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In gentrifying neighborhoods, residents say private patrols keep them safe | Al Jazeera America

by Romy Snowyla

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/5/30/oakland-private-securitypat… In gentrifying neighborhoods, residents say private patrols keep them safe OAKLAND, Calif. — On a sunny weekday afternoon on the main drag of Rockridge, traffic moves slowly on narrow streets past yoga studios, expensive boutiques and an artisanal ice cream shop. Troy Matthews, a polite 47-year-old with a Southern accent, spends five days a week, from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m., cruising the residential streets and commercial strip of this Oakland neighborhood. Matthews, a guard with the private security firm Premiere Protective Service (PPS), began patrolling Rockridge two months ago. He wears a badge and a dark blue outfit that resembles a police uniform. As he drives past a park on a quiet street, he smiles at adults and children. Rockridge is an upper-middle-class neighborhood in Oakland, California. Residents used a crowdfunding website to hire private security guards. Now a second neighborhood, rapidly gentrifying Temescal, is following suit. David Allen Corby “I wave at everyone,” he says. A few people wave back. Last September, two men, ages 17 and 22, held commuters at the Rockridge train station at gunpoint and robbed seven people of their laptops, smartphones and cash. That was the last straw for Paul Liu, a Google economist who lives in the neighborhood. Liu set up a fundraising page on the crowdfunding site CrowdTilt. Within a few hours, he had reached his $8,200 goal; in total, online campaigns have raised $90,000 for private patrols in Rockridge. This fund now pays for Matthews’ salary. Some 3,500 households in Oakland pay for neighborhood patrols, according to the area’s three main security companies, PPS, Intervention Group Inc. (IGI) and Bay Alarm. Rockridge, perhaps the first to use crowdsourcing to hire private patrols, has inspired another Oakland neighborhood to follow suit. Nationally, private security neighborhood patrols have gained in popularity in cities with shrinking municipal budgets and police forces, including Atlanta, Detroit, Houston and New Orleans. In those cities, homeowners’ associations and gated communities have increasingly hired security forces over the past decade. But in Oakland, the trend is spreading into mixed-income, non-gated communities. If you want to bring down robbery, you’ve got to reduce the unemployment rate in the city. Barry Krisberg Law professor, University of California, Berkeley The Brookings Institution recently named Oakland, where a technology boom has fueled rapid gentrification, the seventh most unequal city in the country. For critics, the patrols are the latest symbol of this inequality. In Oakland’s lowest-income neighborhoods, as many as 40 percent of people live below the poverty line. The city had 4,338 robberies in 2012, the highest per capita rate in the country, according to FBI data. Unemployment in Oakland last August was 11 percent, compared with a national average at the time of 7 percent. Some criminal justice experts say the solution to crime isn’t more patrolling but greater opportunities for young people and people coming out of prison. “If you want to bring down robbery, you’ve got to reduce the unemployment rate in the city,” says Barry Krisberg, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Police, meanwhile, say the answer to crime is more cops, who — unlike the private patrols — can investigate crimes, do follow-up and put together cases. But because of city budget cuts, the local police department has shed 162 jobs, or 20 percent of its staff, since 2010. Oakland Police Capt. Anthony Toribio meets every month with the city’s three main security companies and says he has a good relationship with them. But, he says, “I can’t say what impact private security has had in crime. There has been private security in the Oakland Hills many years, and I can’t say definitively that’s made crime go elsewhere.” Oakland's police force, though, has its critics, too. The department has long been under fire for misconduct and constitutional violations. Following a decade of foot-dragging on reviewing excessive force complaints and complying with federally mandated reforms, in 2013 a federal judge appointed an overseer to keep the department on track. Private patrols, meanwhile, operate with less oversight and under a different set of standards than police do, observers say. Unlike the public police, they’re not under constitutional mandate to reveal their methods and keep or share their records — including whether they follow laws and company rules or engage in racial profiling. “There’s a degree of ambiguity about how private patrols actually operate,” said David Sklansky, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Patrol area for the Rockridge neighborhood. Puck Lo Each private security firm negotiates with the neighborhood that hires it to determine whether guards carry guns and other weapons. Rockridge’s contract, for instance, does not permit guns. In February, in the wealthy Oakland neighborhood of Oakmore, a security guard chased, shot and