Bay Area Public Defenders Rally to Show Black Lives Matter

Hundreds of Public Defenders from Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco, Santa Clara and Solano counties held unprecedented Black Lives Matter protests at their county courthouses December 18th. They demanded body cameras for officers; the investigation of police-involved shootings by outside agencies, not District Attorneys; and no grand juries for police-involved shootings. “We need those three things,”Alameda County Public Defender Brendon Woods said.

CBS/San Francisco
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San Francisco Public Defenders joined their colleagues throughout the Bay Area, demanding action to show that Black Lives Matter.,Mashable/Patrick Kulp

Wearing black gloves and black shirts emblazoned with the words, “Black lives matter,” dozens of attorneys in the Alameda County public defenders office stood in front of the Rene C. Davidson Courthouse in Oakland Thursday. Alameda County Public Defender Brendon Woods said the demonstration joined others by public defenders throughout the Bay Area and across the country.

They mirror similar demonstrations that have swept the nation in the wake of two grand jury decisions not to indict white police officers in the deaths of unarmed black men in Ferguson, Missouri, and New York City.

“We are fortunate to stand today on these court steps, this hallowed ground where people have fought, demonstrated, protested, agitated for rights and equality and justice for African Americans,” Woods said. “We are also unfortunate that 50 years later, we are still fighting the same fight. We are still waging the same war. We are still trying to convey the same message that black lives matter.”

The attorneys held a moment of silence for four and a half minutes, meant to symbolize the four and a half hours that Michael Brown’s body lay in the streets of Ferguson after a police officer shot him in August.
Woods said every day, public defenders see the imbalance in the court system that allows police officers to escape punishment for crimes against black people.

“We as public defenders are in a unique position,” Woods said. “We get to see those statistics that you read about in the paper that are awful.”

Woods said nationally, one out of 15 black men are in jail, compared to one out of 106 white men. In Santa Rita Jail, 54 percent of the population is black, compared to the 12 percent in Alameda County.
Assistant Public Defender Jane Brown, of Oakland, said part of the unbalance stems from black people being underrepresented in the justice system.

“We see under-representation everywhere, in the lawyers, the judges, it’s everywhere,” Brown said. “When people are comfortable and no one is challenging them, then it’s easy to do the same thing over and over again because it’s their problem, not ours. It’s those people, not us.”

The Missouri and New York decisions were just the latest examples of those imbalances, Brown said.

To correct the imbalance, Woods said police departments should immediately provide officers with body cameras to record their interactions with the community. Outside agencies, and not the District Attorney’s Office, should always investigate officer-involved shootings and officer-involved shootings should never go before a grand jury, Woods said.“We need those three things,” he said.

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Jody Nunez, who has been a public defender for Alameda County for 25 years, called the demonstration “unprecedented.” In her time working for the county, Nunez said the Public Defender’s Office has never participated in a political demonstration.

“It’s at the forefront. You have grand juries that are refusing to indict police officers for criminal behavior and it affects our clients,” Nunez said. “This is an issue that’s alive for us, so it’s important for us to say something.”