BART

Central Subway gravy train shows how City Hall works

Sasha Cuttler
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69
Central Subway gravy train shows how City Hall works

Despite its skyrocketing cost, inefficient design, and a growing chorus of criticism – ranging from a Wall Street Journal editorial today to an op-ed in the SF Chronicle last week – the Central Subway project continues to move forward for one simple reason: rich and powerful people want it to happen, whether it makes sense or not, because it benefits them directly.

“The subway is a case study in government incompetence and wasted taxpayer money,” the Wall Street Journal wrote in a “Review & Outlook” piece today (full text below), but it was only partially correct. The Central Subway is actually a case study in how things get done at City Hall, and how connected contractors and their political patrons make off with that taxpayer money.

“San Francisco is embarking on a Big Dig of the West, and unless our local leadership applies the brakes soon, the damage to our transit systems will be all but guaranteed. I urge local and national leaders to recognize what is obvious and stop this train to nowhere,” former San Francisco Transportation Agency Chair Jake McGoldrick wrote in his Aug. 18 op-ed.

But that isn’t likely to happen, given the political dynamics that have taken root at City Hall this year. Remember, this project was the result of a mutually beneficial deal that then-Mayor Willie Brown cut with Chinatown power broker Rose Pak back in 2003 (when the project was estimated at $648 million, before it ballooned to its current price tag of $1.6 billion).

This was the same duo that engineered the appointment of Ed Lee as interim mayor earlier this year and then pushed him to break his word and run to retain control of Room 200, as well as pressuring David Chiu into being the swing vote to give Lee that job and secretly backing Jane Kim’s run for the Board of Supervisors. All are big supporters of the Central Subway project, despite all the experts calling it an wasteful boondoggle that will be the most expensive 1.7-mile piece of track ever built in this country.

But the opinion of fiscal and transportation policy experts matters little in a town that is once again being governed by shameless power brokers. Hell, Brown even uses his weekly column in the Chronicle to confirm his weekly breakfast date (every Monday at the St. Regis Hotel) with his “friend” and client Jack Baylis, a top executive at AECOM, the main contractor for the Central Subway, as well as the America’s Cup, Transbay Terminal, the rebuild of the city’s sewer system, and all the other most lucrative city contracts.

In turn, AECOM kicks down contracts and payouts to a network of political supporters that will ensure that the project gets built, such as Chinatown Community Development Center, which signed an $810,000 contract in December to support the Central Subway in unspecified ways right before CCDC and its director Gordon Chin provided crucial support for getting Lee into the Mayor’s Office, where he can ensure the Central Subway project remains on track.

Yes, it’s just that crass and obvious. And it isn’t even about politics. Hell, Baylis is a Republican from Los Angeles, despite his meddling in San Francisco’s political affairs by sponsoring the Alliance for Jobs and Sustainable Growth and other groups that will be doing independent expenditures on behalf of Lee this fall, trying to tell us that “it’s all about civility.”

No, it’s about money and it’s about power, straight up. The Central Subway is really more of a gravy train than a sensible transit project, but that’s just how business is being done at City Hall these days.

One of the people who has long criticized the project – noting how Chinatown would be served far better with surface transit options, at a fraction of the cost – is Tom Radulovich, executive director of Livable City and an elected BART board member. He was heartened to see so many more voices – from the editorials to a recent Civil Grand Jury report to internal audits in the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, which will lose money operating the new system – echoing his concerns.

“There are more people who seem to be sharing my thoughts,” Radulovich said. “It would be good to have a civic debate on this.”

But he’s not confident that will happen, despite the fresh wave of concerns. “There’s a lot of stuff that looks like planning that has gone into justifying this,” he said. “When the political culture of City Hall and the planning culture come together, this is what you get.”

 

Full text of WSJ article:

Off the San Francisco Rails

Tony Bennett may have left his heart in San Francisco, but the politicians who contrived the city’s Chinatown subway project must have left their brains somewhere else. The subway is a case study in government incompetence and wasted taxpayer money.

P.S. The Obama Administration is all for it.

Former Mayor Willie Brown sold a half-cent sales tax hike to voters in 2003 to pay for the 1.7-mile line on the pretext that the subway would ease congestion on Chinatown’s crowded buses, but he was more interested in obtaining the political support of Chinatown’s power brokers. In 2003, the city estimated the line would cost $647 million, but the latest prediction is $1.6 billion, or nearly $100 million for each tenth of a mile.

Transportation experts say the subway’s design is seriously flawed and that improving the existing bus and light-rail service would make more sense. The subway misses connections with 25 of the 30 light-rail and bus lines that it crosses, and there’s no direct connection to the 104-mile Bay Area Rapid Transit line or to the ferry.

Commuters will have to travel eight stories underground to catch the train and walk nearly a quarter of a mile to connect to the Market Street light-rail lines—after riding the subway for only a half mile. Tom Rubin, the former treasurer-controller of Southern California Rapid Transit District, calculates that taking the bus would be five to 10 minutes faster along every segment.

The city’s metro system, which is already running $150 million operating deficits, isn’t likely to have the money to keep the subway running in any case. Last month the San Francisco Civil Grand Jury, a watchdog group, warned that the subway’s costs “could stretch the existing maintenance environment [of the metro system] to the breaking point” and will defer the purchase of a new communications system.

Alas, San Francisco will likely drag national taxpayer money into the bay too. The city has applied for a multiyear $942 million “full funding grant agreement” from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) to cover 60% of its capital costs. In 1964 Congress created a back-door earmark program called “New Starts” to subsidize local transportation projects. The FTA rates and recommends projects for grants, and Congress usually rubber-stamps its recommendations.

In January 2010, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood modified the grant criteria by adding environmental and communal benefits and minimizing cost-effectiveness. The change effectively means that any project can get federal funding as long as its sponsors claim they’re moving cars off the road.

“Measuring only cost and how fast a project can move the most people the greatest distance simply misses the boat,” Mr. LaHood wrote in January 2010 on his Fast Lane blog. “Look, everywhere I go, people tell me they want better transportation in their communities. They want the opportunity to leave their cars behind . . . And to enjoy clean, green neighborhoods. The old way of doing things just doesn’t value what people want.” We’re told Mr. LaHood is smarter than he sounds.

The FTA has given the Chinatown subway one of its highest project ratings, which virtually assures a full funding grant agreement. Once the city receives such an agreement, the feds are obligated to provide whatever funds they promise. The FTA won’t approve the agreements until the fall, so there’s still hope that someone wises up and nixes the project. Oh, and if Congress is looking for discretionary programs to cut, New Starts would be a good start.

Why doesn’t BART just apologize?

Zelda Bronstein
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48
Why doesn’t BART just apologize?

It’s pretty clear that people are still mad at BART for cutting off cell phone service — and that the agency is doing a miserable job of responding. The latest protest featured BART cops arresting people for nothing more than speaking out in the station, which leaves the train system in the horrible position of attacking First Amendment rights. And the protests are likely to continue, making life difficult for commuters and discouraging people from taking BART.

And it’s all so pointless.

All the anonymous protesters want is for BART to apologize and promise not to cut off cell phone service again. That seems like a really easy solution. Cutting off service was a bad idea in the first place; why not admit it, enact a policy against future disruptions and call it a day? How hard can that be? What level of arrogance is required to ignore a simple way of resolving an increasingly intractable conflict?