injured an 18-year-old man who was later convicted of burglary. The guard’s contract with the neighborhood did not permit him to be armed. (Oakland police say they are still investigating why the guard was carrying a gun.) Some Rockridge residents say the patrols have been effective in reducing stubbornly high robbery rates. Liu compared the rates of robberies and burglaries in the five months since private patrols began with the rate of incidents over a “baseline” period of four weeks before the patrols started, and found they had dropped by 43 percent. However, two sociology professors, Hiroshi Fukurai with the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Traci Schlesinger with DePaul University, say the reduction that Liu’s study found is “statistically insignificant,” because of the short time frame of his baseline period. Schlesinger said Liu’s methods don’t take into account other factors that would explain a change in crime rates, like unemployment, housing and income inequality. Creating more divisions A crowdfunding campaign for private patrols launched in April by residents of Temescal, a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood adjacent to Rockridge, has split the neighborhood. Critics of the campaign, which met its $15,750 goal on Thursday night*, say that increased policing — whether public or private — will only send more low-income youth of color to prison. The Kingfish Café and Pub in Temescal, a mixed-income neighborhood in Oakland. David Allen Corby Dania Cabello, a youth educator with the Temescal Community Safety Coalition, recalls a meeting held last fall by residents who wanted to bring private patrols to the neighborhood. A security guard with the company ANI Private Security told attendees, “We target people who look like they don’t belong here.” That approach, she says, is “creating even more division within an already fragmented community in Oakland.” Cabello says she instead wants to see the neighborhood raise money for youth programs or a community center. Others worry that crowdsourcing bypasses the democratic process. In Rockridge, there was no City Council vote or public announcement to hire the patrols — just a handful of people with money who were making policy decisions for the entire neighborhood, says Sarah Fielding, a recently graduated law student who lives in Temescal. Approximately 226 people contributed the initial $20,000 for Liu’s crowdfunding campaign — less than 6 percent of the neighborhood known as Lower Rockridge. “You don’t have to knock on anyone’s door,” says Fielding. “You don’t have to talk to anyone who signs up. You don’t have to deal with them even for a minute — just send your check here.” People don’t know if we’re OPD or not. Nathan Cook General manager, IGI Matthews carries handcuffs, but no gun, as he patrols Rockridge. A security guard for 10 years, he previously worked the graveyard shift at a nursing home. His job now, he says, is to “observe and report” to the police. Matthews, who moved to the Bay Area from New Orleans a decade ago, says he “doesn’t stereotype” or make assumptions. In fact, he’s very hands-off. If he saw a person climbing through the window of a house, Matthews said, he would wait and watch from his car, rather than immediately call the cops. “The road to hell is paved with gung-ho,” he says. IGI, the security company Temescal residents are seeking to hire, takes a more aggressive approach. Nathan Cook, IGI’s general manager, says the company would not patrol Temescal with armed guards. But in order to be a “visible deterrent to crime,” IGI’s cars have spotlights and resemble Oakland Police Department vehicles, he said. Often, Cook said, “people don’t know if we’re OPD or not.” IGI officers greet “everyone,” Cook said, from “people walking dogs” to “someone sitting in their car,” and ask if the guards can provide assistance. Cook says it’s common for people who have been sitting in cars, presumably casing houses for break-ins, to immediately leave the area after being approached by a guard. Cook considers that crime deterrence. Others, like youth educator Cabello, call it harassment. You can’t really avoid being suspicious in this city past the hour of 7 if you’re black. That’s just how it is. Bianca Brooks Student at Oakland Technical High School Bianca Brooks, a senior at Temescal’s Oakland Technical High School, a 10-minute walk from Rockridge, says she wouldn’t “necessarily be opposed” to private patrols. Brooks lives in a mixed-income and racially diverse area a few miles south of the north Oakland neighborhood. “My house was robbed, and it took over three hours for police to come,” Brooks said. “You’d think they would have put more patrols in the area. But a few weeks later my neighbor was held at gunpoint in our building. If she had not screamed, who knows what could have happened.” The police never found the assailants in either incident, she says. However, Brooks, who is black, says she is also worried about how private patrol guards might perceive her. “You can’t really avoid being suspicious in this city past the hour of 7 if you’re black. That’s just how it is.” *Editor's note: The total for Temescal's online fundraising campaign has been updated to reflect the latest information. Sent from my iPhone

