Oakland church plans to stop calling police
What does it mean to stop asking for police intervention? First Congregational Church of Oakland is seeking a definition, and here’s why: The church, on the corner of 27th and Harrison streets, on the edge of the Adams Point neighborhood and near Lake Merritt, is in an area traversed by many of Oakland’s growing homeless population.
Sometimes people wander into the church for a dry, warm and quiet place to sit.
Sometimes people run inside in the midst of a mental health crisis they can’t quite escape.
And some people have refused to leave when it was time to close the church’s doors for the night.
“That’s the typical reason we would end up calling the police, not knowing what else to do,” said Marcia Lovelace, a member of the multiethnic congregation. “And we have experienced more than once that a member of the congregation fit the description, and they would get hassled by police instead of the person we were calling to get help with.”
This got church members to consider the consequences of calling the police on black and brown people when they could, potentially, handle an incident without dialing 9-1-1.
So on Good Friday, March 30, First Congregational, known as First Congo, declared it was divesting from policing.
“We commit to reimagining our policies, procedures and relationships to our neighbors to reduce our reliance on policing that is too often deadly for those already marginalized, to contribute to restorative/transformative approaches to addressing harm and to increase our capacity to ensure the safety of everyone in our community,” the church wrote in its declaration.
Some people live with the assumption that summoning the police is what ensures safety for all. But for communities of color, there is a fear that a call to police could lead to a potentially lethal confrontation.
First Congo is preaching to the choir, but I’m not sure how this will work.
Neither does the church — yet.
“How Not to Call the Cops Ever,” a community workshop, will be held at the church on July 15. Lovelace told me more workshops are planned.
She stressed this is just the beginning of the process to build a model for community members to learn de-escalation techniques and how to respond to mental health emergencies. And no, the church isn’t asking staff or tenants to put their lives in danger.
“If there was somebody threatening with a weapon, we’re not saying we have this ideal policy and your life doesn’t matter,” Lovelace said. “We’re not going to ask someone to risk their life.”
The church rents space to several nonprofit groups that have been included in the divesting conversation, including Sogorea Te Land Trust, an organization led by indigenous women to reclaim ancestral lands. Ines Gardilcic of Sogorea Te told me the church’s declaration is brave and inspiring.
“I think that this community and the church is really trying to engage the gaps in community care,” she said. “Policing is one of the major ones that is impacting the community around the church and in Oakland. And, obviously, around the country in general.”
As I was writing this column on Friday afternoon, a post appeared on the social media app Nextdoor about an unstable man in Adams Point who was banging on a car and shouting that he wanted to play a game with people inside an apartment building. He was black. “Please lock your doors and be safe,” the post read. “Police have been called.”
We should also care about the safety of the man, who, like many I see living on the sidewalks and walking the streets, may need medical attention, not the kind of attention provided by police officers who might be quick on the draw to arrest — or worse.
“There can be a positive to resolving issues at that level where people in communities can work together to address issues,” LeRonne Armstrong, Oakland’s deputy chief of police, told me.
But Armstrong believes tackling mental health challenges requires people who are professionally trained, like the department’s crisis intervention officers.
“If not, that could put the public at risk in some way, because they need specialized training,” he said. “They need, obviously, additional assistance that (is not what) the normal person can provide in most cases.
“Our officers are specially trained.”
It’s precisely officer training that I’ve been concerned about because studies show that people of color often are targeted unfairly by police. In June 2016, Stanford researchers released a study that found Oakland police officers were four times more likely to search black men than white men during a traffic or pedestrian stop.
“The police and law enforcement are trapped in the system of white supremacy,” said Mary Lim-Lampe, executive director of Genesis, a coalition of faith and community institutions advocating for social justice. “They’re just as trapped as anyone, so for us this is a really interesting tactic to address a systemic problem.
“We want to transform the system, not reform the system. Reform assumes that it wasn’t built on rot in the first place. It was built on racist thinking in the first place.”
Genesis is also a First Congo tenant and will partner with the church to define what it means to stop asking for police intervention. It will require much more effort than keeping phones in pockets and purses.
It may require assistance from an unlikely source: the police.
“I didn’t see the real detail behind what was OK for them, for this group, to handle and then what they would refer to police,” said Armstrong of the Oakland Police. “But I do think it’s enough information to know there should be dialogue between us so we can talk about those things.”
Please, start talking.