Nobody took charge when protesters disrupted Oakland council

Protesters occupy the Oakland city council chamber in support of affordable housing and against police brutality on May 5, 2015. Protesters took over a city council meeting and continued to occupy the space following the meeting. less Protesters occupy the Oakland city council chamber in support of affordable housing and against police brutality on May 5, 2015. Protesters took over a city council meeting and continued to occupy the space ... more Photo: Sam Wolson, Special To The Chronicle Photo: Sam Wolson, Special To The Chronicle Image 1 of / 23 Caption Close Nobody took charge when protesters disrupted Oakland council 1 / 23 Back to Gallery

When an Oakland City Council meeting devolved into chaos Tuesday, with protesters storming the dais and commandeering the chambers to hold their own “People’s Council” meeting, many city officials were caught flat-footed, waiting for someone to take charge.

It never happened.

The disruption began during the mayor’s

5 p.m. budget presentation to the council. A crowd surged into the building, waving signs and bellowing chants to denounce a controversial proposal on the council’s agenda that night, to sell a piece of public land abutting Lake Merritt to housing developer UrbanCore, so it can build a market-rate apartment tower.

When the mayor’s presentation concluded and council President Lynette Gibson McElhaney called the official council meeting to order, protesters rushed toward the well of the chambers. Some were armed with yoga mats that concealed tubes designed to link their arms together. Others carried bullhorns. Many carried signs championing various causes, including affordable housing and police accountability.

McElhaney tried to call for order, but was drowned out by protest chants and clapping. She and several other council members decamped to a back room. The people’s council was called into session. For roughly 20 minutes, the demonstrators commandeered airtime on the council’s official TV broadcast, until McElhaney called the meeting to recess.

Roughly a dozen Oakland police officers were inside patrolling the chambers during the takeover, among them Police Chief Sean Whent. Another dozen or so uniformed officers were stationed outside the chambers, along with regular City Hall security guards. Organizers had set up a legal hotline, and jail support services, with the expectation that their actions that night would get them arrested.

“Folks definitely counted that as a possibility,” said Michael Jones, an organizer with the group Black.Seed, which started the demonstration in conjunction with the group Asians4BlackLives. Both have been outspoken on gentrification and livability issues in Oakland, as well as what Jones calls “state-sanctioned violence against black people.”

But that night, the police did nothing.

“The person chairing the meeting has a responsibility to request that the police remove these individuals,” said Councilman Noel Gallo, who dealt with similarly unruly behavior when he chaired the council’s public safety committee in 2013. Gallo said he has asked the police on prior occasions to remove hecklers from public meetings. Pat Kernighan, who was council president from 2013 through 2014, said she once asked police to clear the room during a raucous meeting. The council then resumed its meeting without members of the public.

“Police do not like to wade into a crowd and take a person out if the whole crowd is being wild and crazy,” Kernighan said. While it’s easy to handle a lone heckler, she added, a big angry mob can get dangerous.

McElhaney, who declined to comment for this article, did not ask for police assistance Tuesday.

Gallo found the protest unsettling, both for the city administration and for the other Oakland residents who were waiting to speak.

“There were other taxpayers who were sitting there, waiting to be recognized,” he said. “And then this group pops in and takes over the meeting, and they all went home upset.”

Among those jilted taxpayers were small businesses that the council members had nominated for a special commendation because of their commitment to Oakland. Also among them were activists who had shown up to speak on items at the meeting, but who had no idea that a protest was going to take place.

“I’m not going to lie, we were frustrated,” said Rashidah Grinage, coordinator of the Coalition for Police Accountability. Grinage added that although she agreed with the protesters’ sentiments, she wished they’d told her of their plans ahead of time. She’d helped amass a number of people to speak on an agenda item about the Citizens’ Police Review Board, which the protesters claimed to support — except they prevented the council from voting on it.

Councilman Dan Kalb, who has been a leader on affordable-housing issues and said he also sympathizes with protesters’ causes, was nonetheless irritated and perplexed by their tactics.

He said the council considered various recourses during their recess, including holding the meeting downstairs and stationing police officers at the doors to prevent the demonstrators from infiltrating.

Kalb said McElhaney tried to defuse the situation by talking to someone who appeared to be a protest organizer, and attempting to strike a compromise about how long the people’s council would have the stage.

Ultimately, the council members abandoned their option to reconvene. At 8 p.m. Gallo, who was still sitting at the dais, made a motion to adjourn. Councilwoman Desley Brooks seconded. At that point, Gallo said, McElhaney was nowhere to be found.

“I was waiting for the chair of the meeting to take control and give us some direction,” Gallo said, adding that he’s seen brash disruptions of council meetings before, particularly during the Occupy movement of 2012. Kalb said he hadn’t seen anything this rowdy in his two years of service.

Gallo is drafting a new proposal for tighter rules at council meetings, including shuttering side entrances to the chambers, and security checkpoints at the doors.

“What concerned me the most was those devices they put around their arms,” Gallo said, noting that a less-peaceful group could have easily rolled weapons into the mats, and no one would have stopped them.

Kalb only hopes these protests won’t become Oakland’s new normal.

“What you don’t want is something like this happening on a regular basis,” he said. “That’s unacceptable.”

Rachel Swan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: rswan@sfchronicle.com

Twiiter: @rachelswan