Groups Oppose Improved Mental Health Services at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin

ALAMEDA COUNTY, CA — Two activist community groups are mobilizing together today to ask the Alameda County Board of Supervisors to stop funding for the annual "Urban Shield" first-responder training exercise, as well as to stop funding for improving mental health services at the county jail.

Members of the Stop Urban Shield Coalition said they oppose the training program because it is a U.S. Department of Homeland Security-funded program that they say has received national and international condemnation for its role in training and arming police with military-style weapons, tactics, and technologies, and also has allegedly featured violent and racist propaganda.

Lara Kiswani of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center said she opposes the program because she believes Alameda County Sheriff Gregory Ahern, whose department organizes the exercise, "is interested in further
militarizing our communities."

Mohamed Shehk of Critical Resistance said, "Urban Shield isn't just about policing in the Bay Area, it's about policing throughout the United States and the world."

Shehk alleged that the program teaches aggressive tactics that are used to oppress people in Mexico, Palestine and other locations around the world. Tash Nguyen of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland
said she opposes $61 million in funding for capital improvements and improving mental health services at the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin because she thinks jail officials are doing a poor of treating inmates with mental health problems.

"Mental health care is far more effective and best delivered outside of a jail setting," Nguyen said. "While much-needed resources are continuing to be cut for community services, the sheriff is pushing the
county toward wasting funding toward bigger jails." Nguyen said, "We're asking the Board of Supervisors to delay approving a contractor and engineer for the jail expansion project and instead funding alternatives to incarceration in Alameda County."

In a memo to the Board of Supervisors, Ahern said his office has established a number of guidelines for the Urban Shield program, which is held in September in Pleasanton: expanding community involvement and
awareness, being free from racist stereotyping and not including surveillance training.

Ahern said the guidelines also say the program won't include crowd control training, will exclude vendors who display derogatory or racist messages in any form and exclude the sale or transfer of assault weapons and
firearms.

The Board of Supervisors is considering both funding proposals at its meeting today.

Related:

• 23 Arrested Following March, Rally Protesting Urban Shield

By Bay City News

Photo courtesy Autumn Johnson/ Patch from 23 Arrested Following March, Rally Protesting Urban Shield