Profiling Protesters
The Alameda Sun a very interesting article about the recent protest around the police activity surrounding Iko Bayarsaikhan’s murder. When I first heard about this group’s intention to protest alleging racial profiling, my first thought was indeed to roll my eyes. However, I must caveat that very candid first impulse by saying that if in fact there were some “irregularities” in the police investigation, then there should be an independent investigation looking into the matter. While I am generally very supportive of youth being politically active and expressing themselves in a very public forum, I think something like this required a bit more tact than a public demonstration pronouncing the Alameda Police Department as having committed, “one of the worst cases of police harassment ever experienced by the East Bay’s Southeast Asian community.” I have to agree with the Alameda Journal’s editorial that it was a bit much and on the inflammatory side.
While it is important for a community to continually support its law enforcement and the men and women putting their lives on the line to protect us every day, it is also important for a community to continually scruntize and be aware of the actions of this life line to make sure that incidents like the ones alleged by the protesters do not happen. It is crucial that if 250 community members — let’s say it was 225 to subtract the number of press that was there — felt as though this was an important matter to make public then it should be addressed beyond responses from the police in a newspaper article.
Oh, and one small correction to the Alameda Journal editorial wich stated:
…The suspects, like the victim, were a part of the Southeast Asian community…
Actually, not really. While the suspects were ethnically “Southeast Asian,” Iko and her family were from Mongolia, not in Southeast Asia. Mongolia, situated between Russia and China would be considered East Asian. If the word “southeast” was struck from that phrase, then yes, it would be true, but that’s a pretty minor quibble.
One must read the sequence of events since the Halloween murder with a certain amount of satisfaction. A couple of quotes stick in my mind.
“A native of Vietnam, Tran has pleaded not guilty and remains in custody”.
“In response to what they call “one of the worst cases of police harassment ever experienced by the East Bay’s ,” activists will demonstrate against the Alameda police today over its investigation into the shooting death of a teenage girl on Halloween”.
Either the Oakland Southeast Asian community is blind to recent history or too young to know what police harassment really is. I would invite them to return to Hanoi or Saigon and see how the Peoples Police of Vietnam handle murder investigations. Take a turn through the former Hoa Lo prison in Hanoi and learn how their former government view demonstrations against the Peoples Police. But that’s all water under the bridge now.
What could be more currently, ” American”, than excoriating the police in general and suggesting that that great bugaboo, “racial profiling” was used in solving the crime. The charge of “racial profiling”, just by its use, has the rhetorical power to gather together group organizations to indict the police. Members of the group who, individually would most likely be satisfied that an arrest had been made. But that portion of the event is blotted out and the focus of the murder has shifted from a Halloween tragedy to the grand American tradition of making the perpetrator the victim. Assimilation, American style.
Comment by Jack Richard — November 30, 2007 @ 10:04 am
It should be noted that the protestors were also holding up signs supporting “Affirmative Action”.
Comment by James Chen — November 30, 2007 @ 10:49 am
Just as the protesters have the right to protest, they also have the right to have it backfire/blow up in their face. Bad, bad timing.
Comment by Jack B. — November 30, 2007 @ 11:15 am
Looks like some students in the Oakland Public Schools spend more time studying about their own oppression than they spend studying critical thinking.
What these kids fail to understand is the importance of solving murders — even if it means that sometimes members of the community will need to be inconvenienced and they may not get all the pizza they want. http://tinyurl.com/2ag8kt
Many murders in Oakland are never solved, so maybe that is the norm there — but it shouldn’t be.
These are kids, so I am willing to forgive their bad behavior, but they need to learn that free and open societies require the solving of serious crimes and the community needs to cooperate with law enforcement in order for the criminal justice system to work.
Comment by Alameda NayTiff — November 30, 2007 @ 1:45 pm
I can’t stress enough how BAD their timing was. Not only bad for the community, for the victim’s family, but even for their own cause! Suffice it to say they’re not gonna garner much sympathy.
