Oakland schools police chief needs to be fired



While I was busy photographing political rallies involving Barack Obama and John McCain as well as Obama’s victory party last week, an Oakland police chief was shamelessly berating, insulting and threatening an Oakland Tribune videographer.

And it was all caught on tape.

The video is so appalling that it’s a wonder Oakland School District Police Chief Art Michel hasn’t been fired yet, not that the Tribune hasn’t called for his termination. He even went as far as confiscating the video camera before returning it three days later.

It all started when Tribune videographer Jane Tyska was filming a student protest against immigration raids and she came in contact with Michel’s squad car.

Tyska claims Michel grazed her with his car as he drove by. Michel claims that Tyska deliberately hit his car with her elbow as he drove by.

Regardless of who’s telling the truth – and I believe Tyska is telling the truth – Michel went completely overboard in his reaction to the incident by telling her to “get in the fucking car”, “you’re a pain in the ass” and “you’re a lying sonofabitch”.

Considering it was election day, perhaps Michel was upset that McCain was losing in a landslide.

Whatever his excuse, he has no excuse. It’s shocking to see that an officer with such a volatile temperament was able to become a police chief in the first place. No telling how he treated people when he knew he wasn’t being filmed.

Tyska, who was threatened to be arrested for inciting a riot, was never arrested.



While I was busy photographing political rallies involving Barack Obama and John McCain as well as Obama’s victory party last week, an Oakland police chief was shamelessly berating, insulting and threatening an Oakland Tribune videographer.

And it was all caught on tape.

The video is so appalling that it’s a wonder Oakland School District Police Chief Art Michel hasn’t been fired yet, not that the Tribune hasn’t called for his termination. He even went as far as confiscating the video camera before returning it three days later.

It all started when Tribune videographer Jane Tyska was filming a student protest against immigration raids and she came in contact with Michel’s squad car.

Tyska claims Michel grazed her with his car as he drove by. Michel claims that Tyska deliberately hit his car with her elbow as he drove by.

Regardless of who’s telling the truth – and I believe Tyska is telling the truth – Michel went completely overboard in his reaction to the incident by telling her to “get in the fucking car”, “you’re a pain in the ass” and “you’re a lying sonofabitch”.

Considering it was election day, perhaps Michel was upset that McCain was losing in a landslide.

Whatever his excuse, he has no excuse. It’s shocking to see that an officer with such a volatile temperament was able to become a police chief in the first place. No telling how he treated people when he knew he wasn’t being filmed.

Tyska, who was threatened to be arrested for inciting a riot, was never arrested.

Support our Mission

Help us build a database of bad cops

For almost 15 years, PINAC News has remained active despite continuous efforts by the government and Big Tech to shut us down by either arresting us for lawful activity or by restricting access to our readers under the pretense that we write about “social issues.”

Since we are forbidden from discussing social issues on social media, we have created forums on our site to allow us to fulfill our mission with as little restriction as possible. We welcome our readers to join our forums and support our mission by either donating, volunteering or both.

Our plan is to build a national database of bad cops obtained from public records maintained by local prosecutors. The goal is to teach our readers how to obtain these lists to ensure we cover every city, county and state in the country.

After all, the government has made it clear it will not police the police so the role falls upon us.

It will be our most ambitious project yet but it can only be done with your help.

But if we succeed, we will be able to keep innocent people out of prison.

Please make a donation below or click on side tab to learn more about our mission.

Subscribe to PINAC

Bypass Big Tech censorship.

Carlos Miller
Carlos Millerhttps://pinacnews.com
Editor-in-Chief Carlos Miller spent a decade covering the cop beat for various newspapers in the Southwest before returning to his hometown Miami and launching Photography is Not a Crime aka PINAC News in 2007. He also published a book, The Citizen Journalist's Photography Handbook, which is available on Amazon.

Leave a Reply

- Advertisement -

Latest articles