The BART directors, never a blue-ribbon bunch, need to get their collective act together. Because this is really stupid.

BART arrests protesters for speaking out

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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25

Faced with yet another protest over BART’s disruption of cell phone service on August 11 to preemptively disrupt a protest, and with lingering anger over the BART police shooting of Charles Hill on the Civic Center station platform on July 3, BART police stifled vocalizations of dissent with immediate arrests during an Aug. 22 protest on the Civic Center Station platform.

“Free speech is the best kind of speech,” said one protester on the Civic Center BART platform as the second protest called by the international hacker group Anonymous in as many weeks challenged the BART system at rush hour.

As a few protesters began to gather, surrounded by dozens of riot police and media, a uniformed BART police officer told a young African American man he would be arrested if he raised his voice. Chanting began in response among the small pack of protesters, and the man was promptly arrested by BART police.

As he was being led off the platform by police, a woman who stood in the center of the platform began verbally engaging a BART officer, saying, “BART police need to be reformed. Make BART Safe. Make BART safe.” She was apparently arrested for nothing more then her words. Deputy BART Police Chief Daniel Hartwig said he could not provide any information about what the arrestees would be charged with.

Video by Shawn Gaynor

Shortly after, BART police declared the small gathering an illegal assembly. Riot police surrounded some 40 protesters for arrest as media was ejected from the station.

Civic Center station and Powell Station were both shuttered, blocking many transit passengers from their evening commute.

What started as a cell phone disruption has apparently escalated into BART arresting anyone expressing an unfavorable opinion of BART.

When asked if the arrested represented a new BART police policy for protests, Hartwig told the Guardian BART’s policy remains the same. “This environment has to remain safe, and if that safety is jeopardized in any way, we will make arrests,” he said. “We have a responsibility to maintain a safe station.”

Protesters said it was appropriate to protest on the Civic Center platform because it is the location of the July 11 shooting of Hill by BART police.

Earlier in the day, the National Lawyer’s Guild issued a statement calling on BART to respect passengers’ and community members’ civil liberties during the Aug. 22 demonstration.

“First and foremost, the BART Police should provide transparency regarding the killing of Charles Hill and should stop shooting people, especially unarmed and incapacitated individuals,” the NLG statement read. “Second, BART should apologize for its disruption of cell service on August 11th and not repeat this unconstitutional action. Finally, BART should recognize passengers’ right to freedom of speech on platforms and in trains.”

Calls to the BART for the names of the arrestees and number of arrests had not yet been returned by press time.

After ordering phones censored, BART spokesperson took vacation during protest

Sasha Cuttler
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7
After ordering phones censored, BART spokesperson took vacation during protest

On August 16, one day after a transit system disruption caused by protests over BART’s unprecedented decision to temporary cut cellular phone during a previous protest, BART Chief Communications Officer Linton Johnson acknowledged to the press that the idea to cut service had been his from the start.

Johnson defended his decision telling the San Francisco Chronicle, “A 1969 U.S. Supreme Court decision, in the Brandenburg v. Ohio case, allows public agencies to put public safety before free speech when there is an imminent danger to the public.”

But was there an imminent danger?

What Johnson failed to acknowledge was that after his idea to order a unprecedented disruption of cellular service to thwart the protest anticipated on August 11 was vetted by BART police, Johnson went on vacation and wasn’t around to help determine what kind of danger the protest – which didn’t end of happening – may have posed. NOTE THE UPDATE BELOW. JOHNSON CLAIMS HE WAS MONITORING THE STATIONS.

In fact, Johnson left on vacation on August 11, the same day the fizzled protest that started a national controversy occurred. So with BART’s plan in motion, and Johnson apparently not on hand, nothing of note happened. No indication was reported by BART or by the media of any trouble at all breaking out on the platforms or paid areas of BART stations on August 11. BART may have been left holding the bag.

An automatically generated e-mail response to the Guardian’s request to interview Johnson read “I will be out of the office starting 08/11/2011 and will not return until 08/16/2011. Please contact Deputy Chief Communications Officer Jim Allison while I am gone.”

On August 15, Johnson’s voicemail message indicated he had returned from vacation early, and would do his best to field phone interview requests within 20 minutes of receiving them.

August 15 happened to be the day that fallout from his plan lead to evening rush hour transit disruptions by protesters with swarms of national and international news representatives on hand. Though interviewed by the nation’s press corp, Johnson chose not to acknowledge the primacy of his decision making role in the censorship until the following day.

Comparing the “imminent danger,” declared by BART, and the #opBART protest called by international hacker group Anonymous on August 15 that caused all Downtown San Francisco BART stations to close for the evening rush, questions arise over what, if any, criteria Johnson used in deciding to pull or not pull the plug on BART cell service.

The Federal Communications Commissions has launched an investigation into BART’s actions, responding to a call by California State Senator Leland Yee.

“We are continuing to collect information about BART’s actions,” stated FCC spokesperson Neil Grace in a statement issued by the agency. “(We) will be taking steps to hear from stakeholders about the important issues those actions raised, including protecting public safety and ensuring the availability of communications networks.”

UPDATE: Johnson finally got back to us by email and wrote, “I offered up the idea on Thursday morning.  BART PD took it to the Interim GM.  The GM approved it then let the Board of Directors know what was to happen that night.  I was  on scene in case the protest broke out.   I left downtown SF around 8pm – I was on a plane that night, which left at 11:50pm.”

 

Stop cell phone censorship

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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13

EDITORIAL The bizarre move by BART officials Aug. 11 to shut down cell phone service in the underground train stations made headlines around the world — and for good reason. It was, Wired Magazine reported Aug 15, apparently the first time in United States history that a public agency sought to block electronic communications as a way to prevent a political protest.

It came at a time when oppressive governments around the world have been disabling cell phone and internet services to frustrate protest organizers. And it followed months of abysmally bad behavior by the transit agency, which is trying to respond to yet another dubious BART police shooting. Civil liberties activists have issued statements of condemnation and outrage; state Sen. Leland Yee, who is also running for mayor, has called on the BART board to adopt policies preventing future shutoffs.

But the BART board has proven itself unable to properly monitor and oversee its law-enforcement operations. At this point, the state Legislature needs to step in.

It’s not surprising that protesters have been swarming around BART stations this summer. The agency has a history of failing to control its police force, and when an officer shot and killed an apparently drunk man in the Civic Center station July 3, activists were fed up. BART responded badly, refusing to turn over video of the incident — and the more facts that came out, the worse the agency looked.

We understand the frustration that commuters felt when angry activists disrupted service for a brief period during the afternoon rush hour. And we understand BART’s concern that further actions inside the stations could be difficult to control.

But let’s remember: The BART board has never been particularly open to public input and most of its members show little interest in accountability. Over the past two decades, hundreds of people have appeared to speak at board meetings to demand a serious response to police shootings — and nothing ever happened. It took a particularly horrendous incident — a point-blank shooting of an unarmed man that was recorded on video — for the board to create even a modest police oversight program.

BART officials are trying to argue that cell phone service in the underground stations is a new service, something offered at the agency’s discretion — as if BART were some sort of private café that gives its customers free wifi. But that ignores the fact that the Bay Area Rapid Transit District is a government agency, one that has no more business shutting down cell phone service than the White House does blocking a newspaper from publishing embarrassing secrets.

