BERKELEY CAMPAIGN CENTER
Zachary RunningWolf's Mayoral Campaign must condemn the November 4th Berkeley Police raid on a local tent village and the Police's arrest of four people, including Berkeley City Council candidate Nanci Armstrong-Temple.[1] In arresting Armstrong-Temple, the Berkeley Police department has intensified its policing and criminalization of homeless in what was the latest of a series of raids.
Zachary RunningWolf's mayoral campaign - unlike city councilmembers Jesse Arreguin, Kriss Worthington, and Laurie Capitelli - called for the decriminalization of the homeless, and sweeping policy changes such as allowing people to assemble outside in tents, which is being criminalized in these ongoing police raids.
RunningWolf's mayoral campaign was also the most vocal when it came to police violence & brutality in the city of Berkeley. Our campaign platform has, since its creation, declared its support for anti-police and Black Lives Matter protests, many of which RunningWolf has participated in. The campaign called for sweeping policy changes such as new leadership, retraining, an end to racial profiling, a 50% reduction of the Berkeley Police's $200,000 yearly average salary, and more.
We have also been vocal critics of police interference in Berkeley's elections. RunningWolf himself was incarcerated for 31 days as a political prisoner for participating in a solidarity march with the largest strike against prison slavery in U.S. history. He was held on a no-bail misdemeanor for cannabis posession - this was a violation of his constitutional human rights, and reflects the criminalization of Indigenous medicine. As a result, he missed four out of five mayoral debates and was forced to 13-day hunger strike his way out of prison.
To our understanding, Berkeley City Council candidate Nanci Armstrong-Temple was held in jail over the weekend by the Police, also as a political prisoner. Police interference in elections is absolutely unacceptable and we consider the legitimacy of any results which do not take it into account as highly questionable.
[1] http://www.ktvu.com/news/215689968-story
Police Raid Homeless Again: Interfering with Berkeley's Elections