11 years, 8 months

SFwd: 6/2014 Statement, 2141 Broadway

by mattsenate＠gmail.com

// Matt ----- Forwarded message ----- From: "Laurie Cooperman Rosen" <Lscoop(a)comcast.net> To: <mattsenate(a)gmail.com> Subject: 6/2014 Statement, 2141 Broadway Date: Fri, May 30, 2014 18:25 Hi Matt- Attached is the June invoice. No need to pay it if you are planning on leaving by month end, and there will be additional utilities accruing as we always bill those in arrears. We'd like confirm with Sean that he can do one of his events again on Friday, 6/20..wanted to make sure that there's nothing big planned for that evening already. Thanks! Laurie

11 years, 8 months

Last night's meeting...

by Vicky Knox

http://runningahackerspace.tumblr.com/post/82404455310/when-a-meeting-start…

11 years, 8 months

Re: [sudo-discuss] Fwd: Use of big space on Friday, 6/20

by yar

On Thu, May 29, 2014 at 10:19 PM, Matthew Senate <mattsenate(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Please confirm the availability of the big space on Friday, 6/20 (evening) > for another one of Sean’s events…..thank you! Who is Sean? Is this another rave? The common space is booked for the Heart's Desire Reading Series, which is a poetry reading hosted by BAPS: https://sudoroom.org/events/hearts-desire-reading-series-2/ Saturday night is still open on the calendar though.

11 years, 8 months

Fwd: Use of big space on Friday, 6/20

by Matthew Senate

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Laurie Cooperman Rosen <Lscoop(a)comcast.net> Date: Thu, May 29, 2014 at 1:46 PM Subject: Use of big space on Friday, 6/20 To: mattsenate(a)gmail.com, poems(a)zachhouston.com, melissadmack(a)gmail.com Hi All- Please confirm the availability of the big space on Friday, 6/20 (evening) for another one of Sean’s events…..thank you! Laurie

11 years, 8 months

Re: [sudo-discuss] Fwd: FW: Extra servers

by mattsenate＠gmail.com

Jenny or Maxb are maybe available. Can one of you confirm if you can make it tomorrow or Friday? If sometime next week works better, let me and Rachael know asap. Thanks! // Matt ----- Reply message ----- From: "Jenny Ryan" <tunabananas(a)gmail.com> To: "Matthew Senate" <mattsenate(a)gmail.com> Cc: "sudo-discuss" <sudo-discuss(a)lists.sudoroom.org> Subject: [sudo-discuss] Fwd: FW: Extra servers Date: Tue, May 27, 2014 19:08 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 This is wonderful! I'm free in the afternoons and will follow up with Rachel, unless you'd like to do so and join me? On Tue 27 May 2014 01:38:33 PM PDT, Matthew Senate wrote: > Hey Sudoers, > > Anyone able to pick up some computers, monitors, keyboards, mice, and > headsets this Thursday or Friday? > > Thanks, > Matt > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: Rachael Evarts <REvarts(a)foe.org> > Date: Tue, May 27, 2014 at 1:02 PM > Subject: RE: FW: Extra servers > To: Matthew Senate <mattsenate(a)gmail.com> > > > Hey Matt, > > > > We finally got our new computers in and we have 6 desktops to donate. > Would you also want any extra monitors, keyboards, mice, and headsets? Are > you available sometime on Thursday or Friday to pick up from the office? > > > > Thanks! > > Rachael > > > > Rachael Evarts > > Operations Associate > > Friends of the Earth > > 1100 15th St NW, 11th Floor > > Washington, DC 20005 > > REvarts(a)foe.org > > (202) 222-0734 > > > > _______________________________________________ > sudo-discuss mailing list > sudo-discuss(a)lists.sudoroom.org > https://lists.sudoroom.org/listinfo/sudo-discuss - -- Jenny http://jennyryan.net http://sudomesh.org http://thevirtualcampfire.org http://technomadic.tumblr.com `~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~` "Technology is the campfire around which we tell our stories." - -Laurie Anderson "Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it." -Hannah Arendt "To define is to kill. To suggest is to create." - -Stéphane Mallarmé ~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~` -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.14 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJThUUgAAoJEHTWWpBUSeDhN9UH/3EQ+m+MpKuS8pgNIgE5Ze9d zyb17L9nw/Xsgh37xEnGB7pCN1TUwMqLc6YP8PpBk2j1XkMRDtYMPuo11mdkr7Dh ZBPe6nl29G070O6887nJKzOE/I+B7aJykkMVqYyTtkYsC0/7mcaYKsT7Xidu5FnB WYlGdezJGWsIFwbcd96UP08U+jLaxhVXmR1NMYHP9M17ez21UzZgtlWFTJkTG0MJ JTzZ7+/5YcaQTObmlnDFrwZXkol+4kbO5NWYV7n8e+UuKDBsDOTxACdZ80PRtEAA sPzL8XJ0b9/EHml0jGunpTR/QjUB1/i+HJ3++kTl5F63ExTWF0uaE15P99rddFQ= =xmyk -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

