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September 29, 2026 · 5:00 PM
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- September 30, 2026
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Segment 1
All right, hello everyone, good evening. I'm calling the Berkeley City Council meeting, special meeting to order. Today is Tuesday, September 29th, 2026, and it is 4.08 p.m. Can we please start off with a roll? Thank you, Mayor. And before we get to roll, I just want to mention that Council Member Humbert is participating remotely this evening under the Just Cause provision of the Brown Act, so we're just gonna go ahead and go through that script before we start the meeting. Council Member Humbert is intending to participate in the meeting remotely pursuant to the Brown Act under the Just Cause justification. A quorum of the Council is participating in person at a single physical location that is identified on the agenda, open to the public, within the boundaries of the agency, and meets accessibility requirements. This satisfies the requirements of the Brown Act. Council Member Humbert has notified us of their need to participate remotely. Council Member Humbert, if you would please provide a general description of the circumstances relating to your need to appear remotely at this meeting. Thank you, Madam Clerk. I woke up this morning with a rotten cold, and I don't want to expose my colleagues or anyone else in the chambers to it. Thank you, Council Member. Sorry, Ted, you're not feeling well. If you could also please disclose whether there are any other individuals 18 years of age or older, if they are present in the room at your location, and if so, the general nature of your relationship with such individuals. There is no one else present. Thank you. Council Member Humbert, you're reminded that you must participate through both audio and visual technology. Thank you. Thank you. All right, and now we will move on to roll call. Council Member Kesarwani. Here. Taplin is absent. Bartlett is absent. Tregub. Present. O'Keefe. Here. Lackabee. Here. Lunaparra. Here. Humbert. Present. Mayor Ishii. Here. Thank you. Okay, thank you very much, and I hope you feel better, Council Member. All right, so we have one item on our agenda this evening, and it is old business. The item is item 1A, resolution reinstating the Berkeley Police Department's ability to use tear gas for critical life-threatening incidents only, and lifting the COVID-19 moratorium on smoke and, oh, lower use in, how do you say that, Chief? OC spray. Anyway, and from Council Member Kesarwani. And then item 1B, social justice implications of proposed use of controlled weapons and other policing tools. Again, continued from the September 15th, 2026 meeting from the Peace and Justice Commission. So for folks that were not there during that meeting, basically we had technical difficulties, which meant that we really needed to stop the meeting, and so we are here again, but we will not be doing the presentations over again. We will just be, and in fact, actually, even though we had pretty much finished the public comment, there were two or three more folks that were left online, so we will take public comment again on this item, and then we will also hear, of course, from our Council Members for deliberation and then a vote. So we will start us off with the public comment. So if you have public comment on this item, there's only one item on this special agenda, please come on up. Come on up, yep. Or if you're online, you can raise your hand. Hello, I'm extremely concerned about this tear gas addition to the police toy box because, oh, by the way, I'm from District 5. We have a good neighborhood meet club that's really concerned about things. I'm particularly concerned because mental health, one of the things that the police suggested was that there'd be a hostage situation, and this would be good in a hostage situation. Now, I can't remember any hostage situations at all in Berkeley ever, but I do know that mentally ill people frequently will lock themselves inside and cause a big ruckus and be threatening, and I am afraid that that's exactly the psychotic break someone who's having a mental health issue, a serious mental illness, schizophrenic, those are the people who are gonna get tear gassed, not anybody else. I just don't see the need for this. Help the homeless, help people who need it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, I'm Sally Nelson. Why are we even thinking about allowing the spraying of harsh chemicals on people? Along with the harsh chemicals is enough lead that is likely 80 times the amount considered to be normal. Tear gas is known to inflict long-term damage on someone's lungs, and that includes anyone who happens to be nearby. Aren't the laws and ordinances passed in Berkeley supposed to be in line with the U.S. Constitution, including the First Amendment? Also, we haven't heard a word about the cost of reintroducing and maintaining tear gas and pepper spray. Berkeley does have a budget deficit of $30 million. Why add to it? I urge you to vote no on removing the ban on the use of tear gas, smoke, and pepper spray. