07/20/2013
My two cents on the Trayvon frenzy: there’s a big element of emotional displacement of black anger with the President transferred to this case. Many blacks are deeply disappointed with the Obama Presidency, in particular the terrible unemployment because of his destructive handling of the economy. Life for millions of black citizens has gotten worse, not better, under the African-American President, but it is taboo to criticize him, so their outrage has been funneled into the highly publicized shooting and trial.
If there were jobs and a sense of hope about the future, the trial’s outcome might have been more easily accepted. But Obama has given far more attention to the imagined concerns of hispanics than to his own paternal race, who have to riot to get noticed by the President.
Speaking of riots, on Wednesday I had to go to downtown Oakland for a rare necessary errand. There had been several nights of violence, so I was interested in how things looked. The Sears store was all fixed (after $50,000 in broken windows) as if nothing had happened. The damage shown below was repaired by Wednesday:
Not so much at the Oakland Tribune, where the windows were covered with plywood. California Bank around the corner was also boarded up.
Meanwhile, the bright lights on the Oakland City Council are debating whether hammers and clubs should be disallowed at political protests. Hammers are particularly at issue since a waiter at the upscale Dogwood bar was struck in the face with a hammer during Monday’s violence.
Anarchists and other thugs carrying tools for smashing buildings and people routinely show up at “free-speech” events with their faces completely covered. Why doesn’t Oakland make masks in public places illegal? Masks have no place in an open society. Plus, the city’s reduced police force needs all the help it can get to identify and arrest destructive rioters.
Hammer attack forces Oakland to revisit weapons law, Oakland Tribune, July 17, 2013
OAKLAND — City leaders are reconsidering a proposal that would make it illegal to carry makeshift weapons, such as hammers, at protests after a downtown restaurant worker was struck in the face by a hammer-wielding vandal during a protest Monday.
Councilman Noel Gallo, who heads the council’s Public Safety Committee, said he will try Thursday to schedule a debate on the plan that council members quickly dropped last year in the face of rowdy Occupy Oakland protesters.
The plan, initially proposed by Council President Pat Kernighan and City Attorney Barbara Parker, would make it a misdemeanor to bring items to protests that could be used as weapons or for vandalism, such as clubs, wrenches, paint projectiles and firecrackers. The goal was to help police weed out agitators from groups of protesters before the protests got violent.
Interim police Chief Sean Whent said Thursday the law might help officers as they deal with a fresh round of violent protests in the wake of the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the killing of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed African-American teenager.
“Every tool in the tool basket has value,” he said. “The more opportunities we have to take enforcement action against people, the better it is.”
Whent, who met with downtown merchants Wednesday, also said police will “dedicate all available resources” to prevent additional vandalism during a protest planned for Saturday. All days off for police have been canceled this weekend.
The anti-weapon law has support among downtown workers who have had to protect their businesses from vandals during the tail end of protests. “I think the only people who should have hammers in Oakland right now are the ones boarding up the buildings,” said Drew Cribley, the server at Flora who was struck in the head by the hammer-wielding vandal Monday.
Alexeis Filipello, who owns Bar Dogwood, also said the council needed to reconsider the law. “I’ve seen so many people with huge hammers. It’s shocking,” said Filipello, whose business was vandalized during a Saturday protest and needed protection from its own customers Monday to prevent more damage.
The law was proposed during the waning days of last year’s Occupy protests, during which agitators often armed with hammers and spray cans would separate themselves from demonstrators late at night and scuffle with police and damage property.
At the time, there were concerns about whether the proposal would violate the rights of protesters and questions about how much it would help an undermanned police department because vandals could just keep the items in their bags.
However, the council didn’t abandon the proposal until Occupiers marched on Kernighan’s home and essentially took over the first and only debate on it last May at a Public Safety Committee meeting. Several cursed at Kernighan, and others hinted at violence if the measure were approved.
The meeting ended without a vote after Occupiers threatened to harm a resident who spoke in favor of the proposal.
Kernighan said the law might have helped police deal with the recent protests, but at the time, council members “made a judgment call that the need for it did not outweigh the fact that it seemed to be galvanizing the Occupy movement.”
Former Councilman Ignacio De La Fuente didn’t know if the law would help police but said the council’s lack of resolve hurt the city. “The message the City Council sends to these people is you can do anything in Oakland and the City Council will back down if you stand up to them,” he said.
Gallo said he talked to Kernighan on Wednesday about reviving the measure and wants it on the Public Safety Committee’s agenda this month. “I’m ready and willing to bring forth any action that will help us protect our businesses and our neighborhoods,” he said.
Items that would be banned at protests
Sling shots
Fireworks
Fire accelerants
Hammers
Clubs
Shields
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