Did Occupy Slow the Berkeley Police Response in Saturday's Murder in the Berkeley Hills?
Readers disagreed on whether to blame the "Occupiers" or the Berkeley Police Department for not getting an officer out sooner after a call informed them of a trespasser on a North Berkeley home.
An interesting thread broke out in the comments section of the article about Peter Cukor, 67, who was killed outside his home in North Berkeley. Police have arrested suspect Daniel Jordan Dewitt, 23, from Alameda.
Most readers seemed to be focused on the fact that the Berkeley Police Department was only responding to "in-progress emergency calls" because they were monitoring the Occupy march from Berkeley into Oakland. It seems the march remained peaceful and no arrests were made.
One reader said:
The truth is the Berkeley Police wanted to investigate the 911 call, but the police dispatcher told the policeman to continue his assignment at the latest Occupy Protest.
This is insane.
Another said:
Police [were] told not to go to help Mr. Kuko [but to] stay and babysit Occupy Obama bums. So sad.
Yet another:
Police are investigating a homicide because they chose NOT to investigate a suspicious person trespassing on private property as called in by the victim. It turned into a homicide after department personnel overrode an officers attempt to respond.
In a press release, the Berkeley Police Department said the following:
BPD received a report of a suspicious person possibly trespassing. The caller calmly reported an encounter with a strange person on his property, and asked for an officer to respond. This call for service was queued for dispatch.
At that time, available Patrol teams were being reconfigured in order to monitor a protest which was to come into Berkeley from Oakland in the next hour. Only criminal, in-progress emergency calls were to be dispatched, due to the reduction in officers available to handle calls for service.
BPD subsequently received a call of an attack in progress on Park Gate Rd. Officers were immediately dispatched to that call.
The investigation in this case continues and is on-going. The suspect, Daniel Jordan Dewitt, remains in custody.
What are your thoughts? Is "occupy" leaving an overtaxed police department shorthanded, or should the police have sent someone out immediately regardless of the march?
j
8:26 am on Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Must be a slow news day to start with an article like this.
Stop antagonizing people and just report the news, please.
Jason
8:53 am on Tuesday, February 21, 2012
To me the police leaving a citizen being attacked to their own demise is definitely news.
How many arrests occurred at the occupy march in Berkeley on Saturday? How much violence was there? None seems to be reported with the exception of someone burning the flag. Seems to me this man died due to fear mongering.
Jason
9:08 am on Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Let me clarify...the man died because of some sick or evil individual and his expectation for safety outside of his house however it seems the situation could have been much less severe if people weren't so afraid of individuals exercising their constitutional rights. Despite that I do give the police the benefit of the doubt in that I am not exposed to all of the facts that they are. RIP Peter
DJ
11:06 am on Tuesday, February 21, 2012
According to news reports there were a total of 50 people at the Occupy march that ended up at UC, and Occupy Oakland marchers did not get to Berkeley until close to 10 p.m. Yet this poor gentleman contacted the police at 8:45. When I lived in Portland, OR the police sent out a statement to all news stations simultaneously flooding the internet and airwaves about a rape suspect that had to wait over 3 hrs. before anyone responded. Portlanders were outraged-at the cops. The cops received so much backlash that they finally released the whole story that the poor victim was actually raped days before, and that was a main reason they made her wait, not solely because of Occupy. They saw a chance to use a story to outrage the community while targeting Occupy and they jumped at it.
Tanya Jo Miller
1:22 pm on Tuesday, February 21, 2012
@jason...BPD have said no arrests were made at the protest.
@J never a slow news day in Berkeley! But I do like to feature readers' opinions when they're engaging.
Warrior Two
4:04 pm on Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Perhaps it's more important to ask why a paranoid schizophrenic was out on the streets. Mind you, the protests don't need to have the entire police force at the ready--that was the police department's decision, and perhaps an irresponsible one, or perhaps not--it wasn't a dire emergency when the first call came in. Immediate police response isn't helpful when someone is in the process of being assaulted, because there will be a lag time regardless.
Tanya Jo Miller
5:22 pm on Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Yes, good point Warrior Two...the police press release says the caller "calmly reported" the strange person on his property. And in terms of having paranoid schizophrenics on the streets, funny you should mention it! I'm trying to get an answer to that question as we speak.