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Mayor, City Council, I'm Marilyn Simons, District 1, and I also would urge you to think very seriously about rescinding the ban on chemical weapons and tear gas. I believe when the police gave information at the last meeting on this topic, they could recall only, I think, three incidents in which tear gas or these weapons might have been useful. And in fact, if my memory does not fail me, all three incidents were resolved without the use of tear gas because it was then banned. Pepper spray is banned for use in war by Article 1.5 of the Chemical Weapons Convention, which bans the use of all riot control agents in warfare, whether lethal, less than lethal, or even non-lethal. It's of great harm to anyone it comes in contact with. Thank you. Hi, good afternoon. My name is Mari Mendoza. I'm running for City Council District 8. We've heard countless testimony on many occasions around this issue. Piggybacking on the previous comments that were just said, you know the chemical harm that it causes. We also need to highlight the accountability that is not enforced in Berkeley around police accountability. So putting the decision in the hands or the discretion in the hands of our officers of which the city nor the city manager holds them accountable, nor do you let our police accountability board do their work to investigate when things have happened. I think you need to listen to the countless hours of testimony of the community that we are not in agreement and do not support this and have asked you multiple, multiple times to consider the humanity of everyone in our community and the dangers of the substances that you're proposing to allow for the discretion of folks who are not accountable to decide to use. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Hi everybody, I've got a minute from Lisa T. Garrett, please. Little background here, I'm 79 years old. I've had congestive heart failure. I have emphysema and I have a heart valve replacement. If any of these fuckers tear gases me, theoretically, I could die. And if I die, I'm gonna come back and haunt every single one of you that voted in favor of this. There's no good reason to have tear gas used against people in this country at all. I mean, it happens in the occupied West Bank. They use tear gas there. They also use white phosphorus which burns through to the bone. They use it on children. It should not be happening here in Berkeley at all. There's no reason for that. And when I hear the consideration of something like that, I'm saying, where is the humanity? I mean, do people have calluses over their hearts? Is their compassion gone to who knows where? And why has it gone there? We are people and we will respond. We will resist any type of situation like that. Whether you pepper spray us, I've been pepper sprayed before in Oakland. Tear gas, I've been tear gassed in Berkeley and Oakland. There will be opposition to that. And the way things are escalated in severity in this country, the escalation will grow as, I'm not gonna say anymore. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Hello, my name is Alexander Nicely. I was gonna say a bunch of stuff, but like the ones previous to me kind of said it all. And also I wanna point out that like we're having this thing in the beginning. Like, oh, we all get to get our grievances out in the beginning, but like y'all get the last word. And I think that's kind of hilarious. And I think we should point that out too. And that's it, that's it. Chief, do you mind sharing your mic over for the speaker? Thank you. I been in a domestic violence situation where I was struggling to breathe because of being choked. And had I also been being held hostage, being tear gassed along with my assailant, one of the situations that was brought up by the police last meeting, it wouldn't have helped. Like all of the three situations that they brought up that they would have wanted to use tear gas or would have considered using tear gas had been available, were able to be resolved without the use of tear gas. Furthermore, giving the police access to tear gas that's supposed to only be used in severe situations can tempt them to use it. Even if it's explicitly prohibited, tempt them to use it as crowd control or otherwise interfering with protests. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Chief. My name is Chris Taff, a long time preschool teacher in Berkeley. I oppose the reauthorization. Let's look at the details. For one thing, I want to agree with all the comments people said before me, but it also maintains the use of tear gas.
