BART Charges Criticized

Protesters in Oakland who disrupted BART train service the day after Thanksgiving last year to call attention to police brutality are hoping to see charges and restitution sought against them dropped.

Meanwhile, two gay progressive BART board members are being asked to support the protesters' request, and a demonstration is planned for Friday morning on the underground platform at the Montgomery BART station, potentially affecting the morning commute.

The Alameda County District Attorney's office is charging 14 people with trespassing on railroad property, a misdemeanor. Officials are also seeking $70,000 in restitution.

The situation, stemming from the November 28 Black Friday protest that interfered with service for hours, has drawn out BART directors Rebecca Saltzman and Tom Radulovich into a controversy with others, including San Francisco's Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club. According to court documents, several protesters had chained and locked themselves to trains at the West Oakland station.

The Black Friday protest was one of many across the country that have centered on police brutality after grand juries in Ferguson, Missouri and Staten Island, New York declined to indict white police officers who killed unarmed black men.

Karissa Lewis, 32, of Oakland, one of the defendants, said the BART protesters believe "the charges should be dropped because we were doing our due diligence as citizens to protest and object to unjust living conditions in our community."

Lewis, who's black and is acting as a spokeswoman for the protesters, known as the "Black Friday 14," said those conditions include "being targeted by the police," gentrification, a lack of access to health care, and other issues.

"BART in particular has had a history of engaging black and brown communities in very violent ways," Lewis said, pointing to the 2009 BART fatal police shooting of Oscar Grant, an unarmed black man.

She also called the $70,000 restitution "unfair."

It's "our right to protest, and we feel like the restitution is being charged unequally," she said, given that such fines haven't been sought in similar cases.

The protesters wouldn't be willing to do community service, an idea put out by some officials, but "I don't think we're talking about that now, because what we want is the charges dropped," Lewis said.

Protesters had known they would be arrested, but based on what's happened in other actions that have included shutting down street traffic, they thought they'd be cited and released, rather than face criminal charges, she said.

Lewis, who's part of the Black Lives Matter group in Oakland, didn't want her sexual orientation published, but she said the protesters included LGBTQs and people who are gender non-conforming.

Outside Calls

Others outside the protest group have also called for the charges to be dropped.

More than 10,000 people have signed an online petition calling on BART board President Thomas Blalock and Radulovich, who is vice president, to withdraw the criminal complaint against the protesters and suspend the $70,000 restitution.

The Milk club sent Radulovich a sharply worded letter Friday, January 9 calling for the charges and restitution demand to be dropped, and reminding the gay board director that the club has endorsed him for office, most recently in 2012 for his current term.

In an interview Tuesday, January 13, Radulovich wouldn't say directly whether he thinks the charges should be dropped.

BART directors are "not the ones who decide who gets charged with what. That's up to BART PD," he said, referring to the BART Police Department.

Pressed on the issue, he said, "It would concern me to establish that the ability to stop BART operations is somehow a right. I'm totally sympathetic to the cause of the protesters. However, if we say these protesters can stop BART trains" because the system's directors like them, "does that mean anyone can stop BART trains?"

Radulovich was clearer about the $70,000 that's being sought.

"The restitution felt to me like it was excessive, so I talked to [BART general manager Grace Grunican] about it. ... It is ultimately her decision, but she's leaning toward not seeking financial restitution and looking instead at a community service or restorative justice approach, which is not going to please everybody, but feels to me like a better approach" than what's been sought.

Still, he said, "It's the Alameda County DA that ultimately is going to decide what they're charged with and whether restitution would be granted."

Teresa Drenick, a spokeswoman for Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O'Malley, said she couldn't comment on the case because it's active and ongoing.

In a statement released Wednesday, January 7, Grunican said that she and BART police Chief Kenton Rainey have discussed with O'Malley Grunican's interest in including community service and restorative justice programs in the legal proceedings.

However, she said, "I must ensure safe public access to the BART system," and the protesters had "shut down four of five transit lines, and for three hours interfered with the movement of every train running through the Transbay Tube and the entire BART system."

The protesters "created a danger to themselves and those traveling throughout the system," Grunican said.

Grunican worked to place the blame for the restitution on O'Malley. She said while "Restitution is every crime victim's right under the California Constitution," O'Malley "has indicated that her office is guided by California law on issues regarding restitution, and she made it clear that the handling of restitution is within her purview and premature to discuss at this time."

Saltzman Weighs In

BART director Saltzman has also weighed in on the case.

In a Thursday, January 8 statement on Facebook, Saltzman said she and other directors weren't involved in the decision to pursue charges and restitution, explaining that BART police had requested that of the DA.

She said she's a "strong supporter of the right to protest injustices," but she's also "a strong proponent of public transportation, and I think it is critical that our public transportation systems remain reliable to all who depend on them. For anyone whose purposeful actions cause the shutdown of BART, there should be consequences, and those consequences should be fair."

Saltzman said "pursuing community service and restorative justice programs" is "an appropriate path in lieu of financial restitution."

As the East Bay Citizen online news site reported Thursday, Twitter user JP Massar asked Saltzman, "Do u think Rosa Parks should have had to do 'community service?'"

Saltzman replied, "Rosa Parks did not shut down an entire transit system for hours."

(Parks was a black woman who refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in 1955, sparking a bus boycott. Her action is seen as one of the most iconic moments in the civil rights movement.)

The Citizen reported that "Saltzman later apologized for the statement on Twitter."

The next court date for all defendants, who were released not long after their arrests, is February 4, when the court will hear what is essentially a defense motion to drop the charges.

The petition calling for the charges to be dropped is available at http://iam.colorofchange.org/petitions/bart-directors-when-it-comes-to-ending-the-war-on-black-communities-which-side-are-you-on.

The January 16 protest demanding that charges against the Black Friday 14 be dropped is planned for 7 a.m. at the Montgomery BART station. For more information, go to https://www.facebook.com/events/684891331631587/.