Brad S.
6:36 am on Wednesday, February 22, 2012
The facts show that the initial, non-emergency, phone call came in at 8:45. The BPD had to prioritize this call, which would always be the case unless they are always staffed at a level to meet an unknown peak demand level.
But, let's look at the three parts that go into demand management: 1. There is a finite set of resources. 2. There is a peak demand that exceeds this finite set of resources. 3. There is prioritization of resources to meet the peek demand in in ordered way. Some Patch readers who say that the BPD should be staffed to higher levels fail to realize that even if you increase #1, you will be unable to limit #2, which means that you will still need to perform #3. In other words, more police wouldn't have necessarily solved the problem.
This is no difference than in other demand management situations, like an ER, where nurses determine which patients to see in which order. Patients assessed at higher risks get to see the doctors faster. But they don't maintain a physician staff to see everyone immediately.
Yes, it is easy to blame the Occupy movement because the police reconfiguration is a direct response to their march. And if they really are the 99%, then the logical next steps are to identify some "ideal" candidates who can get elected to office (where you don't even need 50%, by the way), and make the changes that the 99% seek. In totalitarian states, the 99% need to march. In the United States, it's the 1% that should be marching.
John Doh!
5:38 pm on Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Right on Brad.
Time to occupy the government.
Most recent presidents were elected by about 25% (Bush was even less because Gore won the popular vote and Nader had some votes too,) of eligible voters because about 50% vote for nobody.
2014 and 2016 will be when facebook trumps Super Pacs.
Brad S.
8:46 pm on Wednesday, February 22, 2012
@John, I'd say that the landscape doesn't look as promising because we, as a society, work to maintain the status quo. In this case, we find that the public is only 10% satisfied with the job that congress is doing. 10%! And almost 90% disapprove of the job congress is doing. Yet, we'll each blame all the congress men and women EXCEPT our own. The result? Because everyone feels that it is all of the Other congress men and women who are doing the poor job, over 90% of the incumbents will end up being re-elected!
Sources:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/152528/congress-job-approval-new-low.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_stagnation_in_the_United_States
My advice for the Occupy movement: Learn from your competitors. Since, by definition, the Tea Party is not part of the 99%, it means they are part of the 1% (not completely true). Yet, they have been able to successfully elect people to office.
Hank
10:38 am on Wednesday, February 22, 2012
The last time I consulted the California Criminal Code, it was NOT a crime for a group of people to assemble in a public place for the purpose of airing grievances about the way their society is set up;
it WAS a crime for a stranger to enter private property without the permission of the owner.
The police theoretically are there to enforce the criminal code.
Or are they?
They CHOSE to keep their entire force on stand-by in order to 'deal' with people who were not doing anything illegal.
To blame the Occupy Oakland folks for this man's death is like blaming an elementary school for 'causing' a traffic accident at 3 o'clock, when in fact the cop who was supposed to be acting as a crossing guard was sitting in a bar two blocks away.
Brad S.
8:22 pm on Wednesday, February 22, 2012
@Hank, to complete your analogy: 1) the crossing is generally safe and doesn’t require a police presence and 2) the police were at a bar two blocks away because a group, who has previously proved to be unruly at times, was present. So, your scenario is still one of resource prioritization; one of economics.
Economically, resource prioritization balances finite supplies and varying demand levels. Your argument suggests that we staff police at levels such that they will Always exceed the worst-case, peak, demands levels. Your position requires that we guarantee a 100% service level. To do otherwise runs the risk that an event will occur that requires resources that are deployed elsewhere, which could result in a tragedy - such as the one we are discussing. So, the question is how many police to we need, per 1000 residents, to Guarantee this 100% service level? I could argue that even a 1-1 ratio cannot guarantee a 100% service level.
An alternative interpretation of your position is that police should only respond to crimes in progress and take no proactive action toward deterrence or prevention. That position, however, will result in other negative side-effects, such as terminating stepped up patrols in neighborhoods with higher crime activities as a means of preventing problems in the first place. I think there are a lot of people who appreciate the preventive measures the communities and officers take.