Bay Area

Wilson Riles Jr., Former City Council Member, Settles Police Brutality Lawsuit for $360,000

In 2019, former City Councilmember Wilson Riles Jr. was arrested at the city’s zoning department when he went to complain about the latest obstacles in a years-long dispute with staff of the Oakland Planning Department about the use of a sweat lodge to conduct Native American ceremonies in the backyard of the house where he and his wife reside in Oakland.

Published

3 years ago

July 30, 2022

Oakland Post

Wilson Riles was 73 years old when he was brutally arrested by Oakland police in 2019.

By Ken Epstein

The Oakland City Council has approved a $360,000 settlement with former City Councilmember Wilson Riles Jr., who filed a lawsuit alleging that the city and Oakland Police Department violated his civil rights for throwing him facedown to the ground and arresting him when he went to a city office to complain about a zoning issue.

A City Councilmember from 1979 to 1992, Riles was 73 when the incident occurred in 2019. He filed a federal lawsuit in 2020, represented by Oakland civil rights attorney Walter Riley.

Riles was arrested at the city’s Zoning Department as he expressed his frustration about the ongoing obstacles thrown in his path in a years-long dispute with staff of the city’s Planning Department over the use of a sweat lodge to conduct Native American ceremonies in the backyard of the house where he and his wife live in Oakland.

He said the arrest occurred after he told a Zoning Department employee that the building permit they wanted and other requirements they were demanding of him were not part of the building code. He asked the employee to look at the building code, but the employee refused.

“I raised my voice and asked him to get a supervisor to talk to me,” he said. “That’s when they called the police. A Black man raising his voice should not be a threat to anyone in the city,” and is not a sufficient reason to call the police to have someone arrested, he said.

As he was leaving the office, Riles was arrested on charges of obstructing a public officer and battery of a police officer. However, the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office declined to file charges.

The city’s settlement with Riles comes out of the millions of dollars the city set aside “to pay for bad police actions,” he said.

“I don’t believe this is justice. The city made a financial decision,” he said, figuring it was cheaper to settle than to hire outside lawyers and run the risk that Riles would win more at a trial.

“They are not going to look at their policy, they are not going to look at retraining their police officers, nor are they admitting they’ve done anything wrong,” said Riles.

Riles has a second state lawsuit against the city to demand relief from the city’s use of building code and an attempt to put a lien on his home to stop his sweat lodge. While many neighbors were supportive, officials acted on the complaints of one or two neighbors.

“They immediately assumed that we need to be shut down,” he said. “They came out here and looked for every kind of violation, including threatening property liens. The Zoning Department enforces these kind of class/race restrictions in this city, and they get away with it.”

“There’s a long history here,” Riles continued. “Reparations should be paid for the way Black people were forced out of West and East Oakland, often enforced by the Zoning Department.”

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Oakland Post: Week of May 21 – 27, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of May 21 – 27, 2025

Published

4 days ago

May 25, 2025

Oakland Post

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Chevron Richmond Installs Baker Hughes Flare.IQ, Real-time Flare Monitoring, Control and Reduction System

While the sight of flaring can cause concern in the community, flares are essential safety systems that burn pollutants to prevent them from being released directly into the atmosphere. They activate during startup and shut-down of facility units or during upsets or equipment malfunctions. The typical flare stack is about 200 feet high so that vapors are well above street levels.

Published

1 week ago

May 19, 2025

Oakland Post

Image courtesy The Richmond Standard.

The Richmond Standard

Chevron Richmond recently installed flare.IQ, a real-time, automated system that will improve the facility’s flaring performance.

The technology, developed by Panametrics, a Baker Hughes business, uses sensors to monitor, reduce and control flaring in real time. It collects and assesses data on refinery processes, such as temperature, pressure, gas flow and gas composition, and adjusts accordingly to ensure flares burn more efficiently and cleanly, leading to fewer emissions.

