Protest March through Emeryville closes Police Station, Home Depot

Emeryville Police closed and barricaded their Powell Street Station in anticipation of a planned protest yesterday. “The Police Department will be temporarily closed to the public during this rally for the safety of all. Thank you for your understanding”. Approximately 150 Protesters, organized by a group calling themselves APTP (Anti Police-Terror Project) along with other supportive groups including Black Lives Matter, Asians4BlackLives and the Xicana Moratorium Project assembled peacefully at the Powell Station at 10AM. EPD Officers could be seen monitoring and recording the event from the perch of the station roof.

Emeryville police officers Lu and Malec filming #BlackLivesMatter protesters from root of police headquarters. pic.twitter.com/nHWcnv9Tyr

— Darwin BondGraham (@DarwinBondGraha) February 22, 2015

After posting up for about an hour, the group mobilized. They marched up Powell, along Shellmound and over the 40th Street/Shellmound bridge. They then proceeded to the sight of where the February 3rd tragedy involving Yuvette Henderson began, The Home Depot. Protesters then chained themselves to the roll-up door exit and vowed to stay put for five hours, the same amount of time they claim Yuvette Henderson’s body lay on the ground while police investigated the officer involved shooting.
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An APTP spokesperson who identified herself as “Cat” seemed satisfied with the results when I spoke to her over the phone. “We successfully shut down Home Depot for the day and brought awareness of the event”. Cat identified the goals of the APTP as:

• Commandeering surveillance video for independent review and investigation
• Eliminating the policy of paid leave for cops involved in officer shootings
• Challenging the recent “militarization” of local police forces with surplus military weaponry

While it’s unclear what is being disputed in the video by the organizers and what they expect to see, it is apparently in the hands of the Oakland PD. Extra Storage space has been less forthcoming with their surveillance footage according to APTP. Stephen Holmes, a spokesman for Home Depot, said the store’s policy is to only release video surveillance footage to law enforcement agencies according to this Bay City News report: “We don’t want to inadvertently interfere with their investigation, … So, while we understand the community’s concern when such a serious incident occurs, it wouldn’t be appropriate to release that footage during an ongoing investigation.”
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The protest activity was closely monitored by the EPD with assistance from neighboring agencies including Oakland & Berkeley as well as the CHP. No arrests were reported.

Police Station Photo: @DaveId on Twitter