As a practical matter, the decision was foolish: The protesters may have been inconvenienced, but so were hundreds of others who may have been trying to make business calls or connect to family members. In political terms, it was inexcusable. Think about it: A public agency was intentionally disabling communications to prevent a political protest. That’s about as bad as it gets.

We agree with Yee that the BART board ought to set a clear policy against any future attempts to control cell phone service for political purposes. But that’s not likely to happen — and it won’t be enough. The state Legislature needs to pass a measure specifically banning any public agency in California from disabling or interfering with any public communications system for political purposes. We can’t wait to see BART lobbyists show up and try to oppose that one.

Editorial: Stop cell phone censorship

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43

The bizarre move by BART officials Aug. 11 to shut down cell phone service in the underground train stations made headlines around the world — and for good reason. It was, Wired Magazine reported Aug 15, apparently the first time in United States history that a public agency sought to block electronic communications as a way to prevent a political protest.

It came at a time when oppressive governments around the world have been disabling cell phone and internet services to frustrate protest organizers. And it followed months of abysmally bad behavior by the transit agency, which is trying to respond to yet another dubious BART police shooting. Civil liberties activists have issued statements of condemnation and outrage; state Sen. Leland Yee, who is also running for mayor, has called on the BART Board to adopt policies preventing future shutoffs.

But The BART Board has proven itself unable to properly monitor and oversee its law-enforcement operations. At this point, the state Legislature needs to step in.

It’s not surprising that protesters have been swarming around BART stations this summer. The agency has a history of failing to control its police force, and when an officer shot and killed an apparently drunk man in the Civic Center station July 3, activists were fed up. BART responded badly, refusing to turn over video of the incident — and the more facts that came out, the worse the agency looked.

We understand the frustration that commuters felt when angry activists disrupted service for a brief period during the afternoon rush hour. And we understand BART’s concern that further actions inside the stations could be difficult to control.

But let’s remember: The BART Board has never been particularly open to public input and most of its members show little interest in accountability. Over the past two decades, hundreds of people have appeared to speak at board meetings to demand a serious response to police shootings — and nothing ever happened. It took a particularly horrendous incident — a point-blank shooting of an unarmed man that was recorded on video — for the board to create even a modest police oversight program.

BART officials are trying to argue that cell phone service in the underground stations is a new service, something offered at the agency’s discretion — as if BART were some sort of private café that gives its customers free wifi. But that ignores the fact that the Bay Area Rapid Transit District is a government agency, one that has no more business shutting down cell phone service than the White House does blocking a newspaper from publishing embarrassing secrets.

As a practical matter, the decision was foolish: The protesters may have been inconvenienced, but so were hundreds of others who may have been trying to make business calls or connect to family members. In political terms, it was inexcusable. Think about it: A public agency was intentionally disabling communications to prevent a political protest. That’s about as bad as it gets.

We agree with Yee that the BART Board ought to set a clear policy against any future attempts to control cell phone service for political purposes. But that’s not likely to happen — and it won’t be enough. The state Legislature needs to pass a measure specifically banning any public agency in California from disabling or interfering with any public communications system for political purposes. We can’t wait to see BART lobbyists show up and try to oppose that one.

 

 


Scenes from #opBART: video of the Civic Center protests

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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8

Protesters shut down afternoon rush hour BART operations on Aug. 15 as part of a campaign by international hacker group Anonymous in response to the transit agency’s unprecedented move to shut off cell service to prevent a protest. Here’s footage from underground at Civic Center Station, and on the street as stranded commuters sought a way home:

Video by Shawn Gaynor

Music for hackers: Nebakaneza’s “Ascending into Madness” mix

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Music for hackers: Nebakaneza’s “Ascending into Madness” mix

While we await the latest apocalyptic intimations from the Anonymous v. BART showdown, let us merrily pull up our virtual balaclavas, gather around ye olde Soundcloud, and rev it to this wicked mix by SF’s own V for Vendetta-masked turntable master. Eternally anonymous DJ Nebakaneza, basshacker extraordinaire of the massive Ritual Dubstep weekly, every Thursday at Temple, just dropped the sublime “Ascending into Madness,” a “new mix of some darker stuff I’m into.” It’s a perfect soundtrack for those conflicts underground, hey no cells allowed:

 

Ascending Into Madness by NEBAKANEZA

State of apprentice

Andrew Lam
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0

culture@sfbg.com

CAREERS AND ED In these transition times of underemployment, the internship has become the new entry level position in many industries. Sad but true. So listen up, future interns: look out for you. You’re not benefiting much if all you’re doing is unpaid paper pushing. Here is a list of internships that’ll have you making memories while also helping you gain some great field experience.

 

GENEVA CAR BARN AND POWER HOUSE

A new community center in the historic building across the street from the Balboa BART Station is in the works. Programs there will focus on training underserved youth for careers in the creative industry. Get in on the action with an internship for the digital story-telling program: interns will work as teachers assistants to help children find their voice through multimedia projects. Interns will work one-on-one with kids, helping them with their writing, trouble-shooting technical difficulties, editing projects, and helping to come up with ideas for ways to help or improve the class. The internship is open to high school sophomores, juniors, and seniors.

www.genevacarbarn.org

 

ALCATRAZ ISLAND

Who wouldn’t want to intern where Al Capone got locked up? At this National Parks Service internship, participants serve as information experts, providing information about the prison island 1.5 that lies waterlogged miles from the city. Interns get to roam around Alcatraz, helping tourists with directions and additional information and demonstrating the uses of antique prison equipment. They’ll have access to behind-the-scenes tours and other activities on “the Rock.” Sounds great for those working on their public speaking skills — or History Channel nuts, of course. Open to college students only.

bss.sfsu.edu/calstudies/nps

 

KQED

As you may be aware, public media is in need of some good PR these days. Come to its aide — you can train for your sterling career in hype with this public station’s communications internship. The lucky mouthpieces picked will assist with outreach, plus research and write for KQED’s monthly printed program guides. You’ll prepare press clippings, plus scout out print and broadcast media press contacts for program pitching. It’s too late to apply for the winter term, but apply by November for the January start of the spring term internship.

www.kqed.org

 

SAN FRANCISCO ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY

If SF’s human zoo isn’t cutting it for you, get your internship fill of some other animals. For wannabe zoologists it doesn’t get any better than being an intern at the San Francisco Zoo. One of its internships involves working in the ZooMobile outreach program, for which interns help bring small animals places like schools and libraries to teach lessons about wild life. You’ll get hands-on experience with the ins and outs of zoo operations. The internship starts in September, lasts through June, and is open to college-age students and older folks. Allergy-prone candidates keep looking: all interns must be able to tolerate dust, hay, and animal hair-dander.

www.sfzoo.org

 

KNBR 680/1050

Looking into a career in radio or sports broadcasting? Why not work with the station that covers the Golden State Warriors and the defending National League baseball champions? KNBR 680/1050 offers an internship for those who are interested in radio programming. Though they’re required to do some clerical work, interns get the opportunity to assist KNBR’s programming department with scheduling, research, production, studio assistance, and event coordination. This internship is for college students, who can earn college credit for the position.

www.knbr.com

So classy

Andrew Lam
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0
So classy

caitlin@sfbg.com

Reward the long-term relationships in your life by taking your game up a notch. Brain fitness? Bar-stocking skills? Bicyclist rights? It’ll all make for more scintillating dinner conversations, so take the pupil plunge. Most of the following classes will charge for your mental charge, but always remember that the Free University of San Francisco (www.freeuniversitysf.org) and the East Bay Free Skool (eastbayfreeskool.wikia.com) have incredible learning opportunities available gratis.

