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going through the Alameda Police Department clip files in the Oakland Tribune archives and the headline writer for a story about Chief Robert Shiells "retiring" in 1993 nailed it:
"Alameda's police chief retires at 48"
"Alameda's police chief retires at 48"
(same chief who ordered shredding of records showing officers in the nearly all-white department were exchanging racist messages over patrol car computers)
The great Tribune columnist Brenda Payton wasn't messing around and printed the transcript. It's terrifying.
1991: "Once you cross the bridge or go through the tube you're in a different world," said Darrell Hampton, a black Oakland resident, who was punched by an Oakland policeman in a well-publicized incident last year...I don't feel comfortable there and none of my friends do either"
During Chief Shiells tenure, commanders had an officer alter his police report describing how he brutally beat John Mitcheom, a white real estate agent and WWII veteran. Mitcheom told the Tribune "you get a lot of heat" for selling houses in white neighborhoods to black families.