Segment 2
requiring actions to be proven safe rather than waiting for proof of damage to restrict them. We recommend that lacking proof of safety, the proposal to authorize CS, pepper spray, and smoke should not be approved. Secondly, a positive suggestion. We request the city manager to engage in an academic institution such as UC Berkeley to study the health impacts of tear gas and other chemical weapons and investigate possible alternatives to the use of chemical weapons. Thank you. Thanks, George. I'm back here again. Can I get a minute from the crowd? Anybody want to give a minute? Thank you. Just a gentleman right here. I'm back again, so I'll repeat what I said last time so that everyone can remember. Two minutes, thank you. I'll be plain about the situation facing us. It's easy to cast the first stone when you're the last person who would be impacted by this change of policy. It's people like me, it's the student population, who will face the brunt of these attacks. My name is Derek Rodriguez. I'm not only a student at UC Berkeley, a community leader, but I'm also an Army veteran and a part-time National Guardsman. If you resume use of chemical weapons, perhaps I'll have no choice but to educate my fellow students on how to neutralize CS gas or tear gas. All you are doing is wasting time and money on resources that aren't just foolproof, just putting the public in unnecessary danger. And I know how fiscally irresponsible it is to buy contracted equipment like this. It's a racket from the private sector to overcharge law enforcement and the military on inflated contracts, the same way you are wasting money on mass surveillance against our people. Let's see you try and pull this on a peaceful demonstration, because I will be there and we will be undeterred. You want to waste money? That is your prerogative. Use it against harmless civilians? We will truly make sure that money is wasted. This is not a method to keep us safe. This is a method to keep us down. If this passes tonight, I invite any resident in this room to come see me. I invite you all to a small discussion on how to protect ourselves, because we as a community look after one another. I don't know where your ideas come from, but here at Berkeley, we defend our liberty. You can try and shut our demonstrations down with weapons of war, but you can never silence the voice of the people. Hello. I understand that there's a person named Ray back there who is offering me an extra minute. Thank you. I'm Laura X from the Women's History Library and a whole lot else in Berkeley, National Clearinghouse on Murder and Date Rape. But I came here in 63, which means I was aware of the tear gassing in 1960 with the Hewack demonstration. In fact, that was adopted by the family that happened to one of. Not grammar, but you get the point. Okay, the next was we were tear gassed in the free speech movement on the campus, if you can imagine the horror of that. And the next I want to tell you about, I didn't already tell you in previous comments about Birmingham and how it burns in everyone's soul in this country. But in Berkeley, there was an inadvertent tear gassing in the following way. During the Vietnam War protests, there was a particular line of march which caused us to have a place for toddlers and other children to be far away from it on Greenville. And the male leaders, so disconnected from their own children and others, changed the line of march without checking in with the women about where the children were. And so the babies were gassed. I will never get over that as long as I live. And not just because it's your basic male chauvinism, but because I am chemically sensitive myself, genetically and every day. And it's one of my disabilities. So I very much worry for the people who were two and three back in 1967. And then, of course, we were gassed from the helicopters. Whoops. Thank you. In 1969 and 70. I beg your pardon? Sorry, I think your time, I think the time I just.. Yes, I get it. I'm going. I just wanted to put the dates on. Thank you. You have already spoken, actually. So you can't actually. He's already spoken. If you had given it to him before, he could have used it, but he's finished now. Come on up. Hi, everyone. You know, familiar face. Gordon Gilmore, the Berkeley Outreach Coalition. There we go. First, if you're able to consider spending funds like this on chemical weapons to perpetuate the looming threat of potential violence by the city, then you can't use the budget deficit as a rationalization for cutting services that can care for our community. Second, following from this, maintaining the image of magnanimity and kindness toward your citizens while seriously considering lifting this ban and investing more in potential for city enacted violence instead of investing in care for community as nearly unanimous testimony from the community is calling for is a narcissistically abusive relationship to your constituency. Don't allow your relationship to Berkeley to become pathological. Thank you. I have an extra minute from this good woman over here. I started to cry walking up here because I deeply respect the police officers who are trying to do a good job. We need police officers. We need all of you. We need all of us. But who defines what a crowd is? Is it three people, five people, ten people? I don't know. Is somebody going to have the time to count? So crowd control, it won't be used. But then there's serious threat of injury and maybe even death. Oh, who's going to decide that? It's like we're relying on what and the consequence is what? I need tools in construction and I need to know how to use them properly. And then if a beam is falling, I might not. I might slip and oops, then it's too late. And part of me also started to cry because all of us have heard all of this before. And it's kind of like speaking to a, it's almost like why bother? Except the third reason why I started to cry is that it's not just our lives, it's the police officers lives. It's everyone's lives and it's the precedent that we are setting by saying it's okay. It's okay. We can just continue this way and if it goes off the cliff, at least everyone will go off together. I would rather come together and prevent this escalation of militarism because of fear and perhaps start to recognize the power of love and cooperation, mutual aid instead. Thanks, Maria. Anybody else have comments in person? Otherwise, we're