Acting Oakland School Police Chief Scrutinized Over Shooting
OAKLAND (CBS SF) -- Activist groups held a protest outside Oakland Unified School District headquarters Wednesday to demand that the district's acting police chief be fired because he was involved in the fatal shooting of a suspect earlier this year.
Cat Brooks of the Onyx Organizing Committee and the Coalition for Justice for Oscar Grant said Superintendent Tony Smith's decision to appoint Sgt. Barhin Bhatt to the position is "outrageous" and "a slap in the face of the community."
Brooks said, "It's not OK to have a known killer walking the halls of the school district."
Brooks, Oakland civil rights attorney Anne Weills and other activists said they plan to ask the Oakland school board at its meeting Wednesday night to tell Smith to fire Bhatt.
Bhatt was appointed acting police chief on Aug. 5, when former chief Pete Sarna was placed on leave while school officials investigated allegations that he made racist remarks to two sergeants at an off-duty golf outing last month.
Sarna, 41, who previously worked for the Oakland Police Department and the California Department of Justice, resigned his post last week and retired from law enforcement.
In his resignation letter, Sarna admitted that he has a drinking problem and his remarks "hurt not only those who heard them but also the entire community."
Brooks alleged that in naming Bhatt acting chief, Smith "is replacing a drunk and a racist with a murderer and a racist."
Brooks said witnesses claim Bhatt and a fellow officer, Sgt. Jonathan Bellusa, made racist remarks to 20-year-old Raheim Brown shortly before Bhatt shot Brown five times in an incident on Jan. 22 outside the Joaquin Miller Community Center, where students from Skyline High School were having their winter ball.
School district police said Brown was in a stolen car and tried to stab one of the officers with a screwdriver.
School district spokesman Troy Flint said an investigation by a third party determined that there was no wrongdoing by Bhatt and Bellusa.
Flint said Smith named Bhatt to be the acting chief because he was the highest-ranking member of the police department not involved in the incident in which Sarna made comments that were alleged to be racist.
Smith "had no other real options" in hiring an acting chief, Flint said.
However, he said Smith might appoint an interim chief to head the department until a permanent chief is selected.
Flint said the school board must approve a new permanent chief.
In an ironic twist, Bellusa, who is white, is the sergeant who filed the complaint against Sarna over his remarks.
Brooks vowed, "We will be at every school board meeting until Bhatt and Bellusa are fired and arrested for murder."
Weills said Smith's mother and the mother of Smith's child have filed separate lawsuits against the school district in federal court.
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