URBAN BICYCLING WORKSHOP

The streets can be a scary place for poor little meat puppets, particularly when one doesn’t know the rules of the road. Lucky for us, the SF Bike Coalition hosts regular crash courses on how not to crash on course. Its biking workshops cover everything from choosing the right bicycle for you, to traffic safety on two wheels, to getting your bike on BART, to your rights as a bicyclist. Did we mention it’s free? More power to the pedal.

Aug. 20, 10 a.m.-2 p.m., free. St. Anne’s Church, 1320 14th Ave., SF. www.sfbike.org

 

DIY LIQUEURS AND INFUSIONS

With one four-to-eight-ounce jar (err on the larger size, trust) you can take your party game up a notch. That’s because Sean Timberlake of Punk Domestics — a local site promoting fermentation and other home cooking processes — will be guiding you through the steps of creating a fantastically flavored liquor at community-food space 18 Reasons. Pluots? Cucumbers? Bananas and brandy? The world is alive and flavorful!

Aug. 23, 7-9 p.m., $40-50. 18 Reasons, 593 Guerrero, SF. www.18reasons.org

 

RIGID HEDDLE WEAVING

It’s not going to be summer forever, Gidget. Time to jump on a rigid heddle loom, which in addition to being a beach party of a phrase to say out loud is one of the easiest ways to learn how to weave a top-notch scarf for a cold season cover-up. This class requires you to bring some supplies with you, so make sure you check the website (and yarn store A Verb For Keeping Warm’s selection of chill-chasing threads) before heading over.

First class: Aug. 27, 2:30-5:30 p.m. Second class: Sept. 3, 3:30-4:30 p.m., $54-64. A Verb For Keeping Warm, 6328 San Pablo, Oakl. (510) 595-8372, www.averbforkeepingwarm.com

 

IAPP DESIGN

Those that control the iPhone applications, control the world. Seriously, we don’t care what market you’re in, your boss probably wants you to design an app for your company. On second thought, this class will definitely not improve your dinnertime banter, but if you can make your way through the course (and it does require a wee bit of prior computer knowledge), at least your talent will be popular!

Oct. 8, 10 a.m.-5 p.m., $155. San Francisco State Downtown Campus, 835 Market, SF. www.cel.sfsu.edu

 

MIND-BODY HEALTH

Okay this one for sure your friends will love. T’ai chi sessions included, this class will bestow upon you methodologies for getting physically healthier by getting mentally healthier. Clean out those mental cobwebs and untoward cognitive ruts, why don’tcha. The class is available in multiple locations — at the Mission branch of City College as well as a senior citizen home near Fort Mason.

Various City College of San Francisco class times and locations. www.ccsf.edu

 

SKILLSHARE

Once upon a time, a nationwide website took it upon itself to teach local communities how to teach themselves things. Recently, the site opened its e-doors to San Francisco, kind of. Classes haven’t started yet, but many potential listings are already up and you can sign up to be a “watcher” — someone who is interested in one of the course descriptions. Many of the courses are under $20, and will be taught by people who’ve got local cred in the topics at hand — which so far include fantasy football strategies, underground dinners, social media skills, and whiskey 101.

www.skillshare.com

Alerts

Andrew Lam
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0

alerts@sfbg.com

WEDNESDAY 10

Protesting another police shooting

Raheim Brown Jr., 20, was killed on Jan. 22 by an Oakland school district police officer, after a fellow police officer was allegedly attacked with a screwdriver. This rally protests the latest in a series of killings by police, and supports Brown’s family, who will be confronting the Oakland School Board for its part in the death. After the rally, protestors will march to the Oakland School District headquarters where the family members will be making their address.

3:30 p.m., free

Lake Merritt Bart Station

Oak & 9th St., Oakland

 

THURSDAY 11

Mayoral debate

Watch the mayor mayoral candidates face off in a debate. The forum will be hosted by the San Francisco Young Democrats, Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club and the City Democratic Club, who have partnered with the Huffington Post and YouTube to broadcast and discuss the event. Melissa Griffin will be the evening’s moderator, with commenting by Beth Spotswood and Pollo de Mar.

6 p.m., free

African American Art & Cultural Complex

762 Fulton St., SF

www.sfyd.org

 

SATURDAY 13

Climate change and the EcoHouse

Learn how to reduce your carbon footprint on a tour of Berkeley’s EcoHouse, a toolshed built with straw bale, rammed earth, clay, and cob. The center has a living roof, laundry greywater system, 1100-gallon rainwater cistern, a native rain garden and three kinds of compost. The tour features tips on the best ways to save energy and reduce climate impact, with the EcoHouse as its prime example.

10 a.m.-noon, free

Ecohouse

1305 Hopkins St., Berkeley

(510) 548-2220 x239

www.ecologycenter.org

 

SUNDAY 14

Iraq War Veterans Speak Out

This event organized by March Forward!, an organization of veterans and soldiers on active duty, gives Iraq War Veterans a chance to speak out about their experiences, and against war. A former Marin Corps infantryman, former Army infantryman and former Army intelligence operative will share eyewitness accounts of their time in Iraq. They will explain how their Iraq war experiences turned them into anti-war activists, the current situation for veterans and veteran care, and how they are building an anti-war resistance among active duty troops within the military.

5-7 p.m., $5-10 donation, no one turned away

2969 Mission St., SF

www.answersf.org

 

Mail items for Alerts to the Guardian Building, 135 Mississippi St., SF, CA 94107; fax to (415) 437-3658; or e-mail alert@sfbg.com. Please include a contact telephone number. Items must be received at least one week prior to the publication date.

SF Giants asked to take a stand against racism UPDATED

Andrew Lam
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13
SF Giants asked to take a stand against racism UPDATED

Updated with response from SF Giants at bottom of post

The San Francisco Giants will host the Arizona Diamondbacks tonight (July 31), beginning a three-game series that will determine the first place slot in the National League West. A lot of eyes will be on our 2010 league champions – all the more reason, says a classic Mission District arts and culture organization, for them to take a stand against racist anti-immigration laws.

In early June, community members who had been leaders of the 1960s to ’80s group Casa Hispana de Bellas Artes sent Giants CEO Bill Newcombe a letter with a simple request. They want the baseball team to wear its popular ‘Gigantes’ jerseys while playing the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Atlanta Braves, two squads that hail from states that have recently passed laws codifing racial profiling in the fight against illegal immigration. The letter tells the team “this kind of law has created a paralyzing climate of fear among Latino families, citizen and non-citizen alike.”

San Francisco, the Casa Hispana elders insist, does not swing at discriminatory government. Reminding the Giants organization of its long-standing support of the Latino community, they’re politely encouraging the team to represent its fans by speaking out against discrimination. We caught up with Casa Hispana elder Don Santina for an email interview to explain why his group asked its team for a wardrobe change. The Guardian was unable to reach the SF Giants for comment – but any organizational response we get will be added to this post.