going to move online. Okay. Oh, sorry. Someone's on their way. This is public comment for the one agenda item, right? Okay. So I already said most of what I wanted to say at the last council meeting. How many of you have actually been tear gassed? If you haven't been tear gassed, I think you should think long and hard before considering just casually giving a police department that has violated their own policies multiple times before, as said last time, weapons that will be turned on college students, on high school students. In Minneapolis and in LA, when the community came out to defend their neighbors from the ICE raids, their own police departments were turned on them. Thank you. And they ended up getting tear gassed not just by ICE, but by their own police departments whose their own city governments had put weapons in the hands of the police departments who then got called by ICE to defend ICE who were the invaders in that situation, because that's what ICE are. They're not part of our community, whereas immigrants are. They went out and sided with ICE against the community, against the community who were coming out to defend their neighbors from Trump's Gestapo. Why should we put weapons in the hands of the Berkeley Police Department that will be used against us when we defend our neighbors? Because they will be. Hey, I have a day job, so I just ran over here really quick, but I just want to come here and mention if any pharmaceutical drug, any vaccine you've ever taken has been tested by USP 467, what that is is basically a residual solvent test. I read through a few of the pepper spray, I've never made it myself, but it seems like multiple hazardous chemicals are going to be found in there. They may be using some sort of military exemption to just avoid that, but if we really mean non-lethal, if we really mean that, then at least require that USP 467 is at least tested for whatever product. So, thanks. Thank you. We're going to move to public comment online. All right, our first speaker online is Janice Schroeder. Janice, you should be able to unmute. Thank you. As a health educator for 49 years, please vote no on rescinding the bans based on the documented harms from exposure to these chemicals. I urge you to follow Berkeley's precautionary principle because it states that a proponent must prove that a program or tool will not endanger health or the environment. The harmful effects of chemical weapons are far greater on sensitive receptors, infants, toddlers, elderly, pregnant people, those with physical, mental disabilities, or respiratory illnesses. CS, pepper spray, and smoke can travel to other than the intended person, and in some cases, a significant distance harming uninvolved people. Also importantly, this resolution states that smoke and pepper spray can be used for crowd control. Adopt the PAB Justice Commission. Sorry, you're in time for your comments. Our next speaker is Leslie. Leslie, you should be able to unmute. This is Leslie Firestone. I'm in District 8. I've lived here for more than 10 years. I think that's you, Mr. Humbert, and in Berkeley for decades. I'm absolutely opposed to allowing the police to have chemical weapons again under any circumstances. These are considered weapons of war, as we've heard over.
Segment 3
An elderly person, I worry about the harms that I will sustain. It doesn't stay in one place as another speaker said. Thanks, ma'am. Sorry, your time's up. Our next speaker is Stephen Roble. Hi, Stephen Roble, District 1. Flamethrowers are also a tool. Should we give the police access to flamethrowers because of all the other straw mans that they're building to burn down? This is absurd. The only people who have spoken in support of this are the police. This meeting, last meeting, none of the actual residents that care for the community support this. So please vote to keep the ban because we don't need these chemicals in our air and we don't need tools of war in our police department. Thanks. Thank you. Samir Kanaw. Hello, thanks. My name is Samir Kanaw. I serve as a city councilor in Portland, Oregon. I'm one of a group of councilors working on a ban on the use of chemical weapons in the city of Portland. I'm grateful to the Peace and Justice Commission and all the other testifiers who've come out in support of retaining the ban and I strongly encourage you to retain the ban on tear gas and smoke. The use of indiscriminate chemical weapons is not just about the people who are ostensibly targeted by the weapons themselves, but the people nearby. We have an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Portland. Nearby there used to be a K-8 school. Through the volume of chemical weapons used by federal law enforcement, the school was unusable and had to move. We have a nearby affordable housing facility that's been contaminated too. As the commission quoted from physicians and human rights, chemical irritants including both CS and OC can spread to other people to affect people other than the intended target. Why back away from something that Berkeley does that is a model for other jurisdictions? I encourage you to retain the ban and when you do, please know that there are elected officials in other cities looking at your work as a source of strength for our own fights for a clean environment, for civil rights, for accountability, ultimately for a safer community. Thank you, Council Member Pence. Thank you. Our next speaker is Cindy Shamban. Yeah, hi. My name is Cindy Shamban. I'm District 4 and I want to say that I really have not heard a good reason for bringing these weapons back. They were canceled a number of years ago for good reason and there's no good reason to bring them back now. And I strongly support so much of what other people have said, so I'll stop right there. