Sep 012016
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A broad coalition of local and state advocates are calling upon Governor Jerry Brown to issue an Executive Order directing Attorney General Kamala Harris to take jurisdiction and control over the investigations of all allegations arising out of the involvement of any member of a law enforcement agency with the rape victim identified as Celeste Guap.
Public safety requires public trust. We find ourselves in the midst of a crisis in public safety. The very police officers that are charged to protect and serve the public have been exposed as engaging in a conspiracy of sex trafficking. For 8 months, local law enforcement and public officials hid this scandalous behavior from the court-appointed monitor in Oakland and the public, while taking no real action against the officers who violated the public trust. Even today – 11 months later – there has not been a single prosecution of anyone for any violations of law. Officers who have resigned voluntarily remain uncharged. Certainly the list of possible offenses include statutory rape, assault with intent to commit rape, obstruction of justice, interference with a police investigation, perjury, just to name a few.
We believe the reason for the apparent lack of accountability under the law and to the public trust is that our local officials have a conflict of interest. Every District Attorney’s office, every City Attorney’s office and every County Counsel’s office works closely with local law enforcement on a day-to-day basis. To ask or expect these law enforcement agencies to diligently investigate and prosecute their partner law enforcement agencies is like asking the fox to guard the henhouse.
On September 1, 2016, we will issue a call to action to Governor Jerry Brown. We believe that the alleged conduct of these law enforcement officers involves an abuse of power and a violation of the public trust that is best addressed by a single and independent law enforcement agency rather than each local law enforcement agency. Six different law enforcement agencies have been implicated to date. What appears to a lack of communication between Oakland officials and other local law enforcement agencies is startling. It clearly suggests that our concerns about the human trafficking of our daughters, sons, sisters and brothers across county lines in the Bay Area are not being taken seriously.
Let us be clear that we understand that “Celeste Guap” is not the only victim of this type of police abuse, and we are not calling for increased criminalization of minors, women or men identified as sex workers in our communities. We understand and appreciate that minors and women engaged in sex work in our communities are extremely vulnerable to the abuse of power by our law enforcement agencies and that “blaming the victim” is not an appropriate response to our crisis.
We believe that upon direction by the Governor of California, our Attorney General has the authority to investigate, manage, interpret, prosecute or inquire about any alleged incidents of sexual misconduct by law enforcement officers with “Celeste Guap.” We believe that the Attorney General’s independent investigation of this crisis in our communities is essential to restoring public trust in our law enforcement agencies. We believe that public trust is essential to public safety. We therefore call upon Governor Brown to exercise his authority under Article V, Section 13 of the California Constitution to ensure a comprehensive and independent coordinated investigation of these incidents.
SIGNED BY:
Attorney Pamela Y. Price, Political Education Chair, Black Women Organized for Political Action (BWOPA) Richmond/Contra Costa Chapter, Member Elect, Alameda County Democratic Party Central Committee
Kathleen Sullivan, President, Black Women Organized for Political Action (BWOPA) Richmond/Contra Costa Chapter
Jerilyn Stapleton, President, California NOW
Cheryl Branch, President, CALIFIA NOW
Sarai Smith-Mazariegos, Co-Founder, MISSSEY, Founder, S.H.A.D.E. Project
Cat Brooks, Co-Founder, the Oakland Anti-Police Terror Project
Leigh Davenport, the Take Back Oakland Coalition
Freddye Davis, President, NAACP Hayward/South County Chapter
Kimberly Thomas Rapp, Executive Director, the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area
Mike Katz-Lacabe, the Center for Human Rights and Privacy
Nola Brantley, Founder & Former Executive Director, MISSSEY
Ben Steinberg, Community Activist, Richmond California
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JOIN US IN RICHMOND – SUPPORT THE CALL TO ACTION
DATE: Thursday, September 1, 2016 TIME: 11:00 a.m.
WHERE: Richmond Police Department
1701 Regatta Blvd.
For More Information Contact Pamela Price: 510-877-0024 |
Wow the more I read the more nauseous I am becoming. I just read the article entitled A Call To Action: Public Safety Requires Public Trust is yet another deplorable look at just how corrupt things have become. I mean these officials/ officers were allowed to resign with no repercussions at all !!! You have to be kidding ! Like I said in a previous comment on another article I read, ” Public awareness is crucial to begin to get our country back.” Perhaps militias or civilian paramilitary type organizations ” should and probably will come into play, as citizens become fed up with police militarization and decide to simply kill off these jerks and get OUR COUNTRY back.
Oh yea and one last thing that highly bothers me is that the FBI seems to think that they are above the courts and are manipulating cases as such, especially when ” disclosure ” is involved. I wonder what would happen if President Trump were to get a good snoot full of this B.S. what would happen. I would just bet that there would be some major change I.E. policy, and lets not forget some of the top folks at the FBI would no doubt lose their jobs as well as possibly face criminal charges. I hope I live to see such day, however this sort of crap has been going on since that crossdressing pervert J. Edgar Hoover was in charge, therefore said crap is so deep rooted that these civil rights violations and blatant violations of our laws are a habit that is going to be hard to break.