You know the main event of last week already. Honestly, we never
thought we’d see the day when a lowly Hawaiian would become the leader
of the Free World. And it’s surely a measure of our tragic mental
decline that we thought Bill Kristol had something interesting to say
about it, in his thankfully final column for The New York
Times. Obama, Kristol noted, quoted from a Thomas Paine tract
during his inaugural speech, but didn’t mention either the author or
the most famous line: “These are the times that try men’s souls.” Here
in the East Bay, we know just how that wily old pamphleteer feels.
Let’s go to the tape!
BART Barf
Almost every day unearths another glum detail in the BART cop
shooting scandal. Over the weekend, KTVU got ahold of a new cell phone
video of the night former BART officer Johannes Mehserle fatally shot
Hayward resident Oscar Grant. In this latest clip, another officer,
allegedly one Tony Pirone, walked up to an unresisting Grant, grabbed
him by the collar, and leveled him with a punch to the head just
moments before the shooting. Even if Grant was struggling — and
the tapes appear to show him face down, exhibiting minimal movement
— you would too if a cop just walked up and decked you. The new
film creates a composite picture of a platoon of cops wired for
violence, acting out of all proportion to their circumstances.
Is it any wonder, then, that Mehserle has picked the most skilled
lawyer in the business to defend him? Word broke last week that
attorney Michael Rains has agreed to take Mehserle’s case. In case you
don’t know the East Bay lawyer, he’s the guy who successfully defended
the Riders, the West Oakland officers accused of systematically
planting evidence on young black men and sending them to prison on
false charges; the officers were all acquitted, but dozens of men were
released from prison, and the Oakland Police Department agreed to a
series of court-negotiated reforms to protect the rights of people who
fall into their hands. Rains also kept out of jail several state guards
accused of staging gladiatorial contests between inmates. Really, that
man’s that good.
Meanwhile, members of Mehserle’s family found another unidentified
package outside their Napa home. Since the family has received death
threats stemming from the incident, local cops showed up and blew it
up. No word yet on what the package contained. Finally, the wacky black
separatist cult Uhuru House held a rally in West Oakland, promising to
hold a “people’s tribunal” to try Ron Dellums for this and other crimes
against the “African community.”
Downtown in Default
Pity poor downtown Oakland. Shorenstein Properties, the big
development company that got the City Center project started, had
agreed to build a new, 23-story office tower at 601 City Center,
putting a jewel in Oaktown’s oxidized crown. But the declining economy
has forced the company to indefinitely suspend plans to finish the
project, which was just getting started. So have fun slinking past that
lot, Oakland! This comes on the heels of a Trib story that
tallies the big downtown projects in financial peril. Three
middle-class condo projects, comprising 300 units of Jerry Brown’s
vaunted 10K Plan, have fallen into default: 901 Jefferson, the Thomas
Berkley Square project on 20th Street, and Ellington, on Broadway. And
you know about the riots, of course. Oakland’s greatest asset going
into the downturn was that its downtown office rent was cheaper than
San Francisco’s. Now, thanks to the riots and the threatened
foreclosures, the city’s image as a ghost town fraught with racial
conflict has reemerged.
Movin’ On Up
But at least one Oakland resident is feeling pretty good these days.
Tony West, an Oakland lawyer with a history of public service, has been
tapped by the Obama administration to run the Attorney General’s civil
division. West has done everything from working under the Clinton
Justice Department to busting up child pornography rings as an
assistant US Attorney and advising then-state A.G. Bill Lockyer on
high-tech crime and the Microsoft anti-trust case. Now, he’s going to
run some of the federal government’s most important legal cases. And he
gets to bail from Morrison & Foerster, the law firm where he was
partner, which took a big hit when the real estate market collapsed.
Timing is everything.
Three-Dot Roundup
The FBI is investigating claims that Oakland Police Captain Edward
Poulson, who runs the Internal Affairs division, brutally kicked a
helpless man who later died, and instructed other officers to lie to
Internal Affairs. … UC President Mark Yudof has come up with a plan
to offer free tuition to some 1,100 students who hail from families too
poor to cough up the ever-increasing student fees. The Regents have yet
to approve it. … Matthew McCall, who allegedly murdered his estranged
wife as she was walking to services at Acts Full Gospel church in 2007,
has agreed to a plea deal. McCall will serve at least 35 years in
prison.