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Avery Arbaugh. Good evening, Council Members, Mayor. My name is Avery Arbaugh. I am the chair of the Berkeley Tenants Union and I'm protested quite a few times in Berkeley in my years living here. And luckily, because of the current laws in place, I have never been tear gassed in Berkeley. But I have been tear gassed in other cities. The first time I was ever tear gassed was in Washington, D.C. after the Dobbs decision. I and hundreds of peaceful protesters were tear gassed walking through the streets of Washington, D.C. And I remember my friend getting hit in the face by a tear gas canister and walking her to the hospital. She still has stitches and a scar today as a result of that. I would love to see that not come to pass in Berkeley and I would love for us to not move towards a future in which that's possible. Thank you for your time. Our next speaker is Della Luna. Yes, thank you. I would like to agree with the previous speaker and say that I haven't heard a single reason why these weapons should be brought back. I did hear the officer in line today say that these weapons bring distance and time to the officers in these situations. And I just wanted to bring up a scenario in real life with Uvalde, Texas. They had 376 law enforcement officers respond to a school shooting and none of the officers breached the door. And the shooter was active for 77 minutes. So the distance and time that that officer was like championing didn't actually help in that situation. And then you could ask how could tear gas help in that situation? Well, it couldn't. It would have gassed all the children as well. So I also would like to hear about the technical difficulties that the meeting had and how it was resolved. And I think that should be disclosed to the public because it seems a little convenient that with such opposition the meeting just was working fine and then was suddenly disrupted without any explanation. Your time is up. Thank you. Next speaker is Leah M. Hello. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Oh, great. Thanks. Yeah, my name is Leah. I'm a resident of Berkeley. I grew up in Oakland. And anyways, I don't know what to say other than why are we even here? Why are we even discussing this issue? No one is in favor of it, as a previous caller pointed out. Yes, if this is what we've come to, yeah, I don't know what to say. How much time do I have if you don't mind me asking? 30 seconds left. Okay, great. Thanks. Yeah, I support continuing the ban if that's not clear. Thank you. Thank you. I don't see any other hands raised online, so that will be the end of public comments. We will move to council comments and starting with Council Member Taplin. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. People are concerned about the adverse health impacts of chemical agents, and they're worried that lifting the ban will impede their ability to participate in the first line of activities. That's not what's being proposed tonight, and I don't subscribe to some of the doomsday scenarios, but I think the topical utility is opaque to people in the community. So whatever happens tonight, I'm happy to work with the department, the union, the PAB, and the community to better understand special response and the needs of that area of operation. I look forward to hearing from my colleagues. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Kesarwani, folks, please. Thank you very much, Madam Mayor, and I want to thank the public for sharing their comments tonight. I know this has dragged on, and I'm glad that, you know, I hope we can have an up or down vote tonight. I know we will. And I want to thank my colleagues for attending again, because I know it's not easy to get here at 4 p.m. And I especially want to thank Chief Lewis, Deputy Chief Tate, and Captain Oakes for being here and your service to this city. I also want to acknowledge the officers who are here who serve our community. And, you know, when we were putting this item together, I was thinking about our officers who, you know, they are always there, whether it's a noise disturbance or somebody who you think may be armed. And, you know, as has been said, this is a less lethal tool. This is about trying to protect life. Order. And, you know, I want to talk about asthma because I agree with the public commenters who are saying tear gas should not be used ever in a crowd control situation. That is exactly what this item spells out very clearly. So the debate we are having tonight is not about that. We all agree. I think it's unanimous. That is not what is up for debate tonight. What we are asking for is narrowly tailored. This is for the special response team. Folks, it's not appropriate to yell out when people are speaking. Please let the council member speak. Put their lives on the line for critical life-threatening incidents, and we're talking about three in this case. We're talking about a barricaded subject. This can be an armed barricaded subject in an enclosed area, potentially an active shooter in a classroom, serving a high-risk warrant when a subject is actively threatening death or serious injury to officers or civilians or hostage situations. This is somebody with a gun to somebody's head in our community. No, it doesn't happen every year. It doesn't happen six times a year. We shouldn't have to meet a frequency threshold to save somebody's life. It happened. It was used once for a barricaded subject in 40 years. Well, to me, it is worth my political capital to save that person's life. I am asking my colleagues to put politics aside and think about the possible future life that could be saved if we allow a less lethal tool for a special response team. And I believe the officer said that he's not aware of any jurisdiction in the country that doesn't allow a special response team to use a less lethal tool like this. We're not aware of any city in the Bay Area. The chief has said that. I have asked her. So our only goal is to ensure in these low-likelihood situations that our special response team has a less lethal tool. All three tools that we're talking about tonight remain governed by Policy 300 on use of force, Policy 303 on control devices and techniques, and Policy 428 on First Amendment assemblies. The proposal now reflects agreed-upon language negotiated by the Police Accountability Board and the Berkeley Police Department. And, you know, for those of you who took the time, who bothered to read the report, we talked about how the prior body, the Police Review Commission, actually supported the use of tear gas for the special response team. That was a vote of, I believe it was 7-1-0, but we can check the report to see what that vote was. So for the purposes of discussion, I would like to move Council Member Blackaby's version of the resolution. And I did have one additional clause. This is around what we talked about in the report. I want to make it really clear about the reporting. So I'll just read off. This is an additional clause. So it's be it further.
