I’m always amazed by the anti-cop groups we have in the Bay Area, especially in the East Bay. There seems to be something in the water here that causes people to lose their sanity when it comes to cops.
One of the older such groups is called Berkeley Copwatch. We usually think of groups like this as Oakland phenomena, but BCW started in 1990, when they “[began] street patrols to document harassment of homeless people on Telegraph Avenue.” Now, as someone who was homeless back in the day (not in Berkeley but in Provincetown, on Cape Cod), I have some understanding of the situation. I was without shelter, sleeping on the beach or wherever someone would let me, scrounging for food, hanging out with my friends in the Town Square, and loving my carefree life. One day, the Provincetown Police Department swarmed down and arrested dozens of us for loitering.
It never would have occurred to me to “protest” my arrest. I was loitering. The police had their jobs to do and I didn’t blame them. To me, it was all great fun, an adventure! I pled not guilty and demanded a trial. I was given a trial; the judge found in my favor (after all, the cops couldn’t prove I had no legitimate home) and threw the case out of court.
That was in 1968. Clearly things have changed since then. Now, there are people like Andrea Prichett, the founder of Berkeley Copwatch, who still runs it. Like Cat Brooks and Pamela Price, like so many older angry radicals who run anti-police organizations, she uses the same woke Black Panther slurs to attack the police, such as “Policing is an extension of violence and harm” and “It’s time for Berkeley to invest in the PEOPLE not POLICE!” Among her demands is to “Defund BPD by 50%.” We’ve heard that before in Oakland! When it comes to how to deal with lawbreakers and criminals, Prichett’s solution is simple: “Emphasize approaches that center human dignity, harm reduction, de-escalation and transformative justice.” Yes, as these police defunders are always lecturing us, the way to deal with criminals is to be nice to them!
Haven’t we heard enough of this nonsense? Haven’t we seen that every time we reduce police budgets, crime soars? Haven’t we seen in recent elections, such as the Recalls of Thao and Price, that the people are sick and tired of this permissive approach to career criminals? Haven’t we learned that cities need to get tough on crime if they expect to survive?
Well, you and I have learned these things, but not police defunders like Prichett and her Berkeley Copwatch. Her most recent attack on public safety, which prompted me to write this column, came in late October, when she forcefully opposed the Berkeley Police Department’s request to fully encrypt their radio communications. Fortunately the Berkeley City Council ruled 8-1 against Prichett, thus settling the issue for now: Berkeley cops can legally encrypt, which is a big plus for public safety.
I’ll never figure out what it is with these cop haters. Are they just a bunch of old Sixties protesters, looking to stay relevant in a world they’re rapidly aging out of? I should think Prichett would now have gotten the message: Even in ultra-liberal Berkeley, her harassment of the police is unacceptable, and has been repudiated. May I suggest to Andrea Prichett that she find a more respectable, less harmful hobby to occupy her days, instead of continuing her bonkers intifada against the police.
Steve Heimoff