BPD Textgate Scandal
What is the BPD Textgate Scandal?
In November 2022, racist, anti-homeless text message chains were revealed in the Berkeley Police Department Bike Force
On November 14th, disturbing screen shots from a Berkeley Police Department (BPD) group chat, including members of the Department’s downtown bike task force, were released to the public.
Snapshots of the conversation reveal a culture of racism, profound anti-homeless sentiment, systemic overtime abuse and a policy of arrest quotas, which are illegal under California law.
In the leaked images, Sgt Darren Kacalek, president of the Police Union, jokes about a new viral strain of COVID killing unhoused people, mocks people of color’s use of social welfare systems and encourages his subordinates to meet a 100 arrest a month quota.
What are our concerns?
-
A culture of racism and profound anti-homeless sentiment in the BPD
-
Systemic overtime abuse and a policy of arrest quotas, which are illegal under California law
-
Targeting of marginalized people in an effort to create inflated arrest statistics
-
Overtime used as an incentive to reward cops who increased their arrest statistics
-
The sheer number of arrests made by the Bike Force
-
Biases in arrests based on race, class, housing status
-
Lack of action and oversight on the part of BPD authority, particularly Interim Chief of Police Jen Louis, regarding this abuse
How is Copwatch responding?
What we've done -
We put pressure on the City Council, helping to postpone the confirmation of Jen Louis as Chief of Police.
Read our Letter to the Police Accountability Board
What we're doing -
We are now in a process of gathering information and looking for plaintiffs for a class-action lawsuit.
We are also working on demands for BPD following this incident.