Activists Call Out Alameda County DA, Other Officials for Delay in Condemning Gunman Who Threatened MLK Rally

Activists are criticizing Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O'Malley for waiting two days to publicly condemn the actions of an unidentified armed man who approached and threatened demonstrators at a peaceful racial justice rally on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

"The moral response of Nancy should have been immediately to have called her own press conference and said how disgusted and dismayed she was by this kind of behavior," Oakland activist Cat Brooks, who organized Monday's rally, said at a press conference on Thursday.

She also criticized Oakland city leaders for not immediately denouncing the armed man.

The Anti Police-Terror Project, which Brooks heads, centered its Monday car caravan protest outside of O'Malley's home in Alameda to decry her recent decision to not charge Anthony Pirone, the former BART police officer who was investigated for his role in the 2009 shooting death of 22-year-old Oscar Grant III.

The caravan ended its protest earlier than intended when participants were warned that a man with a rifle had been seen standing nearby.

Allowing the threat to go unchallenged may embolden more people to intimidate peaceful protesters through the barrel of a gun, organizers said Thursday.

In her statement, first released Wednesday in a Facebook post, O'Malley said the man with the gun had "threatened those participating in the protest," adding, "I deplore his actions of bringing violence to this peaceful protest."

Her statement did not make any reference to her recent decision to not charge the BART officer.

Her full statement is below:

"Recently, a group of community members participated in a peaceful protest at my house. Some man claiming to live in the neighborhood, aggressively showed up with a firearm and threatened those participating in the protest.

I deplore his actions of bringing violence to this peaceful protest. I have spent my career combating gun violence. I have led research and published reports on firearms in Alameda County and California. I have run campaigns on safe storage to end guns getting into the wrong hands. I work to end gun violence.

I am assured that the Alameda Police Department is investigating this man’s actions and threats.

I am sorry he brought fear to those protesting and to my neighbors."

Alameda police are still investigating the incident, and on Tuesday posted a response to criticism that they did not immediately arrive at the scene after being contacted to arrest the man.

"Uniformed officers were not initially dispatched to the scene to allow the peaceful protesters space to exercise their constitutional right," a department spokesperson wrote. "We were subsequently advised that law enforcement officers from the District Attorney’s Office were in the area."

But Cephus "Uncle Bobby X" Johnson, Grant's uncle, said at Thursday's press conference he fears law enforcement's failure to act sooner may encourage other bad actors. He noted that California is not an open-carry state (though it has some narrowly tailored exceptions), which makes brandishing a gun a potentially illegal act.

"Our failure to hold individuals that act in this way accountable for violating the laws, gives them the impression that it was OK. And they will — and others that see this will — follow suit and do it again," Johnson said. "That builds the possibility that someone, especially a person of color, could be harmed or not just harmed, but even murdered."

Monday's protest, Brooks added, "could have turned out very, very differently. We are so grateful that everybody made it home safely and unharmed."

For maintaining the event's safety, Brooks credited a group known as the Community Ready Corps, who were embedded in the 100-plus vehicle caravan.

Taking a cue from the Black Panther movement, CRC promotes the concept of building self-determination in disenfranchised communities.

On its website, the group says it's organizing to protect Black spaces and communities from racist intimidation, harassment and violence, especially at free-speech rallies.

This person with a rifle came out yelling, "Get out of my fucking neighborhood," over and over until confronted by caravan security, then walked away. Nancy's neighbor. pic.twitter.com/o6eQ87dukZ

— Indybay (@Indybay) January 18, 2021

And that's exactly what they did Monday, Brooks said.

While protesters were gathering at O'Malley's house on Monday, Brooks said, she got word from CRC that a man armed with a rifle was "one block over, threatening to shoot the people involved in the caravan."

"It was not police that kept us safe," she said. "It was not police who got the men off the block. It was not police that handled that situation. It was [the] Community Ready Corps."

This kind of violent intimidation may continue to happen, she warned.

"As we look at the rise of white supremacist violence as a political tool that's being utilized more and more by the right, we often feel like we're safe from that here in the Bay Area," Brooks said.

But, "even in the progressive Bay Area ... we are not immune from these threats or this violence."