Urban Shied police training in East Bay draws protesters
Protesters chained themselves together and blocked the main gates of the Alameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton Friday morning to demonstrate their opposition to the Urban Shield police training and expo scheduled there this weekend.
[...] we expected to be met with police violence with arrests and it's what we have to do, put ourselves on the line to fight Urban Shield and the system of policing.
Guilty! They also chanted, “Turn up and shut it down, we do this for Mike Brown,” referring to the 18-year-old African American man shot dead by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014, a killing that ignited days of protests.
Believed to be the largest tactical exercise in the nation, the multiday Urban Shield event provides first responders from throughout the Bay Area and country with training techniques and equipment to use in an array of emergency scenarios, including hostage situations, terrorist attacks and active-shooter incidents.
Organizers of Friday’s demonstration condemned the event as “promoting further violence and an increased war mentality by police in marginalized communities.”
“The same repressive international forces backed by the US to oppress people across the world are coming together to train with police forces in our local neighborhoods,” said Nora Abedelal, of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center.