 

San Francisco Bay Guardian: Tell us about the mission of Casa Hispana de Bellas Artes.

Don Santina: Casa Hispana de Bellas Artes was founded in 1966 in the Mission District by a group of artists and poets to promote cultural advocacy for Latino-Chicano-Raza culture. [Our] group produced and sponsored programs year-round but focused particularly on an annual two-month long Raza/Hispanidad Festival which opened on October 12, Dia de la Raza. Among the multitude of programs, exhibits, performances, and events produced included major undertakings like the Chichen Itza exhibit at SF State, the pre-Colombian artifacts at the De Young and 24th Street BART station opening, the Cisco Kid Festival with Duncan Renaldo, and the Latin American Theatre Festival with Enrique Buenaventura, and low rider car exhibit at the US Presidio. Casa faded into history in 1983 when its major funding sources withdrew. The National Endowment for the Arts was seized by Reaganites.

In 1975 Casa Hispana executive director Amilcar Lobos Yong read a bilingual version of “Casey at the Bat” at Candlestick Park as part of a program in honor of the Giant’s support of the Latino community. Photo by Joe Ramos

SFBG: Why did you send this letter to the Giants?

DS: The elders of Casa wrote to Bill Newcomb’s Giants organization because it had produced a pre-game program in Candlestick Park with Horace Stoneham’s Giants team in 1975 honoring the Giants for their “pioneer recognition of Latin players” in the racist world of major league baseball.  At the event, Casa Poets Theatre read “Casey at the Bat” in English and Spanish before the game and gave awards to the Giants, Juan Marichal, and Tito Fuentes for his works with youth in the Mission District (editor’s note: the awards were presented by long-time Bay Area Latino news legend Luis Echegoyen). Casa people felt that the Giants should continue that anti-racist policy by making a genuine statement against SB 1070 by at least wearing Gigantes uniforms when playing Arizona and Atlanta.

 

SFBG: What’s been the response from the team? Did they get back to you?

DS: The Giants received Casa’s letter on June 9, and the business has not responded. Casa is disappointed in this lack of response and respect from a San Francisco-based team which has many Latino players.

 

SFBG: What is a professional sports team role’s in their community? Should they be speaking out on political and social issues? 

DS: A professional sports team has the same responsibilities to the community as any other business; in a word: Spike Lee’s “do the right thing.” Unfortunately, these teams are all mega-corporate businesses with morality based on profit. Dave Zirin has covered this topic very thoroughly.

 

SFBG: How much of the artists and community members involved with Casa Hispana are baseball fans?

DS: Most of the Casa people love the Giants; however, they also love fútbol, a.k.a. the international game of soccer.   

 

SFBG: Do you think they’ll be wearing the Gigantes jerseys at AT&T Park tonight?  

DS: We don’t think they’ll wear the Gigantes uniforms without public pressure or embarrassment. [But] if they do, it will be beneficial as a public stand against racial profiling laws. 

 

UPDATED WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3: The Guardian contacted Giants spokesperson Shana Daum, who said she couldn’t recall recieving Casa Hispana’s letter but that the Giants would not be wearing their Gigantes jerseys at all during this week’s Arizona series. “We try to support the community, but we don’t want to take a political stance,” she told us.

“There’s other ways for major league baseball to get involved.” Daum cited the team’s annual Fiesta Gigantes celebration during September’s Hispanic Heritage Month, HIV/AIDS awareness days, the team’s pioneering involvement in the It Gets Better campaign. She added “but we appreciate the spirit in which [Casa Hispana’s request to wear the Gigantes jersey] was asked.”

Guardian forum July 28: Immigration, education and youth

Zelda Bronstein
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Guardian forum July 28: Immigration, education and youth

The next Guardian Forum on issues in the mayor’s race will take place Thursday, July, when we’ll be talking about immigration, education and youth issues. We’ve got a great panel lined up:


Sherilyn Adams, Larkin Street Youth Services
Angela Chan, Asian Law Caucus
David Campos, Supervisor, District 9
Mario Yedidia, Director, Youth Commission*
Pecolia Manigo, Coleman Advocates


(*for identification only)


It’s at the Bayanihan Community Center, 1010 Mission (at 6th), 6-8 p.m.


(Powell Street BART and MUNI 14, 19, 27, or 31)



As always, plenty of time for audience participation. Hopy you can make it.

Anger erupts over police shootings

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Anger erupts over police shootings

rebeccab@sfbg.com

As the murky details of two recent police shootings emerge, a palpable anger surging through targeted communities points to a deeper issue than the particular circumstances surrounding each of these deaths. Simply put, many Bay Area communities are fed up with police violence.

For many activists who descended on transit stations to protest the fatal BART police shooting of Oscar Grant III, the 20-year-old unarmed Hayward man who was killed on New Year’s Day 2009, an upwelling of rage was rekindled after BART cops shot and killed a homeless man named Charles Blair Hill on July 3 in Civic Center Station.

Then, on July 16, San Francisco police officers in the Bayview shot 19-year-old Kenneth Wade Harding Jr. multiple times after he ran from the T-Third train platform because he’d been stopped for fare evasion, leaving him dead on the sidewalk.

The recent officer-involved shootings occurred under two different law enforcement bodies, and both incidents remain under police investigation with many questions still unanswered. BART police say Hill was brandishing a knife; the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) said its response was justified because Harding fired at officers first. The investigation in Harding’s case took a bizarre twist July 21 when SFPD issued a press release based on a medical examiner’s report stating that Harding had died not from rounds fired by police, but a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

But among communities distrustful of the police, the particulars of each case seemed to matter less than the perception that officers are too quick to escalate conflicts into deadly standoffs. Both incidents provoked intense anger because they resulted in marginalized transit passengers suffering sudden, violent deaths following interactions that were initiated by police. The shootings sparked angry protests, prompting standoffs at Civic Center BART Station, along the T-Third line in the Bayview, on Valencia Street, in Dolores Park, inside the Castro Muni Station, and at the cable car turnaround on Powell Street.

A group of activists staged protests in the Mission following the Bayview police shooting, snaking through the streets as they disrupted traffic and public transit service. “The march began at Dolores Park where nearly 200 of us departed,” an anonymous post on the anticapitalist Bay of Rage website recounted, describing the events of a July 19 protest that resulted in 43 arrests. “Upon reaching the Castro Muni Station, all hell broke loose…. What had now become a mob moved effortlessly past the bewildered cops … Trash was set alight and thrown down onto the tracks below … ticket machines, the fare checkpoints, and the agent booth were all smashed with hammers and flags — totally ruined. Smoke bombs and fireworks were thrown throughout the station.”

This display occurred just eight days after protesters shut down BART stations in downtown San Francisco during rush hour to condemn the fatal shooting of Hill, the homeless BART passenger.

The message from outraged Bayview residents at a chaotic and emotionally charged community forum staged July 20 at the Bayview Opera House was not that people were upset that this had happened to Harding, a Washington state resident, in particular. Instead, people expressed outrage that police had gunned down yet another African American youth, and that unless some complicated and long-standing issues were addressed, it could happen again, to anyone. The forum was organized in partnership with the SFPD and clergy members from the Bayview. Police had prepared a PowerPoint presentation, but never managed to get that far.