11 years, 8 months

Fwd: [omnilogistics] Fwd: [omnidelegates] Kazoo Introduction

by Matthew Senate

fwd'd ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: David Keenan <dkeenan44(a)gmail.com> Date: Thu, May 22, 2014 at 9:00 PM Subject: [omnilogistics] Fwd: [omnidelegates] Kazoo Introduction To: "omnilogistics(a)lists.riseup.net" <omnilogistics(a)lists.riseup.net> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: *Kazoo* <lovekazoo(a)gmail.com> Date: Wednesday, March 26, 2014 Subject: [omnidelegates] Kazoo Introduction To: omnidelegates(a)lists.riseup.net Hello Omni! I am happy to be involved in this project! The Thursday meetings are hard for me to make because I have an intern who comes to my SF studio and gives me free labor on Thursday evenings, but I will try to rearrange that with her starting next week. I have also been a little late to the game because I have two other large projects starting that I had planned way before I knew about the Omni- building a studio from the ground up in Oakland, and writing and recording an album of my own music. I have been planning this six-month period from now until September for full-time engagement in those two previous projects canceling my regular teaching schedule. Ideally I would love to stay involved in the planning process with the Omni through the fall, but not begin my specific project within the space until the November. I'm not sure how that feels to all involved. I welcome your feedback. Here is a quick synopsis of what I want to do with the Omni Project: Creative Empowerment Project CEP is a screen printing and collateral production studio that makes all manner of printed media: tshirts, posters, book jackets, perfect-bound books, business cards, CD and DVD packaging, and various graphic design. The space has several functions. There will be a cooperative screen printing space where coop members will pay a small monthly fee (maybe 50$) to have 24hour access to the community screen printing space. The screen printing space will be equipt with 8 printing stations so that many people may use it at the same time. I currently bottom-line a space like this in San Francisco where I have been screenprinting for the past three years. This will help cover our portion of the Omni rent. There will also be an Education/Vocation component to the space where people who are formerly incarcerated, targeted by racism, or otherwise challenged to survive within the oppressive economic/justice system can build capacity for self-employment and group empowerment. Participants in the E/V program will learn the skills of screenprinting, digital design, layout, cooperative business functions, and self-promotion through classes and practice. The E/V collective will take jobs in printing and production to support its portion of the rent as well as paying its participants for their labor. Eventually I would like the E/V project to expand to include people who are under 18, targeted by racism, and disengaged with the public school system. The E/V project will employ its own students, and hopefully be taken over by those who have successfully completed the program. As far as the space is concerned, I think this could happen anywhere in the building, if it happens in the basement we would require some windows and a separate entrance so the coop members could have 24hour access without necessarily accessing the rest of the Omni building. Looking forward, Kazoo * please vote for my design: * * http://www.independentmusicawards.com/imanominee/13th/Design <http://www.independentmusicawards.com/imanominee/13th/Design> * *and this is what i do:* *etsy.com/shop/kazoostudio* <http://etsy.com/shop/kazoostudio> *www.thepartystarterdotcom.com/readingrainbow.jpg <http://www.thepartystarterdotcom.com/readingrainbow.jpg> *

