, to this point,Berkeleyside had not heard from the BPD chief himself.

Chief Greenwood sent a 2-page memo to Berkeley City Manager Dee Williams-Ridleyon Friday outlining his thinking Wednesday night during what he called the Feb. 1 riot. Berkeleyside has obtained a copy of that memo from the city.

Greenwood told the city manager that the departments actions Wednesday night were informed significantly by our experience in the December 2014 riots. The departments thinking and approach has significantly evolved since those events, he said, andnew training and policies have beenput in place.

The departments focus during riots, he said, is life safety: I think this is not only in keeping with the values of our community, but with the best-informed practices of Law Enforcement across the country, in a time where community trust in our actions is absolutely essential.

He described crowd management as a complex challenge for law enforcement.

A large, leaderless crowd may appear to stand together on one hand to exercise their 1st amendment rights to assemble, and to speak freely, yet have different motives and intents throughout the course of a given demonstration. When such a crowd includes within it a faction of armed people intent on committing violence, as happened Wednesday night, safeguarding the communitys safety becomes particularly challenging.

Greenwood said he watched live-stream coverage of the protest on Sproul Plaza last week, as it was unfolding, and saw many who were peaceful, standing, singing, dancing, chanting, watching, playing music, and generally boisterously expressing their views. But they werent the only ones.

Into this crowd came a large group of armed, masked individuals, often referred to as black bloc anarchists, who brought projectiles, shields, explosive fireworks and other weapons. In a coordinated effort, this group carried out an organized, focused attack on UC Police, barricades and campus property. This action prompted UC officials to cancel the speaking engagement.

Eventually, after demonstrating on campus, the crowd moved into city streets and BPD became involved. BPD has said it initiallyassigned12 officers to oversee the demonstrationand provide traffic control. When tensions rose, the department pulled officers from patrol to help out, for a total of about 20 officers on protest duty.

Greenwood said BPD monitored the crowd continually. One BPD staffer was in the UCPD command post all night, and police also were watching open source livestream videos on the internet.

BPD responded to several people who were injured, but exercised caution when it did so, Greenwood told the city manager.

All this was done knowing that placingpolice officers into a potentially volatile crowd situation could have prompted a focused, sustained violent attack on police, thereby rapidly escalating the risk of harm to all involved peaceful protestors, violent actors, residents, businesses and police officers, he wrote.

Greenwood said BPD had to take that stance because it was clear some elements of the crowd were actively looking for a conflict with our officers. (UC Berkeley Police Chief Margo Bennett has made a similar point.)

In one case where officers came into view, they reported being seen by the crowd, and members of the crowd started to move towards them, even from hundreds of feet away, Greenwoodwrote.

Greenwood said BPD had seen the opportunistic rioters who attacked UCPD, and who were eager to provoke and escalate a police response to an already boisterous and potentially volatile crowd, thereby putting relatively peaceful protesters into harms way. The black bloc typically uses a peaceful crowd to shield their activities during a police response, and we kept this in mind.

He wrote that using force indiscriminately on the crowd can harm more people, including protesters who are not breaking the law.

Greenwood said no one has come forward to make an official report to BPD about any crimes or injuries Wednesday night. He asked people who are interested in that to call 510-981-5900 to do so. (UCPD is also attempting to collect these reports.)

In the memo, he also thanked Mayor Jesse Arregun for visiting BPD on Thursday morning to express his thanks and support of our folks.

Greenwood continued: None of our staff could recall when a Mayor had come by like that, and it meant a lot to our team.

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BPD chief: Lessons learned in 2014 'Black Lives Matter' protests guided us during Milo demonstrations - Berkeleyside

‘Black Lives Matter’ Conference Talks Race, Music Studies – Harvard Crimson

Hundreds of attendees from across the United States gathered in Paine Concert Hall Friday and Saturday for Black Lives Matter: Music, Race, and Justice, a conference examining the intersection between black culture and race relations.