At the meeting, Police Chief Greg Suhr tried to provide an explanation for the July 16 shooting. “During this foot pursuit, at some point in time, the suspect … fired at the officers, and the officers returned fire. This is the account that we have so far,” he said. “I cannot tell you how badly that I feel … as captain of this station for two years,” Suhr continued, as an angry crowd shouted him down.

Police escorted Suhr out of the meeting before everyone who had signed up to speak had a chance to be heard. Once outside, the police chief told reporters that he planned to return.

After Suhr and other city officials departed from the meeting, District 10 Supervisor Malia Cohen stayed at the Bayview Opera House and addressed the crowd that remained, she later told the Guardian, and engaged in discussion with Bayview homeowners, merchants, and other community stakeholders.

“We had a very thoughtful conversation,” she said. “People had questions about [Municipal Transportation Agency] policy over the SFPD riding the bus. We talked about the importance of attending Board of Supervisors meetings, Police Commission meetings, and giving public comment. And there will be future conversations, without obstruction.”

Many who attended the meeting voiced concerns that went well beyond the July 16 incident. Several said they believed youth were unduly harassed by law enforcement over Muni fares on a regular basis. Elvira Pollard spoke about how her son was shot 36 times by police and killed seven years ago. Another woman complained that police had used abusive language when she was arrested in the Bayview four years ago.

Mayor Ed Lee told the Guardian that a bigger police presence at the Oakdale/Palou stop on the T-Third line was part of the city’s strategy to prevent violence in that area. “I actually asked the chief to pay more attention to areas that had a history of gun violence and shootings and other kinds of violence … and it just so happens that this particular area, Third and Palou, is a place where there’s a lot of violence,” Lee said. “So we had more uniformed officers on that specifically at not only my request, but with the understanding of the police chief, too.”

Responding to acts of violence by sending in more police sounds simple enough, yet it seems a toxic environment has arisen out of a heightened police presence in a community where tensions between police and residents already run high, fueled by anxiety and bad past experiences. Add to this dynamic a trend of youth who lack other transportation alternatives riding public transit even if they don’t have enough money to pay the fare, and the situation feeds ongoing strife, particularly when fare evaders are asked for identification and searched by police.

Lee, in partnership with Cohen, called a meeting in City Hall July 19 with leaders of the Bayview community. The press was not allowed to attend, but participants said later that officials gave a presentation about the shooting and played an audio of gunfire from the SFPD’s SpotShotter program to offer evidence that Harding had fired first. Later that day, the SFPD reported that gunshot residue had been detected on Harding’s hand, supporting the police account of what happened. Yet the July 21 press release, suggesting that Harding had shot himself because a .380-caliber bullet that police said could not have come from SFPD firearms had entered the right side of Harding’s neck, made it even less clear what really happened.

By July 22, confusion was still swirling over why a gun hadn’t immediately been recovered from the scene of the shooting, and there still wasn’t any clarity on whether an online video of a passerby removing a silvery object from the sidewalk showed a person who retrieved Harding’s firearm after the shooting, as police have claimed. Police recovered a gun that was initially believed to be Harding’s, but later reported that the gun could not have been the same weapon that discharged a .380 caliber round into the victim’s head.

Chris Jackson, a Bayview resident who sits on the board of City College of San Francisco and ran for District 10 supervisor in 2010, said after the City Hall meeting that he felt it had amounted to little more than a lecture from the city’s top officials. Jackson said he perceived a need for a policy shift in terms of how to deal with fare evasion and violence prevention. “We need a better approach,” he said. “We cannot address this with more cops on the T line.”

After Harding’s death, it came to light that the 19-year-old Washington state man had served time for attempting to promote prostitution, and had been named as a person of interest in connection with the fatal shooting of a 19-year-old Seattle woman. Yet a widely circulated online video showing him writhing on the sidewalk in a pool of blood after being shot, while a handful of officers continued to stand around with weapons drawn, sparked outrage. Once the forum at the Bayview Opera House had broken up, LaDonna Callaway condemned the police response, saying, “They didn’t have to shoot him as many times as they did.”

Angelique Mayhem, a Bayview resident who stood nearby, told the Guardian that she didn’t think the meeting had solved anything. “A boy gets gunned down. We don’t know if there was a gun there, but we do know that for 40 damn years, people have been getting gunned down in this community,” Mayhem said. “People are angrier now than when they were when they walked in the door. We’re a community that’s truly in pain, that’s truly frustrated, and really needs some respect.”

The BART cover-up crumbles

Zelda Bronstein
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The BART cover-up crumbles

Zusha Elinson at the Bay Citizen continues to do great work on the BART Police shooting, and today he’s got a scoop: The audio of the incident gave him the names of the officers involved. OF course, BART can’t confirm or deny anything, as is typical — but the fact that we now know that the shooter was James A. Crowell, who had been on the force for just 18 months, gives some further insight into what happened. I’ve argued for years that the BART Police lack the training and the experience to know when to use lethal force, and this “newbie,” as other officers called him perhaps reacted too quickly to a threat that could have been defused.


At any rate, the whole thing demonstrates a fundamental point of politics: Cover ups don’t work. Information gets out eventually, and the people who are trying to suppress it just look bad.

Harding’s family speaks out

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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Harding’s family speaks out

On July 25, the family of Kenneth Wade Harding, Jr. — the 19-year-old who was killed in the Bayview by a gunshot wound after he ran from being detained for MUNI fare evasion by San Francisco police — attended a press conference in Oakland at the law offices of John Burris.

News of Harding’s criminal history quickly surfaced in the days following his death, with reports focusing on how the African American man from Seattle had served time in prison for attempting to promote prostitution, and had been named as a person of interest in connection with the fatal shooting of a 19-year-old Seattle woman.

Harding’s mother, Denika Chatman, presented an alternative profile of her son, describing him as an independent person who cared for his family and dreamed of a music career as a rapper. Chatman said Harding had planned on attending Seattle Central Community College and would have turned 20 on Aug. 5. As for his criminal background and allegations that he violated his parole, “it doesn’t have anything to do with what happened to him,” she said.

Chatman and Pointer asserted that Harding was not in San Francisco because he was on the run. Instead, they said, he was there to visit with family and friends in the Bay Area and meet with his music manager. Chatman said Harding’s older brother is signed on with a record label in San Francisco, but declined to say which label.

Attorney Adante Pointer called Harding’s death “a tragedy and a shocking incident, which has brought us here seeking answers.” While he did not directly address the police account of the shooting thus far — that he was killed not by multiple rounds fired by San Francisco police officers, but a self-inflicted gunshot wound — Pointer did express skepticism.

“Those stories continuously shift,” Pointer said. “That’s nothing that you can build any kind of trust or credibility with.” He added, “This community is seeking some type of logical explanation as to what happened, as opposed to what amounts to be knee-jerk speculation.”

Pointer said his office had met with five eyewitnesses so far and hoped to find more. “There are eyewitnesses, there are persons in that community who’ve said this young man never fired a shot,” he said. “That’s inconsistent with what the police have said … let’s find out what the truth is.”

Pointer and Chatman were joined by members of Harding’s extended family, as well as African American community leaders in the Bay Area including Nation of Islam minister Rev. Christopher Muhammad and Rev. Renard Allen of San Francisco’s Third Baptist Church. Also present was Cephus “Uncle Bobby” Johnson, the uncle of Oscar Grant, the 20-year-old Hayward man who was fatally shot Jan. 1, 2009 by BART police officer Johannes Mehserle in a case which prompted riots. The Law Offices of John Burris represented Grant’s mother in a federal civil rights lawsuit against BART, striking a $1.3 million settlement with the transit agency in late June.  

