Carroll Fife’s latest video is like a car wreck that’s so awful, you can’t not watch it. The 14-minute clip shows an agitated Fife in a vehicle at night, videoed by an unidentified companion. The time is midnight; Fife explains how she’s “trying to find out what is all this chaos going on” in a West Oakland part of District 3. Apparently, there’s been a major sideshow involving more than 400 cars. Five Oakland police officers have been summoned, but in line with official policy, they have kept to the riot’s perimeter: five cops are not going to rush into a hostile crowd of more than 100 armed and potentially violent people. In the video’s first moments, it’s not entirely clear to the viewer what’s happening, but one thing we learn almost immediately is that Fife is pissed off at the cops.
“I don’t know why I’m being treated by OPD as though I’m out here engaging in malicious, anti-social activity,” she announces, without explanation. Her problem, it turns out, is that OPD is “just staging six blocks away from a huge sideshow…and have been told not to engage…They’re allowing shit to pop off, and they’re not answering any questions. And they’re treating me all kinds of crazy ways.”
At this point we have to make some inferences. The sideshow is happening. There also are loud noises, “explosions,” that Fife hears that, we later learn, are gunshots. She apparently has asked some cops what’s happening, and is outraged when they tell her they’re not actively shutting down the mayhem. “I need to know who’s on duty, how are these funds being utilized, and then they’re mad at us for asking for accountability.”
Fife Accosts an Officer
Fife spots a cop. “Maybe I can get some answers now.” She exits the car and storms up to the cop. The officer asks Fife, whom he does not know, to please step onto the sidewalk, for safety reasons. Fife’s accomplice says, with an air of menace, “This is the Council Member for the district. She can stand anywhere she wants.” Fife starts harassing the cop; we never see him, but he sounds white, and young. The cop is unfailingly polite and respectful. He tries to explain that “our orders are to monitor this sideshow,” not break it up. Attempting to disrupt it would only lead to the possibility of violence. “We don’t have enough units to go in.”
That’s not good enough for Fife, who co-led (with Nikki Bas) the June 24 City Council vote to defund OPD. “How many units does it take to go in?” she demands, as if she’s presiding over an Internal Affairs investigation. Fife then turns into a Karen and demands to talk to the cop’s supervisor, but continues to browbeat the cop. “Who is ordering you all to be six blocks away? How are orders being dispatched to you all? And yes, sir, I am recording.” “You have every right to record,” the cop assures her, to which Fife confrontationally replies, “I’m clear about what my rights are, thank you.”
The cop tries again to explain, patiently, that he and his fellow officers can’t break up the violent sideshow out of “concern for our safety.” But Fife argues on. “Your safety,” she sniffs. “My concern is for the safety of the entire district.” More browbeating…you can feel the cop squirming, thinking, “Why me?” “We do our best,” he says, in exasperation. He tells Fife about policy, about the crowd, about how cops think in responding to complex situations. But Fife remains angry. “None of this makes sense,” she says; although it makes perfect sense, she doesn’t want it to make sense, because Fife’s starting point always is the same: whatever cops do is wrong.
This dreary video goes on and on. The poor cop keeps trying to mollify Fife. He’s got more important things to do than waste his time with someone who’s clearly just looking for an fight. He explains to her OPD’s longstanding, sensible policy of identifying sideshow car license plates, and then impounding the vehicles a day or two later, “without having to go in and create an exigency that might result in something violent, like an officer-involved shooting. We don’t want to use force if we don’t have to.”
It’s so rational, so sensible that anyone else would understand, but not Fife. “I’m [still] trying to understand how any of this makes sense.” The cop tries again. “If there’s no one whose life is in jeopardy, then that’s why we stay away.” Then Fife delivers what, to me, is the video’s punchline: “We keep hearing demands for more and more money [for OPD] but I’m not clear how that would help any of the situations you all are supposed to be preventing.”
This, from a woman whose entire political career is based on defunding the Oakland Police Department and assailing its officers when they try to do their job. Anyone familiar with Fife knows exactly what would have happened had the cops rushed in to break up the sideshow, and, God forbid, violence had erupted. Perhaps a young black man were shot. Fife would be leading the charge for revenge, demanding investigations, firings, lawsuits, more defunding. At her side would be Cat Brooks, and bringing up the rear would be John Burris, holding a news conference with the victim’s family.
Watching the video, seeing Fife’s eyes, hearing the disdain in her voice, her utter dismissal of the cop’s explanations, is sad and infuriating. “Who’s going to call me tonight, to explain this?” she demands of the young cop, before returning to her car because “It’s really cold out here.” (Cops get cold too, but they don’t have the option of returning to their cars.) Once inside, she muses. “What job are they doing? What were they instructed to do? How can I know they’re doing their job, if they don’t even know what they’re supposed to do?”
Earth to Carroll Fife: They know exactly what they’re supposed to do. The officer told you over and over, but you willfully chose to ignore it. The cops were there to monitor the situation and get license plate numbers. What part of the English language is so hard for you to understand? You harassed a young cop and prevented him from doing his job. No one told you to go on your midnight ride and interfere. You were looking for trouble. Fortunately, the cop was in total control of the situation and of his own emotions. You never managed to rile him up. Instead, you’re the one who got riled. And you left for posterity this damning video of you, intimidating a young police officer, questioning longstanding OPD policy, jumping to conclusions, potentially putting the officers’ lives, and the lives of the sideshow crowd, in danger. You showed the world your utter disrespect for, and lack of understanding of, law enforcement, and all the while you never answered the real question: If you were so upset, why didn’t YOU run into the sideshow and demand that the criminals go home?
Steve Heimoff