Segment 4
to address it. It makes sense to do that, even though it is very dangerous and caustic. Many other people have also talked about, you know, well, we're allowing police to use it here, but they're going to use it on crowd control. I know they're going to. Many people expressed some version of that. And there's no logic to this argument that we can use up here. We already allow our police to carry guns, which are much more dangerous than tear gas. Could an officer choose to use their gun in a non-authorized way to cause a great deal of harm? Absolutely, they could. If that happens, God forbid, we have accountability structures in place, and we would deal with that appropriately. But we have to trust our police to do their jobs and follow the rules that we as the council lay out for them. If we don't have that trust, we have way bigger problems. So the item is written as completely reasonable to me, and I'll be voting in favor of the motion. People, this is not you at home in front of the television. This is you in council chambers where we're trying to have a meeting, and I want to hear my colleagues and what they have to say. So we have time that's set aside for public comment. We are listening. We're respectful. Believe me, we have sat through hours of comments. I really want to hear my colleagues and understand the arguments that they're making. So I would appreciate it if you would all be respectful and be quiet so that we can hear everyone. Okay. We have Council Member Bartlett and then Council Member Lunaparra. The parliamentarian is best up again. So if you would like to speak again, Council Member Taplin, you can. But Council Member Bartlett first. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Mayor. And I want to thank the author for bringing this forward and thank everyone for their positions and the activists and the people who are concerned. I know everyone is doing their darn best to make people safe, whatever vantage point they have. I know it's sincere. And I want to say I respect our officers tremendously. I went on a ride-along a few weeks ago. It was a lot of fun. We did a lot of good work. We helped a lot of people. And I'm still haunted by the people we couldn't help that night. But I did notice that night the amount of goodwill that people felt towards the work we're doing. And that was really, really heartening. And so that experience taught me that policing is profoundly human work. It's a human job. And our officers walk into situations that are dangerous and painful and complicated and impossible a lot of times. And so as a result, I definitely do want to double down on my support for the work you do and for yourselves and give people the training and the staffing, technology, the wellness support, and resources that help them do this human work safely and well. Unfortunately, I don't think tear gas gets us there. So I was there when we banned it. And I remember the pain that people testified to, that they felt. And the seniors inside their homes, the secondary effects of it, and just the sheer emotional sort of heft that comes with being impacted by it and the fear that it generates. As we see now, it's generating tremendous fear. And so this is a serious, serious chemical banned at lots of places, a tool of warfare. And I understand it's a very narrow circumstance. You contemplate using it. But that same sort of narrow circumstance and its frequency or its lack of frequency, it kind of makes it work against this agenda tonight. Because I have to go explain to my constituents who, to the person, all of them oppose this without fail, 100% of them. And if I were to vote for this, I'd have to explain to them why. And it's difficult to make that explanation when it's been used once in 40 years. It feels like a waste of goodwill when we could use the goodwill for more important things that we need for BPD and for the community. So for that, I cannot vote for this. I just don't feel the burden's been met to justify the rancor, justify the fear, justify the erosion of goodwill. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Luna-Phara, did you have something to add? Yes, thank you very much. And I understand the rationale of my fellow Council Members, Kesarwani and Blackabee and Vice Mayor Keefe. You know I try to understand how each tool works and what it's for. But I need the community to understand. And as a city, we have a new PAB director. We have a new PAB. It's very important that we leverage that infrastructure to help the community understand what's being proposed and to bring them along. And it might take time, but I think that there is will to do that. But it is a major decision, and it's important that we as a city evaluate it very carefully and we take our time with it. Because people don't understand what our options are or whether there are alternatives. And I agree with Council Member