Video by Rebecca Bowe

The BART Police video raises new questions

Zelda Bronstein
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The BART Police video raises new questions

BART, under public pressure, has finally released a video that shows part of the shooting of Charles Hill. Zusha Elinson of the Bay Citizen continues to do great work on this story (which the Chron didn’t even put on the front page). He’s got a good analysis, but after watching the video about 20 times, with as much stop action as my computer could give me, it seems pretty clear that:


1. The officers made no credible attempt to calm Hill down or de-escalate the situation. The shooting happens only 25 seconds after the cops arrived on the scene.


2. There’s no evidence on the video that Hill threw a bottle at the officers. It does appear that he threw what BART identifies as a four-inch knife, but it didn’t come anywhere close to the cop you can see in the video. And it appears, from my viewing (and Elinson’s) that the knife was thrown AFTER the shot was fired. Which could mean the guy was holding the knife and it flew out of his hands as he got hit — or it could mean that once he realized he was shot, he heaved it toward the officer.


3. Hill was not anywhere near close to the officer (and thus couldn’t have been credibly threatening to stab him) when the shot was fired.


As an aside: It’s clear that a knife can be a deadly weapon. A cop being attacked by a knife has the right to defend himself with lethal force. And a knife that it thrown with the right degree of skill and accuracy can be every bit as lethal as a bullet. But in this case, Hill was visibly intoxicated (which was why the cops were called in the first place). He may have been an expert knife-thrower (although it appears he wasn’t — the knife clattered away several feet from the officer). But I can tell you, because I’m into this sort of thing, that’s it’s very difficult to throw a knife well from even a few feet away. It takes years of practice to get good with a perfectly balanced knife, one that’s designed to be thrown. If the “four inch knife” Hall threw was a pocket knife or any kind of knife with a heavy handle, the difficulty would increase dramatically; those knives tend to travel in an unbalanced spin and wind up hitting the target handle-first (and thus fairly harmlessly). And I don’t know very many people who can throw any sort of knife with any degree of accuracy when they’re drunk.


Again: The cops had no way of knowning what this guy’s skill level was. He could have been a ninja assasin able to stick a dull pocket knife in someone’s heart from 50 feet away blind and dead drunk. I’m just saying: The level of threat here was a lot lower than, say, a man holding a guy, or a man holding a knife a foot away.


San Francisco cops are required to undergo training to deal with people who are mentally ill, unstable, drunk or on drugs. Part of that training involves trying to talk the person down, trying to avoid a situation where any sort of force is necessary. That clearly didn’t happen here.


One more note: When I was working on another BART shooting story years ago, I read a book on police use of force and it had an interesting comment. I quote from my prior story:


In Modern Police Firearms, a textbook on law-enforcement procedures, Professor Allen P. Bristow of California State University, Los Angeles, writes that deadly force should be used to stop a fleeing felon only when “he cannot be contained or captured” through other means. Further, Bristow notes, an officer considering deadly force should ask the following question:


“Is the crime this suspect is committing, or are the consequences of his possible escape, serious enough to justify my taking his life or endangering the lives of bystanders?”


 In this case, the guy wasn’t fleeing, but the question remains: Was his alleged crime serious enough to justify taking his life?


 


 


 

Carfree crowd praises SFMTA’s choice of Reiskin

Sasha Cuttler
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Carfree crowd praises SFMTA’s choice of Reiskin

Today’s announcement of Ed Reiskin as the new executive director of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is being warmly welcomed by bicyclists, transit riders, and other advocates for alternatives to the automobile – and not just because Reiskin doesn’t own a car and gets around by bike and Muni.

As the head of the Department of Public Works, Reiskin transformed the agency into one that facilitated the creation of more vibrant public spaces and safer, multi-use streets, overseeing some of the Newsom Administration’s most significant progressive accomplishments.

“He really began the process of turning DPW into a complete streets agency,” says Tom Radulovich, executive director of Livable City and an elected member of BART’s Board of Directors. He noted that Reiskin is widely respected by city staff, department heads, and a variety of community groups.

San Francisco Bicycle Coalition director Leah Shahum said she was “really pleased” with the choice – saying Reiskin has been “lights years ahead” of previous DPW administrators – and said it bodes well for an agency that faces some difficult challenges.

“I think Ed Reiskin has proven himself as a leader and someone who is really involved with San Francisco,” she said. “He will be the MTA director who most understands the real needs that San Franciscans have in terms of mobility.”

For example, she said Reiskin prioritized repaving and filling in potholes on streets that have bike lanes, where bad pavement can cause serious crashes or conflicts with drivers. “The fact is he understands that is a safety issue,” she said.

Radulovich offered two cautionary notes in his praise of the choice. The first was his hope that Reiskin will be allowed to take the bold action the MTA needs to reform Muni and create truly mulit-modal, safe streets, rather than being micromanaged and having the agency turned into a piggybank for other departments, as Mayor Newsom did with former MTA director Nat Ford.

“Is the mayor finally going to allow the MTA director to do what he needs to do to fix the agency?” Radulovich asked.

Secondly, he fears that DPW might backslide to the days before Reiskin took over, when the agency was removing public benches all over the city and making public spaces less inviting, rather than taking the lead on creating new, more inviting public spaces – from parklets to Sunday Streets – as Reiskin did.

“The worst case is you don’t gain anything at the MTA and you lose something at Public Works,” Radulovich said.

For his part, Mayor Ed Lee sounded a note of optimism that Reiskin will transform the agency. “I thank the SFMTA Board of Directors for their thoughtful, deliberative and unanimous support of Ed Reiskin as the new leader of the SFMTA,” Lee in a prepared statement. “Now is the time to focus on the future of the SFMTA and continue to make good on our promise to San Francisco transit riders and taxpayers by creating greater efficiency in our transit system, improving on-time performance, and honoring our City’s Transit First Policy.”

Outrage at the Bayview Opera House (VIDEO)

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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A community meeting July 20 at the Bayview Opera House dissolved into chaotic shouting when Police Chief Greg Suhr attempted to present the San Francisco Police Department’s version of what transpired July 16 when a 19-year-old African American man was shot nine times by police and killed just blocks from where the meeting was held.

“On Saturday afternoon, two officers at the Bayview station … contacted a fare evader whose name ended up being Kenneth Wade Harding, Jr. of Seattle, Washington,” Suhr began. “After asking him for his identification, he became a little bit anxious, and at one point in time he jumped off the platform and ran across the street, and ran through crowded Mendell Plaza. I cannot tell you how badly that I feel … as captain of this station for two years. I love the Bayview community.”

At that point, angry shouts rose up and Suhr started getting booed, but he continued. “During this foot pursuit, at some point in time, the suspect … fired at the officers, and the officers returned fire. This is the account that we have so far.”

Kilo Perry began shouting back at the chief, saying, “You are not a friend of ours. You are the enemy,” before bystanders tried to calm him down. The SFPD had planned on showing a power point presentation about the incident, but that didn’t happen. Instead, Suhr was drowned out, and the microphone was passed to various community representatives and members of the clergy, who’d helped organize the meeting, as they tried to regain control. Lifelong Bayview resident Charlie Walker asked people to sit down and relax.

