Lunacy Central

Oakland tried to tear itself to pieces again yesterday. The city had been on edge for weeks, waiting for the verdict in the trial of a BART policeman who shot and killed a passenger in the aftermath of a fight on a train after New Years Eve last year. The fact that the cop was white while the victim was black created an instant flashpoint for unrest. Rioters broke windows and looted businesses downtown when the officer was first arrested. The city was ready for another eruption of violence, with law enforcement officers prepared to drop in from neighboring communities to assist the overburdened Oakland police department. Self-appointed civic leaders planned peaceful demonstrations at the central plaza, and pleaded for calm in anticipation of a verdict that would anger the black community.

My office is across the street from City Hall, which gives us a front-row seat for any demonstration any given day of the week. It put us in the eye of this particular storm, however. Starting last week, I noticed numerous local businesses putting up posters in their front windows expressing support for (or at least empathy with) the victim. These businesses did not necessarily have anything to do with the victim or his race (our local burrito shop, for instance, or a nearby Korean-owned hair salon). The posters were the modern equivalent of Old Testament blood spread across the lintel, praying that the curse of rioting will pass over these stores. It was well established that most of the rioters in the first event were from outside the area, anarchists just looking for any excuse to destroy property and spit (literally) in the fact of authority.

The word filtered out to us yesterday at about 2:30 p.m. that the verdict would be read around four. Several of our people commute via BART, and we all had to be able to get home. We, like most businesses, decided to send everyone home. Outside, I could see people streaming from the nearby buildings toward BART or their cars. The street outside the building jammed up, which never happens. In our parking garage, the public level quickly became gridlocked as the clerks could not process the ticket payments fast enough to accommodate everyone who wanted to leave at the same time. The attendants eventually just let people leave without paying. On the permit level in which I park, there were lineups about ten cars deep, something I had never seen before.

Once out of the garage, I found a massive police presence waiting for the verdict to be read and the hordes to descend. I was able to get across Broadway and on my way without any further trouble, and arrived home just as the verdict (involuntary manslaughter) was read.

Thankfully, there was less violence than before, although a lot of anger and a few clashes with police, all of which were at intersections right around our building. It was not until night fell that the professional anarchists arrived to commit random acts of violence. These low-lifes, dressed in black hooded sweatshirts, spray painted slogans, confronted police and looted businesses (most notably relieving a Foot Locker of its inventory of sneakers).

Putting aside the merits of the trial itself, there is something fundamentally tiresome about the threat, partially realized, of the rioting. A few months ago, four Oakland policemen were killed by a criminal. The criminal was black, the officers were not. In spite of this senseless tragedy, there were no riots. There was not even a thought that there would be. In the case of the BART cop, riots were expected, simply because the victim was black and the cop was white. It is both patronizing to assume that those conditions will result in rioting, and deeply disappointing that it did.