Following Community Pressure, BPD Released Highly Edited Video of Officer-Involved Shooting
Community pressure worked! After telling us yesterday that they would not release any information about the incident until a future unknown date, BPD released a statement and a highly edited propaganda video at last night.
The video shows a new BPD officer, Cheri Miller—22 months on the force, arriving on scene with weapon drawn in response to teenagers stealing sundry items from the CVS.
We are left with so many questions.
The dispatcher asks for Code 1 backup, so why does the officer arrive on scene as though it were a Code 3, with weapon drawn, shouting? The officer was escalating the situation, putting people in danger. She was screaming at the teenagers, and giving confusing orders.
No one was shot, but they could have been. Over the mere theft of some boxes of stuff from a CVS. The people of Berkeley have a right to demand a higher level of commitment to the safety of our people than this officer showed. ALL of our people. Our Black youths’ lives are precious and deserve value over some items from CVS. Black Lives Matter.
We don’t want this officer on the force. We demand that Officer Miller be fired.
Moreover, that this officer was 22 months on the force indicates a problem internal to the structure of BPD, and the way in which new officers are initiated onto the force. Why did this officer respond with weapon drawn, escalating the scene to the point of firing her weapon? Firing into a vehicle is against the new use of force policy that goes into effect in October.
Finally, the press release and video that BPD released is propaganda. Berkeley Copwatch submitted a PRA for the police report and bodycam footage. We still have not received those documents. We have a legal right to those documents. We reject this propaganda version of what happened. We don’t need pre-digested information. We prefer primary source documents, unedited.
