Oakland Demonstrations by the Numbers: 2 Cops for Every 3 Protesters

The Oakland Police Department has produced a "by the numbers" summary of its activity during the November-December 2014 police brutality protests.

The document, to be presented to the Oakland City Council next week, says that the department responded to 24 protests, including one in Berkeley, in the final 38 days of the year. The demonstrations were touched off by a Missouri grand jury's decision not to indict a St. Louis-area police officer in the killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown.

The summary, embedded below, says a total of 9,860 protesters were involved in the events -- which doesn't mean 9,860 individuals, as it's likely that many participants took to the streets more than once during the last five weeks of 2014.

The report also gives details of the massive police presence during the demonstrations. It says the total number of officers involved in responding to the 23 protests in Oakland was about 6,500 -- 5,115 OPD personnel and 1,366 sworn officers from other departments who were responding to mutual aid requests. On average, that represents about two officers for every three demonstrators during the five weeks of protests.

Again, this doesn't mean the Oakland Police Department, which has a total strength of about 700 right now, put 5,000-plus individual officers on the street. That 5,115 number represents a lot of repeat appearances by Oakland officers assigned to protest duty. On average, each member of the department was involved in seven or so protests.

The police report documents a total of 116 arrests and 230 citations. Of those, the department has presented 162 cases to the Alameda County District Attorney's Office for prosecution. As of Feb. 5, the summary says, a total of 10 cases have been charged.

The report notes that, so far, the department has gotten eight complaints about officer conduct related to the protests. That number appears low, compared with the flood of abuse complaints arising from the Occupy Oakland protests in late 2011 and early 2012. The Police Department took disciplinary action against 44 officers, and the city settled four major cases, including one involving a January 2012 mass arrest and two others involving critical injuries suffered by military veterans at the scene of protests.

City Councilman Dan Kalb participated in one of the recent protests. He told KQED's Sara Hossaini on Friday that the department is learning from past mistakes -- for instance, doing a better job of distinguishing the small number of protest participants responsible for vandalism and violence from peaceful demonstrators.

"We don't have tolerance for violent behavior," Kalb said. "But we're not going to let ourselves be goaded into an unnecessary escalation of conflict."