Luna-Phara. People are going to see this, and they're going to second-guess their ability to exercise speech. And people, you know, bad actors around the country are going to weaponize that against us. And they're going to, you know, I think we just have to be really careful what the message sends. And in order for us to land this policy, it needs to be crystal clear to every stakeholder why this is a tactical necessity and why there is nothing else. So I think we'll take the vote, and I think the work will continue. And I'm happy to be involved in that work. But I think tonight is not the night that we take this action. Council Member Humbert is online. I'm sorry, Council Member. I know you did raise your hand at one point, so I want to make sure you get a chance to speak. Folks, please. Thank you. Go ahead. Madam Mayor, you're calling on me? Yes, Council Member. Thank you. Can you hear me clearly? Yes, we can. Thank you. First, I want to thank the Police Accountability Board, Chief Caetano, Chief Lewis, Deputy Chief Tate, Captain O'Keefe, Arlo, and everyone at BPD, as well as staff in the City Manager's office, and everyone who spoke here tonight. I, of course, also want to thank Council Member Kessler-Waney for bringing this item forward and Council Member Blackabee for his constructive and extremely helpful recommended amendments, as well as Council Member O'Keefe, who offered recommendations at the Public Safety Committee. I know these are tough issues. Indeed, I think some of the toughest issues that we face as a Council, and I truly appreciate everyone's dedication and constructive, collaborative approach. I believe there's broad agreement on the most important aspect of this proposal before us tonight. BPD will not use tear gas as a means of crowd control, period. I'm going to repeat that because I think there's been confusion on this point. The main proposal under consideration this evening, with which our Police Department is in agreement, would prohibit the use of tear gas for crowd control. And I agree that this prohibition is the right thing to do. Tear gas is an indiscriminate and potentially very harmful chemical that we have seen increasingly abused across the country in our dangerous political climate. I suspect that I'm the only Council Member on the dais, or virtual dais, that has been subjected to tear gas for purposes of crowd control. For me, it was many years ago at a protest on the streets of Washington, D.C. This use should never be permitted. Maintaining a prohibition on the use of tear gas for crowd control in Berkeley makes it unambiguous. Using it in that way would be a violation of our city policies that would carry severe consequences, period, full stop. Now, I'm going to say that I understand where the people who are still against it are coming from. They look at what has been going on with ICE, CBP, and other police departments across the country, and they say that just having these tools on hand creates opportunities for abuse, and therefore we shouldn't have them at all. I disagree with this position for multiple reasons. Simple reality is that people committing crimes often have guns, which are often semi-automatic and sometimes even essentially machine guns with the application of what are called Glock switches, and law enforcement needs tools to deal with this. I would love to live in a world where no criminal has a firearm or other weapon or explosives, but that's not the world we live in. Again, as the only council member who's been tear-gassed, I think I want to emphasize that I do not take these considerations lightly. I also want to say I have a high degree of trust in our police chief and our police department, and I believe BPD is very dedicated to following our policies. But if some hypothetical police department were determined to violate policies against using tear gas on a crowd, they would also be willing to violate policies against having it in the first place. I have confidence that this will not happen with BPD. Assuming zero trust and presumptive police misconduct is not a reasonable place from which to be making policy. We should base our choices on the needs and conduct of our police department, BPD, the police department that we rely on here in Berkeley, not some department somewhere else or some imagined one. With respect to smoke and pepper spray, I likewise believe that Kessler-Wani's item with Council Member Blackaby's most recent amendments represents an appropriate approach with adequate safeguards for the use of these other less than lethal tools. I believe that the lower degree of harm and the greater targetability of smoke and pepper spray render them appropriate for the very limited set of circumstances that these policies spell out. You know, I want to thank everybody who's worked so hard on these policies, and I'm prepared to support the approach in the Kessler-Wani item.