Racial profiling isn’t anything new to this town (I can attest) but . . .SERIOUSLY?!?!?!
Comment by MarkD — November 30, 2007 @ 2:48 pm
Regarding laurendo’s comment about SE Asia/Mongolia location and the state of American knowledge of geography. I guess the Sun editor thinks if you head east you’ll eventually get to Asia then if you head south from Asia you could possibly get to Mongolia even if you have to circle the globe to get there. These editors are not dumb, anyplace on a sphere can be reached by traveling in any two directions so you can call anywhere anything and not be too wrong. That’s journalism.
Comment by Jack Richard — November 30, 2007 @ 4:39 pm
Re. My last
Some may notice that I should of said it was the Journal’s editor not the Sun’s editor that gave directions to Mongolia but it doesn’t matter, editors are like spheres too.
Comment by Jack Richard — November 30, 2007 @ 4:46 pm
If the police knew enough to search for gun toting high school age Asian boys from Oakland with possible gang connections; is that racial profiling? Is it sexist, or ageist, or as I think - good police work. Profiling is part of police work, and obviously our good guys in blue were not indiscriminately arresting or harassing anybody solely on the basis of race.
I agree with Loren - this protest doesn’t warrant more than a role of the eyes and a shake of the head, and move on.
Comment by David Kirwin — November 30, 2007 @ 5:08 pm
The demonstration/protest was orchestrated by a handful of adults with a political agenda. APD conducted a very focused investigation. The detectives were not out looking for while or black male juveniles, they had specific information to work with. They exercised appropriate restraint - you’re not going to go up and knock on a door in a coat and tie outfit when the suspect(s) shot someone in the course of a robbery with no hesitation. A cold blooded murder. Finally, the law with regards to notification of parents does not mean pre-arrest notification. APD like most agencies have policies and regulations in place in which a reasonable amount of time following police contact/arrest is allowed before notifying a parent or guardian. When APD couldn’t make the case on two juveniles, they were released, albeit after consulting with the Alameda DA’s office. There was no “round up the usual suspects” attitude in this case. Well done APD.
Comment by Paladin — November 30, 2007 @ 6:10 pm
Re. # 8
David, if you read laurendos’s”Profiling Protesters” above. You’ll notice the hastily candid impulse eyes quit rolling when speculated “irregularities” were group announced. See what happens to individual reasoned thought when group thought takes over.
Comment by Jack Richard — November 30, 2007 @ 7:59 pm
#10
Her first analysis was right. There is a difference between taking a second look and group think. In this case, I tend to agree with Jack.
Comment by Alameda NayTiff — November 30, 2007 @ 9:05 pm
I still agree with Lauren’s first paragraph. In her 2nd paragraph she is just using her words cautiously - I don’t think she is co-signing with the protesters.
My eyes still roll when I think about the protest. More kids today need to be reminded that they may be judged by the company they keep.
Now is that the parents’ job to teach them or the schools?
…and if you think it should be at home doesn’t that widen the “achievement gap” for those unfortunately born to losers who never learned right from wrong?
Comment by David Kirwin — November 30, 2007 @ 10:56 pm
Too many Oakland residents are more disturbed by the efforts of the police to solve the murder than the murder itself. This would be a good time for Oakland teachers to remind students of their responsibility to cooperate with police in solving crimes. I think that it is also a good time to re-read Chip Johnson’s column.
In Alameda, unlike Oakland, single slaying gets big police response
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/11/06/BAJ2T6RKI.DTL&hw=chip+johnson+alameda&sn=001&sc=1000
“As an Oakland resident, I think it’s refreshing to see police mount such an energetic response to a single slaying. But it’s also frustrating to live in a city where so many homicides go unsolved.
One exception was the case of journalist Chauncey Bailey, who was shot and killed while walking to work on a downtown Oakland street in August. Police swooped down on Your Black Muslim Bakery the next day and arrested the alleged shooter.