“The cleaner the flare, the brighter the flame can look,” said Duy Nguyen, a Chevron Richmond flaring specialist. “If you see a brighter flame than usual on a flare, that actually means flare.IQ is operating as intended.”

“A key element in Baker Hughes’ emissions abatement portfolio, flare.IQ has a proven track record in optimizing flare operations and significantly reducing emissions,” said Colin Hehir, vice president of Panametrics, a Baker Hughes business. “By partnering with Chevron Richmond, one of the first operators in North America to adopt flare.IQ, we are looking forward to enhancing the plant’s flaring operations.”

The installation of flare.IQ is part of a broader and ongoing effort by Chevron Richmond to improve flare performance, particularly in response to increased events after the new, more efficient hydrogen plant was brought online in 2019.

Since then, the company has invested $25 million — and counting — into flare minimization. As part of the effort, a multidisciplinary refinery team was formed to find and implement ways to improve operational reliability and ultimately reduce flaring. Operators and other employees involved in management of flares and flare gas recovery systems undergo new training.

“It is important to me that the community knows we are working hard to lower emissions and improve our flaring performance,” Nguyen said.

Also evolving is the process by which community members are notified of flaring incidents. The Community Warning System (CWS), operated by Contra Costa County is an “all-hazard” public warning system.

Residents can opt-in to receive alerts via text, e-mail and landline. The CWS was recently expanded to enable residents to receive notifications for “Level 1” incidents, which are considered informational as they do not require any community action.

For more information related to these topics, check out the resources included on the Chevron Richmond, CAER and Contra Costa Health websites. Residents are also encouraged to follow @chevronrichmond and @RFDCAOnline on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter), where additional information may be posted during an incident.

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Oakland Hosts Town Hall Addressing Lead Hazards in City Housing

According to the city, there are 22,000 households in need of services for lead issues, most in predominantly low-income or Black and Latino neighborhoods, but only 550 to 600 homes are addressed every year. The city is hoping to use part of the multimillion-dollar settlement to increase the number of households served each year.

Published

1 week ago

May 18, 2025

Oakland Post

iStock.

By Magaly Muñoz

The City of Oakland’s Housing and Community Development Department hosted a town hall in the Fruitvale to discuss the efforts being undertaken to remove lead primarily found in housing in East and West Oakland.

In 2021, the city was awarded $14 million out of a $24 million legal settlement from a lawsuit against paint distributors for selling lead-based paint that has affected hundreds of families in Oakland and Alameda County. The funding is intended to be used for lead poisoning reduction and prevention services in paint only, not water or other sources as has been found recently in schools across the city.

The settlement can be used for developing or enhancing programs that abate lead-based paint, providing services to individuals, particularly exposed children, educating the public about hazards caused by lead paint, and covering attorney’s fees incurred in pursuing litigation.

Most of the homes affected were built prior to 1978, and 12,000 of these homes are considered to be at high risk for lead poisoning.

City councilmember Noel Gallo, who represents a few of the lead-affected Census tracts, said the majority of the poisoned kids and families are coming directly from neighborhoods like the Fruitvale.

“When you look at the [kids being admitted] at the children’s hospital, they’re coming from this community,” Gallo said at the town hall.

In order to eventually rid the highest impacted homes of lead poisoning, the city intends to create programs and activities such as lead-based paint inspections and assessments, full abatement designed to permanently eliminate lead-based paint, or partial abatement for repairs, painting, and specialized cleaning meant for temporary reduction of hazards.

In feedback for what the city could implement in their programming, residents in attendance of the event said they want more accessibility to resources, like blood testing, and information from officials about lead poisoning symptoms, hotlines for assistance, and updates on the reduction of lead in their communities.

Attendees also asked how they’d know where they are on the prioritization list and what would be done to address lead in the water found at several school sites in Oakland last year.

City staff said there will be a follow-up event to gather more community input for programming in August, with finalizations happening in the fall and a pilot launch in early 2026.