Community Demands New Restrictions on City Cops in Oakland Schools
After two years of organizing by BOP members with help from ACLU and Public Counsel, Oakland school district approved a policy last Wednesday, that provides guidelines and provisions for the way Oakland Police Department officers are interacting with students. The approval of this policy comes at a time when the nation is buzzing about police violence and brutality against people of color, following the brutal murder of unarmed Michael Brown and nearly two weeks of protest.
“It is critical that young people of color in our community are protected from police. Right now, everyone is watching what is happening in Ferguson with the loss of Michael Brown but the reason why people are so fired up is because Black lives are being taken at the hands of police in cities across the country. We need policies like this MOU to make sure that Black and Brown students stop being targeted by police for arrest and other interactions that could end up being fatal,” said Jasmine Jones, lead organizer for BOP.
In 2011 the Oakland Police Department received almost $11m under the COPS Grant for 25 officers tasked specifically with policing schools to achieve the following: (1) reduce/ eliminate child trafficking, reduce/eliminate student truancy (3) provide safe passage to and from schools and (4) providing mentoring services to students. There was no community input in the city’s decision to file for the COPS Grant and what it meant was that veteran officers from OPD would be placed in middle and high schools in Oakland. Up until we called the question of how Oakland police officers were interacting with students by way of our Bettering Our School System Campaign, there was no discussion from the district about how students were being impacted by the heightened police presence or even a plan to examine the effectiveness of the “community policing” program.
“The MOU was a great victory. Not just for the school board, not just for the community, not even just for BOP. This was a victory for the youth who have been victims of police misconduct and who thanks to this policy, now have a voice,” said Sema’J Wyatt, BOP organizer.
Among other things, the policy provides that:
- Officers can no longer solicit truancy information from school sites. Only in the event that a school principal refers students who are truant to a COPS Grant Officer should law enforcement become involved in a student’s truancy status.
- OPD will now provide Oakland Unified School District with a written report twice a year regarding designated school site crime incidents and the number of arrests of students made by COPS Grant and OPD officers disaggregated by race, gender, and ethnicity.
- OUSD will not notify or request COPS Grant Officers or OPD for disciplinary issues like trespassing, loitering, profanity, defiance, verbal abuse, and truancy.
- OUSD must notify the parent or guardian of a student immediately after a police arrest is made.
- If any officer wants to question a student, OUSD must receive oral consent from the student’s parent or guardian before releasing the student to any law enforcement officer.
- Before a student can participate in the COPS Grant Police Mentor program, a parent or guardian must be notified and provide written consent.
- If a COPS Grant Mentor Officer is in fact assigned to a student mentee, they are now required to make every effort not to make an arrest of that student.
The policy isn’t perfect and as a community, we pushed for stronger language and more limitations around police contact and involvement in our schools. But the great thing about this policy is that we’re moving in a direction toward more police accountability and that is something we desperately need, especially when it involves our youth. This policy, along with the Oakland School Police Department’s Internal Policy, and the Oakland School Police Complaints Process, are concrete changes to the Oakland public school system and these were all created with real community input and with the real interests of Black and Brown students in mind.
To find out more about the policies mentioned above or how to get involved with the Bettering Our School System campaign, contact us at info@blackorganizingproject.org.