Police Chief Word defends police response in port melee

Oakland Tribune ^ | 04/08/03 | Paul T. Rosynsky, STAFF WRITER

[bedolido]

OAKLAND -- Police Chief Richard Word's department is having a hard time winning support for its reaction to large groups of protesters. Monday's shooting of hard bean bags, wooden dowels and rubber pellets at protesters reopened a wound that festered after the department's handling of street melees following the Oakland Raiders' victory in the AFC Championship game and loss in the Super Bowl.

Back then, the department was criticized for not using enough force and allowing renegade fans to tear up businesses along a 20-block swath of the Fruitvale district.

On Monday, the department was vilified for using too much force against a group of protesters some described as peaceful.

Decisions about when and what type of force should be used to control crowds in Oakland are ones Word and his department find difficult.

"You're damned if you do and damned if you don't," said police Lt. Dave Kozicki, who was on the scene of Monday's confrontation.

Many seem to agree that a decision to use force against a crowd of residents always stirs emotions, either for or against the police department.

Those emotions were evident Monday in and around City Hall as council members Jane Brunner, Nancy Nadel and Jean Quan called for a task force to investigate the police reaction and called for a special meeting to discuss it.

[Mears]

Who on earth would want to be a police officer in this day and age? No matter what they do someone complains.

[TommyDale]

Logical. You can't use ENOUGH force against the Raider fans, but rubber bullets against demonstrators ATTEMPTING TO BLOCK ARMS SALES TO PROTECT OUR MILITARY is unacceptable.
Well excuse me, but I think they should have used REAL ammo against persons trying to commit treasonous acts during a time of war.

[AUgrad]

Well excuse me, but I think they should have used REAL ammo against persons trying to commit treasonous acts during a time of war.

Oh yeah. Shoot Americans in the street on an extremely flimsy pretext. That's a great way to promote ourselves as a peace loving reasonable people.<sarcasm

[Rudder]

These protesters have it easy. Back in the old days' of the Anti-Viet Nam protests and People's Park, Blue Meenies (Alameda county Sherrifs) used double-aught buckshot, and the Tactical Squad from San Francisco came over to the East Bay to join them: 75 guys with Thompson sub machine guns.

[Doctor Stochastic]

They'll just have to take the Word of a Police Chief that his men acted correctly.

[sticker]

That scum doesn't deserve to be called American.

[Black Bart]

Force against the protestors was okay. Force against the longshoremen waiting to go to work was not okay.

OKAY?

[TommyDale]

The protestors made it abundantly clear that they were there to OBSTRUCT and/or prevent loading of weapons for our military. They deserved much worse. During Viet Nam, it was not unusual to use mace, high-powered water hoses, and night sticks to clobber the weirdos in the head. This new generation of punks deserved much worse.