Hearing about it:
Department criticized for response to right-wing rally
Berkeley police take critiques of their efforts Sunday in stride.
The jeers lobbed at Berkeley police officers during Sunday’s right-wing rally spilled over into Monday and Tuesday — via emails and calls from people all over the world, police say.
People apparently riled up by images and videos of right-wing demonstrators getting pummeled with no police in sight have been venting to Berkeley police. One officer said he’s taken calls from Florida, Georgia and Australia.
“It’s worldwide news. It’s a hot political potato, and we’re caught in the middle,” said Berkeley
“We’ve definitely gotten some positive feedback and certainly some negative.” Kevin Schofield, Berkeley police lieutenant
police Officer Brandon Smith, a community liaison in the department. “We try to take it all into consideration.”
Berkeley Police Sgt. Spencer Fomby was one of several officers who went to a coffee-with-a-cop event Tuesday at a local Starbucks and described what the department has been going through since Sunday. He said people on both sides of the political spectrum wished the other had been targeted more aggressively.
“We’re trying to allow lively political debate, until it crosses a line,” said Fomby, who chatted with residents over a cold brew coffee before returning to work, which involves overseeing the city’s community liaisons.
Battered from all sides, the department isn’t shrinking away. Everyone from the command
level on down is picking up the phone, reading the emails and trying to take the responses in stride.
“We’ve definitely gotten some positive feedback and certainly some negative,” said Lt. Kevin Schofield. “We recognize this is two days after, so we’re happy to answer questions.”
The police say constructive comments from the community are essential to improving how future demonstrations are handled — including those expected next month when a conservative UC Berkeley student group hosts a Free Speech Week.
Most of the people who showed up at the Starbucks were employees of the chain more concerned about drug use in store bathrooms and the homeless outside than about the management of political rallies.
The cheerful affair — one in a series of meet-and-greets the department is hosting — was in stark contrast to the weekend melee, when every officer in the department was called in, vacation days were canceled and police from neighboring cities were brought in as backup. More than a dozen people at the protest were arrested, and several were hospitalized with injuries.
Smith, who was part of an “arrest team” Sunday driving around the city, said the police made conscious efforts to deescalate tensions. When members of the so-called black bloc, mostly masked anarchists, came toward officers, he said, “we backed away a little bit.”
Most of the “hate mail” Smith said he’s gotten has come from people who weren’t at the protest or who don’t live in the area.
“Those are intense situations, and we have to make decisions on the fly,” he said. “We don’t always get it 100 percent right.”
Although most of the thousands of people who turned out were “smiling, laughing and hugging one another,” Smith said, arresting the few who were violent could be difficult because they used the mass of mostly peaceful people for cover.
“They would rush in, attack, then back into the crowd,” he said.
The approach by the police was appreciated by Fred Dodsworth, a 66-year-old poet and retired journalist who met with the officers Tuesday. He said he came to express his thanks and “make sure they knew that I wasn’t the enemy.”
Dodsworth said he was worried that when he went to Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park, right-wing demonstrators would bring weapons. But the police’s backpack searches made him feel safe.
“The police did a very good job on Sunday,” Dodsworth said. “They came with overwhelming force, so everyone knew that if you’re a bad guy, you’d be held accountable.”