Each year, members of the Oakland Fire Department’s fire prevention team ascend the meandering roads of exclusive bungalows and estates perched on the city’s woodland hills. They are looking for fuel – toppled trees, broken branches and thick underbrush that could power catastrophic wildfires.
Kevin Moore was on inspection duty last month when 911 operators received a call about a suspicious man in the backyard of a home he had checked.
That same day, a resident sent an Oakland police officer footage from a home security camera that showed Mr Moore ringing a doorbell.
And when Mr Moore returned to the area last week for more inspections, a resident confronted him with a cellphone camera and demanded to see his identification.
In each of the cases, Mr Moore, who is black, was reported to the authorities or viewed suspiciously for simply doing his job, the latest high-profile example in recent months of the treatment faced by many people of colour in the United States.
“People need to know that minorities are treated differently in this country,” said Megan Bryan, an Oakland firefighter who works with Mr Moore at Fire Station 24.
“I’ve never had anyone wonder what I’m doing in their yard,” said Ms Bryan, who is white. “But with Kevin, it’s a different attitude. They are suspicious.”
The encounters in the Oakland Hills section of the city, which Ms Bryan wrote about on her Facebook page last week, were reported over the weekend in the San Francisco Chronicle. On Monday, city leaders sent an email to every municipal employee.
“Recent events in Oakland and around the country demonstrate that implicit bias and overt racism persist and cause great harm to our communities of colour,” Sabrina Landreth, the city administrator, wrote. “Now more than ever we need to treat each other with kindness, dignity, and respect; stand up for injustice; speak out for what’s right; and support each other and our community.”
Mr Moore, who has worked with the fire department for 12 years, did not respond to repeated requests for interviews.
The New York Times
