Berkeley Police Threaten Homeless Residents With Less-Lethal Weapons at Encampment Cleanup

Witnesses say Berkeley police threatened residents with less lethal weapons during a cleanup on Wednesday of an encampment that has been the source of conflict for years.

The encampment at Harrison and Eighth streets, which is home to roughly 40 people, is the subject of multiple lawsuits. Business owners sued last year to force the city to clean it up, while camp residents have multiple suits pending against the city.

Video of the sweep posted by the publication Street Spirit shows an officer pointing a less lethal rifle at a tent and saying, “Get out now. You’re going to be shot with less lethal.”

Yesica Prado, who took the video and has been living at the encampment for seven years, said the incident happened shortly after officers showed up around 6 a.m. She said police officers were dropping smoke-emitting devices into the areas where people were sleeping.

One man was “really, really scared and worked up, and he was just trying to stay inside,” Prado said. “And I think that’s when a bunch of cops just started swarming around his tent and telling him that he needed to get out.”

Prado, who is also a representative with the Berkeley Homeless Union, said the officers threw one of the smoke devices into the man’s living area, and he threw it back at them. At that point, an officer pointed a non-lethal weapon at him, she said.

“This is the first sweep that I’ve seen them come with such force,” Prado said.

Another video, posted by Berkeley Copwatch, shows the same man pushed to the ground and pinned by officers after crossing a police line, seemingly inadvertently, during an altercation later that morning. “I did nothing wrong, you backed me into here,” the man said, while the police pleaded with him to cooperate.

“More and more cops came. We counted 10 on top of him at one point,” said Andrea Prichett of Copwatch, who shot the video. “He was saying he couldn’t breathe.”

A spokesperson for the police department confirmed one person was arrested during the sweep, but directed all questions about use of force to the city, which did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

In a statement, Mayor Adena Ishii said, though the details are still emerging, “the video circulating on social media is upsetting, particularly during such a traumatic moment for people.”

She added that she is “committed to ensuring that our city approaches clearings of encampments with as much care and empathy as possible while ensuring everyone’s safety and well-being.”

The city had moved to close the encampment earlier this year, citing health hazards and public nuisance, including rodents, loose syringes, rotting food and human waste, but the Berkeley Homeless Union and residents sued and won a temporary restraining order. That order expired on May 23, after an attorney for the union missed a filing deadline for a preliminary injunction.

On Wednesday, several hours after the city started dismantling the camp, Senior District Judge Edward Chen ordered the city to stop, citing due process concerns.

Councilmember Rashi Kesarwani, whose district includes Harrison Street, expressed support for the city’s action.

“The Berkeley Homeless Union is exploiting the legal system to keep the dangerous, unsafe encampment on Harrison Street open, which is a known magnet for criminal activity and open illicit drug use,” she wrote in an email to KQED. ”I applaud our city staff who conducted vital, difficult work on Wednesday to close the Harrison encampment after we were legally cleared to do so and had issued notice for closure in January before litigation delayed the closure process. The city will now follow the restraining order issued by Judge Chen.”

Brigitte Nicoletti, an attorney with the East Bay Community Law Center who represents some camp residents, said residents had been caught off guard. The city did not provide advance notice of the sweep and gave people less than 30 minutes to retrieve their belongings before heavy machinery moved in to crush and remove what remained.

“They wouldn’t even let me cross the lines to talk to clients,” Nicoletti added, referring to a large area cordoned off by the police. “It’s very, very concerning and a real escalation in tactics.”

“It doesn’t take all that,” said Shareef Muwwakkil, who’d been living in a tent in the area for a couple of years. “Most people out here are malnutritioned; they don’t even have the energy to put up significant resistance. It’s just overkill. It’s showboating.”

Advocates at the scene were handing out new tents and sleeping bags to residents who’d lost theirs.

“It just knocks the wind out of me,” Muwwakkil said of losing books, audio equipment, clothes and other belongings. “This is not OK for me to go through anymore. It’s wearing me out.”

At an emergency hearing on Wednesday, Chen asked lawyers for the city why they hadn’t provided notice ahead of the sweep. “What was the problem with giving reasonable notice?” he said. “Was it to avoid any possible intervention by this court?”

“The city has consistently stated it intends to proceed with this abatement,” Deputy City Attorney Laura Iris Mattes said. “We’ve given them five months’ worth of notice … folks have the opportunity to leave at any time …They have had since the city posted this notice in January to move.”

Chen didn’t buy that. “Anybody would have expected there would be some notice … It just seems like, as a matter of fairness and due process, there’d be notice,” he said.

In asking the judge to halt the sweep, Anthony Prince, the attorney representing the Berkeley Homeless Union, acknowledged the harm was already done. “The toothpaste is out of the tube,” he said.

“All I can do is halt this now,” Chen said. “I’m not in a position to put the toothpaste back in the tube.”

Chen ordered the city to pause abatement until further notice. The next hearing in the case is set for June 10.