In 2018 the Hasta Muerte coffee shop in East Oakland made national headlines when they asked Oakland police officers to leave their cafe.

Matt Gereghty, part-owner of the cooperative cafe, was the first person to tell an officer the cafe's policy of asking cops to leave. He read from a collectively written script the staff had composed before opening the shop.

Gereghty tells me it wasn't meant to be a major thing, just the cafe's attempts to ensure peace of mind for their customers by creating a space without cops. They serve a community where people have had traumatic experiences with police officers, or live in fear due to their documentation status.

Keep in mind it was 2018, and President Donald Trump's pro-police and anti-immigration rhetoric was flooding media.

When people found out about the policy, it led to pro-Trump, right wing protestors waving American flags with thin blue lines in front of the cafe. Hasta Muerte also received a letter from the president of the Oakland Police Association saying the policy was “a matter of concern for all Oakland Police Officers.”

The story was covered locally and nationally; it grew to the point that they even mentioned it on The View. But Hasta Muerte hasn't officially talked to any publications about what happened until now.

This week on Rightnowish, we discuss this East Oakland cafe's community-based approach to safety, cops and the media.

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