It’s got to be even worse for the families of Oakland crime victims whose slayings are never solved - and justice is never done.
But just as hard to swallow will be if the shooter who killed Iko turns out to be from Oakland. That will mean that our own cup runneth over, that the violence plaguing Oakland is spilling over into other communities.”
Comment by Alameda NayTiff — December 1, 2007 @ 7:11 am
#13 “Too many Oakland residents are more disturbed by the efforts of the police to solve the murder than the murder itself.”
Is “too many” the number who protested in Alameda? Is it any number at all? Is it supposed to imply you think a majority of Oaklanders have this attitude? Not that we could actually know.
Is it fair to say that too many Alamedans are more disturbed by crimes in Oakland as potential spillage into their own community, than with the essential problem of why the crime exists? If so, is that justified? (If so, it is fairly typical of human nature and should be no surprise.)
At a sensitive time like this I think it’s important to step back from the empirical evidence alone and also look to statistical material over long time periods in order to get the clearest perspective possible in terms of things like spillage. Perhaps complaints against APD also. The latter would probably reflect positively.
Crime spillage from Oakland is not new and in varying degrees is regular. This murder seems to be in every way an aberration. It seems the criminals who commit snatch and grab assaults or armed stick-up robberies are at least a little older and are focused on money as opposed to making a display of being bad assed.
There is room to believe that APD may have been a bit clumsy or hurried in some instances in their urgent effort to solve this crime. I understand if persons who may have been on the receiving end of any such mis-step are rankled by it. I think I would be also. But the reference in the Sun article to police working 24/7 is not figurative but quite literal, by accounts that have trickled my way. Who has made that kind of effort and not had their own clarity dulled by it? I’m confident any review will absolve the APD of any serious improprieties, or any at all. Surly some people will never be satisfied.
A question here: The on line version of the Sun article had a photo of Alamedan Michael Yoshi at the rally asking for a moment of silence in respect for Iko. Thanks for that. Carl Halpern who has posted here is or was on the board of the Multicultural Center with Rev. Yoshi. I wonder if he or other readers of this blog are in a position to clarify how Rev. Yoshi became involved with the rally. If he was in full or partial support of the group, or how he viewed his purpose in being there.
I agree with others about bad timing. The printed signs with “APD investigate don’t HATE” were hyperbolic and unfortunately seem to support ANT’s statement quoted at the top of this post.
Comment by Mark I — December 1, 2007 @ 11:43 am
Opinion: To Snitch, or Not To Snitch
http://www.wiretapmag.org/race/43194/
“He said the Oakland youth center refused to cooperate with police from the outset - “They wouldn’t even take our calls,” he said - and that officers were not racially profiling when they visited the center because they were searching for specific individuals.”
http://www.insidebayarea.com/ci_7602790?source=most_emailed
Comment by Alameda NayTiff — December 1, 2007 @ 12:32 pm
#15- These articles do not help to shed much light or add anything new other than punctuate your point of view.
The non-cooperation by Oakland’s Asian Resource Center as described in the Journal article is enough for some people to maintain that “Too many Oakland residents are more disturbed by the efforts of the police to solve the murder than the murder itself.” I guess too many means any, or at least those folks.
As to the first article about snitching, while possibly relevant to the non-cooperation described in the Journal, the kids bragged and were ultimately “snitched out”, so there are still kids with a conscience who are not afraid to do the right thing. One might conjecture that there are too few of them, but as long as it’s enough to make an arrest I don’t want to condemn “too many Oakland residents”.
I’m most concerned about the mentality which lead to the original crime. I’m not sure how the defensive attitude of supposed youth advocates as described in the article might correlate with the mind set of the perps. There likely are some, but I don’t presume to know their import.
Oh yeah, there was a gun found at the home where one of the original arrests was made of two youths now deemed not to be associated with the crime. It has not been clarified whether that weapon was in somebody’s legal possession or not.
Comment by Mark I — December 1, 2007 @ 7:01 pm