Several hundred people had gathered at the Bayview Opera House to get answers about the shooting, and most remained seated as people continued to swarm around the police chief. After some time had passed, community leaders managed to set up a question-and-answer session with Suhr.

From this brief exchange and venting session, it became clear that people had come to the meeting with broader concerns than just what transpired Saturday. Elvira Pollard stood to recount how, seven years ago, her son had been shot by police 36 times, and that police had claimed that he’d shot first. She said it took more than nine months to get an autopsy report. “It’s the same scenario!” she charged. “Do you really think they aren’t going to lie about this one?” Suhr said that he couldn’t comment on that case specifically since he didn’t know the details, but offered to meet with her.

As people spoke, police violence against youth emerged as a theme. Harding was not a resident of the Bayview, and it came to light after his death that he had served time for attempting to promote prostitution and was a person of interest in connection with the fatal shooting of a 19-year-old woman. But to many who expressed outrage at the meeting, his death was linked to past instances in which youth had been gunned down by law enforcement. One woman showed up wearing a T-shirt, earrings, and a handbag displaying images of Oscar Grant, the 20-year-old unarmed Hayward man who was shot and killed by BART officer Johannes Mehserle on January 1, 2009.

A concern that was voiced again and again was that people felt the police routinely harrassed youth on the T-Third line. Grilled about why police were constantly stopping young people over MUNI transfers, Suhr responded that police had recovered weapons from T-line passengers while conducting fare inspections in the past.

The meeting broke apart when Suhr was escorted out, surrounded by uniformed officers, news cameras, and angry residents who continued to demand that he release the names of the officers who shot Harding. One simply yelled, “stop shooting black people in the back!” Once outside, with beads of sweat rolling down his face, Suhr told reporters, “I’ll be back.”

Here’s a video of the tense exchanges that took place at the July 20 meeting. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3cQwtKMsXM

Video by Rebecca Bowe

Editor’s notes

Andrew Lam
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So now I’m really confused.

State Assemblymember Tom Ammiano met July 18 with representatives of BART and the BART Police (three BART lobbyists, a deputy chief, and a sergeant). He wanted to get some sense of what’s going on with the investigation into the Civic Center shooting. Ammiano had pushed last year for legislation forcing BART to create a civilian oversight agency for the cops; instead, BART created its own police auditor position.

Ammiano asked when BART would start releasing information, starting with the station video of the event, which ended with a homeless man dead on the platform. BART, Ammiano told me, said the whole thing had been turned over to the San Francisco Police Department.

But the SFPD Public Affairs Office tells me that it won’t release anything — that all information has to come from BART. Linton Johnson, BART’s public affairs person, tells me that it’s SFPD’s investigation and nothing will be forthcoming until SFPD turns its files over to the district attorney — but yes, even then, thanks to an interagency deal, all info will have to come from BART.

Round and round and round we spin. And nobody tells us anything.

There are some serious questions here. BART officials told Ammiano that Charles Hill, the dead man, was “armed with two knives and a bottle.” That’s the current narrative — that the guy was a mortal threat to the officers, who had the discretion to use lethal force.

Quintin Mecke, Ammiano’s press aide, asked the obvious question: Was Hill in fact wielding the weapons in a threatening way? Were the knives later found on his body? Did he throw the bottle or was it in his hand?

BART’s response: “They told me that was part of the investigation,” Mecke said.

As for the SFPD, Mecke said he’s been told that the investigation should be concluded in 45 days — which is crazy. I can’t imagine why it takes that long to review a police shooting that took place on a public train platform — and was recorded on video. “It is,” Mecke told me, “a stonewall all around.”

The good news is that BART now has an official police auditor. His name is Mark Smith. He has no staff at all, so he can’t investigate the case — but that’s okay, because the BART police are offering to help him.

For the record, I remain dubious.

Youth Speaks finds its Brave New Voices at this week’s international poetry slam

Andrew Lam
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Youth Speaks finds its Brave New Voices at this week’s international poetry slam

Bay Area, meet your home team. Their names are Joshua Merchant, Noah St. John, E.J. Walls, Gretchen Carvajal, Cassanda Euphrat Weston, and Jade Cho – spoken word poets, representatives of their cities in an international competition that has been the subject, even, of an HBO reality series, and all under the age of 18. Do you know about Brave New Voices?

A performance from BNW 2010 on everyone’s (least) favorite sustenance diet

 The international youth spoken word competition has been shocking senses and giving young people a way to spit the most difficult and important aspects of their lives since 1998 (go here for our recent post on Youth Speaks, the SF organization that was instrumental in making this slam royale happen and coordinates the Bay’s BNV representatives). What happens is teams of high school poets, usually selected through city-wide slams in their own areas, hit the stage during three rounds, reciting poems in tandem and solo that they’ve been revising and perfecting for months. Offstage, the kids get to meet fellow poets from around the world, ciphering and practicing their performances into the night.

We’re stoked at the Guardian for our Bay beatniks, and we somehow hooked two of them for an email interview in the middle of their preparations for the competition, which starts tomorrow, Wed/20, and culminates in the final slam Sat/23 at the SF Opera. Like Youth Speaks executive director James Kass says, here’s your “unadulterated, uncensored kids.”

San Francisco Bay Guardian: Introduce yourself to the city — how old you are, how long you’ve been involved with Youth Speaks, what do you like about spoken word?

Cassandra Euphrat Weston: I’m 18, I’ve been involved with Youth Speaks for about a year. I love the directness and honesty that spoken word demands of me as a writer. There is only one chance to connect with the audience; there’s no leisurely re-reading spoken word poems, and that immediacy creates an extremely powerful connection.

Gretchen Carvajal: I’m 17, I’ve been involved with Youth Speaks for almost three years now, and I love the entire spoken word community, the freeing environment [of] integrity and vulnerability coexisting.  All in all, spoken word is dope.

 

SFBG: You guys are less than a week out from Brave New Voices, how are you feeling?

GC: It feels surreal, we’ve been working at this for so long and it’s finally coming down to the wire, it’s Judgment Day. For real. Make it or break it. Think of every cliché used to describe this eye of the tiger moment, that’s what it is, times a million.

 

SFBG: What’s been the most challenging part about training for an international competition like this?

GC: Traveling from Newark to Oakland and Berkeley and San Francisco, it’s a lot of money to drop on BART. Also, several edits on the same poem can get a little repetitive, but it’s all for making the pieces stronger. 

 

SFBG: What are you most looking forward to about BNV? What do you think is going to be happening there when a country full of young spoken word artists meet?

CEW: I can’t wait to meet poets from all over the country and hear their work. I don’t know exactly what will happen, but I know the experience will be absolutely phenomenal.

 

SFBG: Tell me something that you’re proud of about your San Francisco team.

CEW: I love how different we all are, and how close we’ve become over the course of the past few months. Everybody has pushed themselves into the most difficult conversations and poems. This effort definitely shows.

GC: I’m proud of the mix we have in our team, and how we coincide. Our team has so many different styles and we can contribute to each other’s style, making everyone diverse within themselves. I just love my team.

 

Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Festival

Wed/20-Sat/23, $6-100

Various Bay Area venues

www.bravenewvoices.org

 

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