The conference, hosted by the Harvard Graduate Music Forum, featured a faculty panel, discussions of academic papers, and a musical performance. Ian R. Copeland and Laurie Lee, two Harvard graduate students who study music, said they organized the conference to highlight a lack of academic attention paid to black music. Copeland added that music often plays a large role in American race relations and discrimination against black people.

We were inspired by and also troubled by... police shootings throughout the United States, but also what seemed to be increasing hostility to the Black Lives Matter movement in the political sphere, Copeland said.

Copeland added that music is often a powerful tool in dealing with painful events.

Music is a big resource for people dealing with trauma and finding expression, he said. Popular music in particular can be a way to bring people together and to call people to action.

On Friday, the conferences first paper session examined three academic papers which centered on inclusion of black people in music, academia, and music education.

The next event discussed the role academics can play in political activism around race. The panel featured four speakers from New York University, Dartmouth College, the Ohio State University, and a local Black Lives Matter chapter in Cambridge, Mass.

Treva Lindsey, a professor of womens, gender, and sexuality studies at Ohio State University and a current Harvard W.E.B. DuBois fellow, described her response as a professor to Michael Browns shooting on Aug. 9, 2014. Lindsey said many black people reacted to Brown's death at the hands of a police officer with an exasperation that was built for hundreds of years." She said she saw her role after the shooting as a caregiver to students in distress.

What is my responsibility in this moment? To speak to my students in this moment, to care for my students in this moment, to show up for my students in this moment, to speak directly to my students on campus in this moment, Lindsey said.

Regarding the current role of music studies in race relations, NYU professor Matthew D. Morrison said he believes that music studies needed to benefit from the activism and passion of Black Lives Matter.

Morrison stated that academics have the responsibility to realize that because we have a position as writers, as cultural thinkers, as all of these things, to be active in making sure that things that we feel like are important to the larger community and society are reflected in music studies. If they are not, Morrison said, organizing outside of academic institutions is necessary.

There are various ways of organizing, various ways of dealing with history, various ways of finding ways to deconstruct the institution in the cause that you can learn from, Morrison said.

Saturdays events featured three paper sessions: Black Religion, Black Space, and Black Speech, Improvisation, Struggle, and Liberation, and Vernacular Culture and the Power of Celebrity. The conference concluded with a piano performance from Karen Walwyn, an Associate Professor of Music at Howard University, and a keynote lecture from Morrison.

In the weekends last paper session, Kimberlee D. Sanders, a Harvard graduate student in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilization, presented her paper: Sorry/I Aint Sorry: Beyoncs 'Lemonade,' Southern Gothic Temporality, and Reclaiming the Angry Black Woman. Sanders proposed that the role of anger in "Lemonade" fostered a sense of community and empowered women of color, asserting that it reclaims a space for black female anger.

Sanders discussed the underrepresentation of black female contributions in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.

Their marginalization becomes this vortex that generates a righteous anger of saying look at the trauma that Ive endured. Look at the things I have done. Look at me. Let me occupy space, Sanders said in an interview.

Staff writer Alice S. Cheng can be reached at alice.cheng@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter at @alicescheng.

Staff writer Kristine E. Guillaume can be reached at kristine.guillaume@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @krisguillaume.

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When black people get killed, my white Facebook friends from home get to be upset about riots. They get to post videos of black people weeping, and shouting, and setting shit on fire and call it foolishness, quietly tsk-ing their tongues and shaking their heads from the safety of their dorm rooms. They get to believe the newscasters and feel bad for all those poor, poor windowpanes and police cars and doorknobs that are clearly the main victims of police brutality. Meanwhile, Im starting to look a lot like my grandma, rocking silently in front of my laptop as she did in front of the radio, or the stove, waiting for all her babies to come home.

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'Black Lives Matter' Conference Talks Race, Music Studies - Harvard Crimson

Bush-Nominated Judge Who Blocked Trump’s Ban Also Declared ‘Black Lives Matter’ – Daily Beast

President Trump predictably lashed out at the federal judge who blocked his travel ban, but it isn't the judge's first time in the public eye.

