I nearly blew coffee all over my monitor a few days ago when I read this, and one of the people on the forum said I should comment on it. In light of last night's Ticker on police pensions, it appears appropriate.
An Open Letter to the Citizens of Oakland from the Oakland Police Officers’ Association
1 November 2011 – Oakland, Ca.
We represent the 645 police officers who work hard every day to protect the citizens of Oakland. We, too, are the 99% fighting for better working conditions, fair treatment and the ability to provide a living for our children and families. We are severely understaffed with many City beats remaining unprotected by police during the day and evening hours.
There's the first set of problematic words: Fighting.
Here are the facts: The Police have no duty to "protect." Go look it up. I'll help the Peanut Gallery with the (most-recent) reference: Castle Rock.
This case was about a woman with a protective order against her estranged husband. He kidnapped their three children. The local police department failed to act for a period of several hours, despite there being justification to get that protective order in the first place. The estranged husband ultimately murdered all three kids, then died in a shootout with police.
The United States Supreme Court ruled that there is no duty of protection toward any particular citizen by the police.
So let's cut the crap; the "Protect and Serve" banner on your cars is just so much political propaganda. Despite the claims the courts say you have no such duty to any particular person at all.
But this much is clear: You should not be "fighting" anything. Irrespective of your lack of an actual duty under the law, you are still employees of the people, as is the Mayor. Mayor Quan has figured this out -- belatedly. You, however, have not.
As your police officers, we are confused.
On Tuesday, October 25th, we were ordered by Mayor Quan to clear out the encampments at Frank Ogawa Plaza and to keep protesters out of the Plaza. We performed the job that the Mayor’s Administration asked us to do, being fully aware that past protests in Oakland have resulted in rioting, violence and destruction of property.
Prior restraint is unconstitutional in the broad sense. In the specific case it is beyond unconstitutional; it is unconscionable. There was no evidence at the time and there is none now that the people in this demonstration had any intent to riot or commit violence at any sort of level beyond that in the general community.
Your first duty is to the Constitution; a document that makes clear that it recognizes fundamental liberty interests. The government cannot "bestow" those interests as they are not the government's to give. They belong to the people -- to each individually. They are unalienable, which means that even if ignored and violated, they still exist. They can be willingly surrendered by a person, but only for the duration they so choose to surrender them; as an unalienable right they cannot be "given away" on a continuing and permanent basis by any single act or set of acts.
An order repugnant to the Constitution is no order at all. This is long-standing law; some cites:
"The Constitution is a written instrument. As such, its meaning does not alter. That which it meant when it was adopted, it means now." South Carolina v. United States, 199 U.S. 437, 448 (1905).
"If the legislature clearly misinterprets a constitutional provision, the frequent repetition of the wrong will not create a right." Amos v. Mosley, 74 Fla. 555; 77 So. 619.
"It is the peculiar value of a written constitution that it places in unchanging form limitations upon the legislation and thus gives a permanence and stability to popular government which otherwise would be lacking." Muller v. Oregon, 208 U.S. 412.
Would you care to argue with the First Amendment?
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
The demonstrators do not need a permit to exercise a right. You obtain a permit to exercise a privilege; by definition a "permit" is "permission." Further, there is no limit on the time for such an assembly, either in its inception or for how long it may last. The people clearly have the right to peaceably assemble for as long as they might choose, and in this case it appears that their intent is to so choose until their petition is heard and acted upon.
You have no authority to take an action repugnant to the Constitution and you have a duty of discernment when so ordered to violate it. You oath says so, and despite prior violations of that oath your duties under it are a continuing and permanent obligation.
Then, on Wednesday, October 26th, the Mayor allowed protesters back in – to camp out at the very place they were evacuated from the day before.
To add to the confusion, the Administration issued a memo on Friday, October 28th to all City workers in support of the “Stop Work” strike scheduled for Wednesday, giving all employees, except for police officers, permission to take the day off.
That’s hundreds of City workers encouraged to take off work to participate in the protest against “the establishment.” But aren’t the Mayor and her Administration part of the establishment they are paying City employees to protest? Is it the City’s intention to have City employees on both sides of a skirmish line?
Skirmish line? Who's "skirmishing"? Is that your word for apparently striking Scott Olsen in the head with some sort of projectile -- a man who was peacefully standing before your barricades at a respectful distance next to a man holding a copy of the US Constitution - the only "permit" he could be lawfully required to rely upon?
Or how about the clearly-visible device thrown into the demonstrators who tried to rescue Mr. Olsen after he fell? Honest people can disagree on whether you shot Mr. Olsen in the head with a projectile or not; the video evidence is not clear. However, the video evidence does clearly show a uniformed officer throwing a device into the group of demonstrators attempting to rescue Mr. Olsen that then explodes. It is immaterial whether such a device is a "flash-bang" or a tear gas grenade; the fact of the matter is that firing upon those who are unarmed and providing medical assistance to a fallen individual is illegal under The Geneva Conventions in time of war and such acts would land you in The Hague were you to attempt them on a battlefield!
Your department participated in an act that under the most-egregious circumstances known to man -- an actual armed conflict -- would be considered a war crime. The only confusion I have on this point is over your possible justification for not resigning en-masse when "ordered" to perform a clearly-illegal act and your fellow officers' refusal to out and demand the indictment and prosecution of the officer(s) involved.
It is all very confusing to us.
Meanwhile, a message has been sent to all police officers: Everyone, including those who have the day off, must show up for work on Wednesday. This is also being paid for by Oakland taxpayers. Last week’s events alone cost Oakland taxpayers over $1 million.
