If Becker had chosen any subject other than somebody else”s credibility, I would just continue to sigh and shake my head, as I usually do when I read her commentary. Her hypocritical attack on Jack Baxter and her latest insinuations simply cannot be allowed to go unchallenged.
Since she has brought up the issue of credibility, let”s take a look at hers:
In a commentary in the Record-Bee on May 29, “Thank one soldier,” Becker describes anti-war demonstrators in San Francisco in 2003 dragging a man from his car, beating him unconscious, and taking his watch and wallet. She claims he was assisted by men from her office until an ambulance arrived. This purportedly happened in front of her office on Market Street.
However, no such incident occurred, at least not in San Francisco in March 2003.
Something like this did happen and is, no doubt, still etched in many of our minds, since it was videotaped and replayed on the news repeatedly for a year.
The victim was Reginald Denny, who was pulled from his truck and beaten during the 1992 LA riots. I”m not sure how Becker got the Denny incident in 1992 confused with what actually happened in San Francisco in 2003.
Perhaps she was just testing the water to see what she could get away with, because a week later she wrote about her experience with the Oakland Citizen Police Review Board.
In “Policing the police,” printed in the Record-Bee on June 5, Becker carefully creates the impression that she was invited, received training and served on the Citizen Police Review Board in Oakland.
Patrick Caceres, the Acting Manager of the Oakland review board, checked CPRB records back to 2001 and told me that she was not on the CPRB during that period of time.
An invitation to serve on the Board has to originate either from the Oakland Mayor or the Mayor may select someone based on a City Council member”s recommendation.
Caceres said there was no evidence of either of those things having occurred. Becker also seems unaware of the 2006 Copley Press decision by the California Supreme Court. If she had truly had anything to do with a police review board anywhere in this state, she would have been aware of the legal precedent set by this important landmark case.
If you read that column when it appeared in June, you most likely got the impression that she served on the CPRB. If you re-read it, looking for the exact words in which she says she served, you realize that she actually never says that. She just implies that she served, deceiving the reader while avoiding an outright falsehood.
A credible person does not engage in intentional manipulation with the purpose of misleading their readers. Becker can tout her favorite cocktail, rave about small towns, rant about city life, or brag about her career, given how unlikely it is that anyone will bother to verify her claims; that”s all fairly harmless.
However, given her history of just making stuff up, she should refrain from spreading innuendo regarding the credibility of others.
Lakeport
Roberta Actor-Thomas is a programmer/analyst in the health care industry. She lives in Lakeport.