This weekend, President Donald Trump returned to an old habit: attacking a federal judge. This time, it was for getting in the way of Trumps Muslim ban, the executive order on refugees and immigration.

On Friday, Seattle federal judge James Robart granted a temporary nationwide restraining order blocking the Trump administration order banning those from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. Robart ruled in favor of a legal challenge to the order, which was brought by the state of Washington and then by the state of Minnesota, ruling that states have standing to sue the administration.

The State Department consequently announced on Saturday morning that it has reversed 60,000 visa revocations for people impacted by the presidents highly controversial executive order.

On Saturday morning, Trump predictably lashed out at Robart on Twitter, tweeting that "the opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country, is ridiculous and will be overturned!"

The Washington-based judge, who was nominated by President George W. Bush in 2004, is almost certain to remain in national headlines, as a latest target of Trumps ire. The last time Trump, then a Republican presidential candidate, started picking a public fight with a federal judge, Trumps openly racist attack on the judge dominated news cycles and became a major talking point for the Hillary Clinton campaign.

This wouldnt even be the first time Robart received national media attention regarding a hot-button political issue. In August, during a court hearing for a 2012 lawsuit filed by the Obama administration against the Seattle Police Department, Robart declared that "black lives matter," and sharply criticized the Seattle police union for holding the city hostage.

According to FBI statistics, police shootings resulting in deaths involved 41 percent black people, despite being only 20 percent of the population living in those cities, Robart said during last years hearing. 41 percent of the casualties, 20 percent of the population. Black. Lives. Matter."

Robarts declaration drew a startled, audible reaction in a courtroom listening to the words coming from a federal judge sitting on the bench, The Seattle Times reported at the time.

To hide behind a collective- bargaining agreement is not going to work, the judge continued. The court and the citizens of Seattle will not be held hostage for increased payments and benefitsIm sure the entire city of Seattle would march behind me.

Trump, for his part, has repeatedly made clear that his administration would be an all lives matter one.

Furthermore, Robarts past pro bono work with Southeast Asian refugees is another sharp contrast between the Trump White House and its latest addition to its rapidly growing list of enemies. Of course, Robarts past legal work does not have any relevance to his current job as a federal judge. However, it is safe to assume that the presidentwho famously went after Judge Gonzalo Curiel simply for being of Mexican heritagewill not care.

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Bush-Nominated Judge Who Blocked Trump's Ban Also Declared 'Black Lives Matter' - Daily Beast

Judge Who Halted Trump Ban Once Declared ‘Black Lives Matter’ From The Bench – Daily Caller

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The federal judge who who ruled President Trumpsimmigration ban must be temporarily stopped Friday made national headlines last year when hedeclared Black Lives Matter from the bench.

U.S. District Judge James Robart, a George W. Bush appointee, recited the mantra while presiding over a case regarding the implementation of new police practices in Seattle.It was the first time a federal judge officially supported the activist group from the bench.

The citys police department had been accused of using excessive force that fell disproportionately on non-white residents, and had agreed to make changes in order to avoid a federal lawsuit.But the police union had been holding up implementation of the changes,because they required modifications to theircurrent contracts, and required extensive negotiation to move forward.

Robart lashed out at the union in an August hearing. The court and the citizens of Seattle will not be held hostage for increased payments and benefits, he said. Im sure the entire city of Seattle would march behind me.

He then explicitly brought up the Black Lives Matter movement, citing incorrect statisticson police shootings that got the percentage of the population that is black wrong, before declaring: Black lives matter. His remarks reportedly stunned the courtroom, and some present were audibly shocked at his expression of support for the movement.

Trump lashed out at Robart on Twitter Saturday morning in the wake of the injunction ruling, referring to him as a so-called judge who is taking away the countrys ability to defend itself.

The opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country, is ridiculous and will be overturned! he tweeted.

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Judge Who Halted Trump Ban Once Declared 'Black Lives Matter' From The Bench - Daily Caller

Black Lives Matter march held in Orlando | WOFL – Fox 35 Orlando


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Black Lives Matter march held in Orlando | WOFL - Fox 35 Orlando