Murdered Berkeley Man, Peter M. Cukor, Didn’t Have to Die
by Steed Dropout
Mar. 17, 2013
FUCK THE POLICE MARCH, PART ONE
The last Berkeley Fuck the Police march I covered (marched in) for the Berkeley Daily Planet was last year, Feb. 18th. Nothing happened on the march but a Berkeley man was murdered at his home in an exclusive Berkeley hills mansion.
He was killed before fuck the police marchers entered Berkeley from downtown Oakland. Remember this as you read on.
City of Berkeley Police, who diverted an officer — who might have prevented the murder — later said, they were “monitoring occupy.” I was there. The police made one lame show of force near midnight. They cruised by in command cars and gave the marchers the stink eye. That’s it.
Feb. 18 last year. Occupy Oakland arrives in Berkeley at 7:20 to join Occupy Berkeley. Photo by Ted Friedman.
Peter Cukor, 67, was battered to death with his own garden statuette — at 7:05 p.m. I repeat, killed at seven. Occupy Oakland doesn’t arrive in Berkeley until 7:20 p.m. They were not in Berkeley until after the man was killed.
The killer was a 23 year-old schizophrenic from a prominent Alameda family. His doctors and family had pleaded with a magistrate to not release the boy. Off his meeds, and holed up in an Oakland flophouse, he had bussed to the Berkeley Hills where voices told him he would find Zoe, his “other.”
Berkeley police said they couldn’t rescue the murdered man because they were monitoring an event which had not yet occurred.
We’d like stock in the needlessly murdered man’s family’s lawsuit against Berkeley.
Feb. 18, last year. Peaceful marchers at international House. Photo by Ted Friedman.FUCK THE POLICE MARCH, PART TWO
This one called itself “Anonymous Queers for Radical Action.” They bamboozled the Daily Californian, who wrote that the marchers were to be “militant.”
Berkeley Police must have picked this up (INTEL, they call it) because they had learned from past mistakes( with INTEL) and they deserve credit for this.
As the demo gathered at People’s Park, cops on bikes, then in squad cars encircled the park. When Fuck the Police marched into Berkeley last year, there were no visible cops, or rather the stake-out was clandestine.
Cops were highly visible this time.
Before the latest march. Marchers gather in People's Park. Photo by Ted Friedman.You could say they were the good-natured bike cops whom the marches wanted to sodomize, some of whom were called in off duty (“It was date night for me,” one told me). So here we are in the middle of a contradiction. A march with the theme, and often chanted, “fuck the police,” being escorted by twelve good-natured bike cops.
Twelve of the coolest cops at BPD. They seemed to enjoy the attention when marchers chanted fuck the police. Called up or not, they were having a good time.
It soon became obvious that this was an Occupy Oakland Fuck the Police march, the second in Berkeley in twelve months.
The marchers were not as cool as the cops. I’ve never seen such an up-tight group in my short career. One guy said I was “rude and disrespectful” to be photographing his back. I got an e-mail from Ken Wayne, at Ch 2, saying he and his cameraman had been hassled.
“Fuck the media,” they chanted. Even though they stage these marches for the press.
When they arrived at BPD headquarters, they were worked up pretty good.
They think the cops “murdered” a 350-pound black man-to-woman, during a crisis intervention. The big gal stopped breathing. Toxicology reports are not yet available from the coroner.
Cops from another department (not involved) told me that the death of the 350-lb. subject is consistent with a profile: uppers, obesity, and too much adrenaline; “the system shuts down,” an officer said.
“We get hundreds of hours of critical intervention training, and we’re sure Berkeley does too.”
She handed me a spit mask. I thought that might have caused the death. She had me try it on. It was fool-proof. I could breathe through it but it blocked spit.
Latest march ends here. Photo by Ted Friedman.Some of the protesters really reached a climax of protestation. They seemed to enjoy their fuck the police chants and “murderers.” Murderers really did it for them.
You could say a good time was had by all.
Especially the cops.
“Just the facts, ma’am.”