11 years, 8 months

Problems with Johannes

by Marc Juul

Some of you may have noticed the blackboard message in the common room today. For those who haven't, it says: PLEASE MOVE. PLEASE TAKE YOUR ELITIST SELF-ABSORBED ASSES TO YOUR DREAMSPACE UPTOWN "OMNI" SPACE AND STOP PRETENDING TO REPRESENT "COMMUNITY" Last night at about 11:30 pm I was sitting in the common space, hacking away on my laptop, when Johannes (one of the tenants of the building) set up the projector and started watching a comedy tv show in the common room. It was just him near the projector and me and Anthony sitting in the couches near sudo room. Johannes went and turned off half the lights in the common room without communicating with us. I was bothered by this and went over and turned the lights back on. He then came over to me and angrily asked if I really _needed_ the lights on. I calmly responded "I prefer the lights on". He then got very upset and started ranting at nobody in particular (though of course in response to me) as he stomped around the room. I then said "It's polite to ask before changing the lighting in a room with other people". This is truly the extent of our interaction, and I communicated in a calm and neutral manner throughout. Johannes kept angrily ranting, then turned off the projector. He came back in and out of the room carrying a blackboard several times. It wasn't until I got up from the couch later that I saw the message he'd left. I realize this negative interaction could potentially have been prevented had I talked to Johannes first instead of just turning the light back on (though I have attempted this before when he's been disruptive in the common space, with limited success). The reason I bring this up on the list is that I am concerned by the disproportionate anger that this small incident triggered. I feel like it requires a serious lack of self-awareness / empathy to deal with the incident as Johannes did. I am documenting this in case this becomes a pattern of behavior that needs to be addressed in the future. -- marc/juul

11 years, 8 months

Fwd: FW: Extra servers

by Matthew Senate

Hey Sudoers, Anyone able to pick up some computers, monitors, keyboards, mice, and headsets this Thursday or Friday? Thanks, Matt ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Rachael Evarts <REvarts(a)foe.org> Date: Tue, May 27, 2014 at 1:02 PM Subject: RE: FW: Extra servers To: Matthew Senate <mattsenate(a)gmail.com> Hey Matt, We finally got our new computers in and we have 6 desktops to donate. Would you also want any extra monitors, keyboards, mice, and headsets? Are you available sometime on Thursday or Friday to pick up from the office? Thanks! Rachael Rachael Evarts Operations Associate Friends of the Earth 1100 15th St NW, 11th Floor Washington, DC 20005 REvarts(a)foe.org (202) 222-0734

11 years, 8 months

Timon

by Matthew Senate

I have been afraid. I don't often feel fear, or let myself get carried by that fear, but in this circumstance it has taken over me periodically for months now. I was afraid of Timon. I was afraid of his physical and psychological intimidation. I have been targeted, among others, by him, and this has made sudo room an unsafe space whenever he is present. But I'm no longer afraid. I no longer will allow this abuse to continue. Timon *asked *that I send a written message, so I sent an email to him and our landlords that indeed, Timon has no right (legal or otherwise) to sudo room, the public school, or the common space of 2141 Broadway. This is unequivocally true. However, the more important matter is that I sent this message because I, among others, have been habitually harassed and targeted by Timon. This harassment ends now. We provide a space that is safe for everyone to be fully expressed, where safe space and mutual respect is prioritized far over ideology. There is no argument to be had; your fellow members are begging for help, to hold fast and expect the most minimal of standards for behavior for anyone who enters our space. Please help end this abuser's targeting of myself and other sudoers. I know I will be present on Wednesday in full confidence and unencumbered by my previous fear. I have overcome this fear through support of the friends and community that truly makes sudo room an amazing place. Please join me if you have shed this fear too. Together we will resist this and future patterns of abuse. // Matt

11 years, 8 months

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