Public Comment

As the so-called victim of the Oct. 19 assault in West Berkeley described in the San Francisco Chronicle’s Oct. 28 article “When Wife is Attacked, Husband Becomes Hero,” I would like to express a few thoughts on the matter. While I am grateful to journalist Chip Johnson for bringing attention to the assault and to crime in West Berkeley I am curious as to why he chose not to hear and include “the wife’s” version of the events. Mr. Johnson presented the crime and my husband’s actions as a hyper-masculine fantasy in which a lone-ranger saves a damsel in distress and bashes the bad guy. I found this to be disturbing on a few different levels not least of which was the reaction it received from readers: many readers wrote in to the Chronicle’s blog saying my husband should have simply killed our assailant. 

I was also troubled by Mr. Johnson’s presentation of the story because neither I nor my two small daughters were voiceless, passive victims in this assault and we do not appreciate being portrayed as such. I screamed and screamed, and did not stop screaming from the moment Mr. Davidson sprayed mace in my face, hit me on the back of the head, and shoved me to the sidewalk. I screamed even louder when, with the one eye I could see with, I watched him get into my car and try to turn it on, with my two young daughters still buckled into their seats. Luckily for my daughters, I had pocketed the car keys before getting out of the driver’s seat to remove the grocery bags from the car’s rear. They had the good sense to scream their lungs out when they saw someone they did not know get in their mommy’s seat. They and I did not stop screaming until neighbors up and down the street came running out of their houses and my husband came running from our backyard. What the neighbors and my husband thought at first was children playing they quickly had figured out were people in distress and they came to help.  

Thank God for my neighbors and for the close-knit community we have created. Thank God for the Berkeley Police Department and Berkeley Fire Department which both came quickly to the scene and were helpful and sympathetic. Thank God for my husband who is guided as much by his instincts as his mind. He did not want to hurt Mr. Davidson, he wanted only to catch him and subdue him. In fact, when Mr. Davidson complained that he suffered from asthma as my husband was pinning him to the ground my husband advised him to “breathe slowly and evenly, like they do in yoga.” 

My husband and I, and our two young daughters, have put our hearts and souls into West Berkeley since we moved here in 2000. We connected a local boy and his parents who have no financial resources with a school that gave him a full scholarship and continues to stimulate his exceptional brain. With the help of neighborhood kids we painted the ugly, crumbling white stanchions (those road barriers all over Berkeley preventing speeding) with brightly colored flowers and hand imprints. We planted flowers and succulents in them and replanted them for years, even after angry neighborhood kids and teenagers would regularly pull everything out and throw it to the ground. We have been greatly involved with the Rosa Parks Neighborhood Association—an on-again, off-again group of varying size and commitment that tries to bring peace, beauty, health, and better opportunity to the West Berkeley community. As part of my belief that making and viewing art can bring healing to people, I almost succeeded in organizing the kids of the neighborhood into painting a mural on Rosa Parks Elementary School’s huge wall facing the community park. I have taught media courses at another local elementary school, Black Pine Circle School, in which the kids photographed and videotaped West Berkeley residents and shopkeepers as a way to celebrate our community, record its stories, and foster dialogue. Simply by buying a home in West Berkeley and putting our time, energy and resources into turning it from an eyesore with crack vials and discarded condoms in its front yard into a place that people pass and say “I like what you’ve done with your house” we have helped our community. Up and down the street, when people take pride in their homes and their community, whether it is as modest a thing as clearing up garbage on the sidewalks or planting a few flowers, it helps everybody.  

After this recent assault I am sad. My sorrow lies in my loss of enthusiasm for this wonderful, diverse, fascinating West Berkeley neighborhood I still love. And my sorrow lies also in the fact that I am so angry. I am angry at President Bush and the past eight years and the disasters that he has brought upon all of us and the world. He and his policies have decimated the social structure and education that our youth so obviously need. His policies have taken the money needed for health and education and society’s well-being to pay for exorbitant wars that have only brought those nations and ours further suffering. Finally, I am sad for this young man, Mr. Davidson, who through a series of events in his own life has arrived at a point where he can assault a fellow human being.  

Obviously what happened to my family is nothing compared to the terrors people deal with every day in Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur, and many places right here in the United States. But it was still upsetting and mirrors larger societal problems. Surely the City of Berkeley can do something to get rid of or at least lessen the drug dealing, prostitution, robberies, and assaults in West Berkeley. Surely something can be done to funnel the energies of our young people from destructive to creative activities—like the mural-painting project that West Berkeley artist Juana Alicia and the City of Berkeley have recently started with local youth. Surely with the hope and leadership that our new President-elect provides to all of us we can find ways to foster the many positive, unique qualities of West Berkeley. Like Obama, we are all creative, resourceful, inspired, and inspiring people; let’s come up with solutions. Let’s make an effort anyway.  

Myra Paci is a West Berkeley resident.