No they didn't. You cost Oakland taxpayers over $1 million through your voluntary performance of acts that are blatantly unlawful under The Constitution of the United States. And you'll likely have cost them much more when the lawsuits are finally heard over your conduct, including but not limited to Mr. Olsen and the more-recent incident in which you shot areporter with a rubber bullet while he was filming you.
His offense? He had the temerity to ask why you were covering your badge numbers with tape, an act that is illegal under California's Penal Code. Not content to violate the law once, someone among your ranks apparently decided to commit felonious assault to add a cherry on top of your unlawfully-constructed Sundae.
Now we have two clear incidents where you have deemed yourselves "above the law." There is also the matter of another individual who received a lacerated spleen at your department's hands, along with a refusal to provide him medical treatment for nearly a full day. The circumstances of that event remain unclear, but there has been no allegation made that he was in any way violating the law at the time he was beaten -- if true that would be yet another felonious assault.
The Mayor and her Administration are beefing up police presence for Wednesday’s work strike they are encouraging and even “staffing,” spending hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars for additional police presence – at a time when the Mayor is also asking Oakland residents to vote on an $80 parcel tax to bail out the City’s failing finances.
All of these mixed messages are confusing.
There is no mixed message. An order repugnant to the Constitution is no order at all. Your duty is first and foremost to our nation's foundational documents and the fundamental liberty interests recognized, but not granted therein.
The people's tolerance for Stasi-style police tactics has expired. Your raw and blatant attempts to incite riots so you can then justify the use of force to put them down -- when you are the actual source of the violence in the first place -- is deplorable. The individual acts involved are clearly-indicated felonies for which the responsible parties -- all of them -- must face prosecution.We love Oakland and just want to do our jobs to protect Oakland residents. We respectfully ask the citizens of Oakland to join us in demanding that our City officials, including Mayor Quan, make sound decisions and take responsibility for these decisions. Oakland is struggling – we need real leaders NOW who will step up and lead – not send mixed messages. Thank you for listening.
Unlike your officers I demand a trial by jury, with punishment meted out only after guilt has been established by that jury. Your officers have repeatedly arrogated to themselves the role of judge, jury and executioner -- in three cases thus far nearly managing to perfect that role. This is unacceptable and must stop here and now.
The fact of the matter is that law enforcement officers need the people, not the other way around. Not only do you rely on us for your salaries and benefits -- promises made by elected officials that were and are lies as they cannot be provided in anywhere near the "in full" level promised -- you need us as the thugs in the world outnumber you dramatically, ignoring the population that are not thugs. Without our cooperation and trust you will simply be overrun by the bad guys when, not if, the inevitable happens.
You were lied to just like the rest of us and the inevitable financial reality is now upon us. As such you must choose: You either stand on and for what's right, or the people have every right to, and will, withdraw their support.
Those lies were promulgated by a government that is in bed with Wall Street. 30 seconds with Excel will discern the truth. Let's presume you work for 30 years and your "pension fund" starts with $10,000 in it. This is what the 8% your pension fund assumes for total return will grow to over that 30 years with no further contributions of any sort!
Do you believe that is going to happen? That $10,000 on your first day as a patrolman will grow by a factor of nearly 10, to $93,172.75 by the time you retire? Of course there are further contributions which makes the final "expected growth number" even worse. Ask yourself this: How can it happen when every dollar that is allegedly going to be there from that "growth" has to come from someone in some place in the economy?
Now let's take it one more level: If you're an older officer I'm sure you have a friend that just came into the force. He's young, you're retiring soon. Here's what that same $10,000 is allegedly going to turn into by the time he retires:
$10,000 is going to turn into $937,565.40?
It's not going to happen. The promises made to you were knowing and intentional lies. These very same lies are why the people are in the streets now. They were rooked into buying into a mania in housing, the local, state and county governments rooked the people by making projections of "10% home price growth forever" and then putting forward "budgets" that relied on the mathematically impossible in the form of tax collections from a never-ending ponzi scheme. When the mathematically inevitable occurred and the collapse came the people got foreclosed upon, the banks kept the money they stole and now you're being enlisted to put down a popular protest over unethical and unlawful acts by these very same people -- the very people who stole your futures and lied to you as well!
The demonstrators are right -- you're wrong.
Mathematics doesn't care about politics. Arithmetic simply could care less whether you are Democrat, Republican, Left, Right, Anarchist, Libertarian, Communist or Socialist. It just is; 2 + 2 will always be 4, and the mathematical law of exponents is not a suggestion.
Look at that graph up above. Be honest: Do you really believe that can happen?
It cannot. You know it in your heart and mind. You've probably never seen this chart (because your union and your government boss intentionally didn't show it to you) but you sure have heard the "8%" number bandied about in the press.
Your union bosses, your government employers, the guy who comes in to talk about your pension from time to time -- they all know about the mathematics of this and if they have an understanding of 5th grade arithmetic they know it's a scam. They know they're lying to you and they don't care. They think you're too stupid to figure it out. Isn't it grand to know that your "bosses" are not only swindling the people you allegedly protect and serve they're swindling you too?
The only reason for you to be confused is that you're still taking orders from a government that has participated in robbing you, robbing your children, and robbing the very people who you are trying to unlawfully disperse.
Stand for truth -- which means crossing the lines and refusing to create a "skirmish" -- or if you can't bring yourself to do it, and I understand that many of you can't given the indoctrination you have previously received -- then simply refuse to participate in acts repugnant to the Constitution and go home.
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