The Berkeley Police Review Commission web site has not published a statement on this as of this writing but you can check.
This law suit makes two things clear; that Public Police Review is effective and that a very belligerent law enforcement community is desperate to get rid of it in order to hide their activities to an extent far beyond the need for stealth inherent in ordinary police operations.
What is also clear is that now, more than ever, we must reign in our government and it’s enforcers for our own safety as well as the establishment of democracy in place of the current prison/police state of America, currently the most imprisoned country on earth. Since even the facade of police compliance with Police Review Boards has now been banned it becomes clear that independent sources of evidence must be created for the proposed Civilian Police Review Board, also in it’s organizational infancy, and this means CopWatch here behind the Redwood Curtain. In a way this recent judgment may be a blessing in disguise considering the belligerence with which law enforcement has responded to subpoenas and the ingrained, routine perjury upon which law enforcement and the judiciary depends for convictions. Perhaps this and other recent assaults on democratic control of America’s police will be enough to spur us all to action. This is not about right or left but right and wrong. This system of secrecy and perjury are hardly justified by results considering that our prisons are filling up at rates typical of totalitarian states our streets are less safe than ever which is also typical of totalitarian states.
Only criminals in the guise of public servants with something to hide would oppose public oversight of their activities. If these men and women are to lay claim to being “brave heroes” why would they even want to hide their real actions if they truly were the brave defenders of codified morality that they pretend to be?
Meanwhile, organization of the Redwood Curtain CopWatch is proceeding very carefully with the goal of establishing an enduring institution which will act for the good of all people including those people who would actually like to be “good” cops making our world safer, more peaceful and happier in an open, effective and corruption free law enforcement community.
No one is going to just hand us democracy; we must fight for it!!!