Page 154 – Bohemian | Sonoma & Napa Counties

Maia Kobabe: America’s Most Banned Author Won’t Be Silenced

Jun 19, 2023

Maia Kobabe: America’s Most Banned Author Won’t Be Silenced

Note: Maia Kobabe’s pronouns are e/em/eir.

Maia Kobabe, author-illustrator of “Gender Queer: A Memoir,” sits atop a picnic table at Ragle Ranch Regional Park, eir legs perched on the bench. Kobabe (pronounced koh-BABE) pauses to point out birds during our conversation and to appreciate the laughter of kids at the nearby playground.

E wears one long earring that catches the dappled sunlight while we talk. Kobabe’s outfit—yellow pants, a black sweatshirt with the brand name FILA colorfully embroidered across the chest, the long earring—is familiar to me because e illustrated the look in a recent Instagram post showing off what Kobabe and eir friends wore to K-pop concerts last year.

K-pop and Sonoma County’s natural beauty are two things bringing Kobabe joy at a time that’s also caused em fear and fatigue. According to the American Library Association (ALA), “Gender Queer” is the most-banned book in America.

When it came out in 2019, “Gender Queer” was hailed as a powerful story, great resource and queer-comics classic. The first run of 5,000 copies sold out within a week.

Kobabe’s first book, “Gender Queer” is an illustrated coming-of-age autobiography about eir journey of self-discovery as a nonbinary and asexual person. The story chronicles Kobabe’s upbringing in rural Sonoma County and eir social experiences in grade school through grad school. E attended San Francisco’s California College of the Arts, where eir professor Melanie Gillman was the first openly nonbinary person e met.

Kobabe, now 34, depicts decades of dissonance between eir self-conception and society’s gendered expectations of em. During Kobabe’s childhood, eir parents never enforced gender roles on themselves or their children. E frequently felt like kids at school had access to information e lacked about things like shaving and using deodorant. Kobabe also struggled academically until e learned to read at age 11. This launched a lifelong love of books; from then on, e devoured fantasy books and later, queer stories.

“Gender Queer” palpably conveys Kobabe’s experience of gender dysphoria. Yet, what’s more striking is how well it also conveys instances of gender euphoria—profoundly positive experiences when Kobabe feels harmony between eir nonbinary identity and gender expression. Kobabe feels euphoria when e begins to use the pronouns e/em/eir and when e buys clothes that feel “queer and magical.”

Alongside eir exploration of gender, the book also documents Kobabe’s path of sexual discovery, from teenage crushes to masturbation to first times with a partner. Kobabe determines that e has a lower libido than most people e knows and that what arouses em in fantasy isn’t always enjoyable to do with a partner. Ultimately, Kobabe comes to identify as asexual.

Gender Queer comic - Courtesy of Maia Kobabe — In 2016, Kobabe began creating black-and-white mini-zines called “Genderqueer.” Many pages from those zines later evolved into the book, “Gender Queer: A Memoir.” Courtesy of Maia Kobabe

“‘Gender Queer’ is the only time I’ve ever seen anything even remotely close to my identities,” says Alex Brown, a high school librarian, author and award-winning book critic who is genderqueer, asexual and aromantic.

“I came to [the book] long after I’d already come out, so it had no effect on my journey of queer discovery. But unless you’ve never seen yourself represented in media before, you don’t know how impactful representation can be. Maia and I dealt with so many of the same questions and concerns about relationships—both with others and with our own bodies—that I wish I’d had this book as a teen,” Brown says.

Stuart Wilkinson, a gay man who works as a teen-services librarian in Guerneville, calls “Gender Queer” a lifesaving work of art for LGBTQIA+ teenagers and adults.

“When you’re able to see yourself in a nonfiction book like this, especially a beautiful book to look at, I really do think this has a profound impact on mental health,” he says.

In 2020, “Gender Queer” won two major awards from the ALA—a Stonewall Honor in Non-fiction and an Alex Award, which recognizes “books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults ages 12 through 18.”

Then the challenges began.

As libraries and bookstores all over the country bought and displayed Kobabe’s celebrated work, conservative groups took notice, launching efforts to ban “Gender Queer” among a slate of other titles, mostly about LGBTQIA+ characters and characters of color.

Beginning in 2021, the ALA documented a massive surge in calls to ban or censor books in schools and public libraries. For nearly two decades, it tracked censorship efforts on fewer than 300 book titles each year; in 2021, more than 1,800 titles were under attack and by 2022 the number rose to more than 2,500.

Kobabe’s illustrated memoir was at the epicenter.

Kobabe says “Gender Queer” was especially susceptible to book challenges for several reasons—it was readily available in most libraries because of the awards it won, its title comes up immediately when one searches the words ‘gender’ or ‘queer’ and it’s a comic.

“Many of the biggest award-winning names in comics—‘Perspeolis,’ ‘Maus,’ ‘Fun Home’—are solidly books for adults, but there are people who see anything with pictures and think it’s a children’s book,” Kobabe says.

E also says books with pictures are vulnerable to misinterpretations that easily go viral on social media. Calls to censor comics are common enough that there is even a nonprofit organization, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, dedicated to protecting the First Amendment rights of the comics art form and its community. The organization issued a statement of support for “Gender Queer” when the challenges began.

“This nuanced memoir examines nonbinary gender identity in a way that benefits both those who identify as nonbinary and those who wish to better understand nonbinary identity,” the organization said. “In the case of ‘Gender Queer,’ challengers have taken a scant handful of out-of-context images to falsely assert that the graphic novel is pornographic and obscene.”

Ironically, having a banned book has come with some silver linings.

“Not every book that’s challenged sees sales increase, but mine did,” e says.

Articles about Kobabe appear in Time magazine, The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times, among other prominent publications. E has written opinion pieces for NPR and The Washington Post. E also has more speaking opportunities than ever before. In April, Kobabe traveled to Washington, D.C. to speak to librarians at the Library of Congress and to members of the Gay, Lesbian, and Allies Senate Staff Caucus.

“It’s given me a platform and a voice I didn’t have before. I’m trying to use that to the best of my ability,” Kobabe says.

Despite the personal successes the attention has brought, Kobabe wouldn’t choose to be in eir position.

Maia Kobabe portrait 2 - Photo by Chelsea Kurnick — “Saachi’s Stories,” Kobabe’s second book, is forthcoming on Scholastic Books’ Graphix imprint. E received offers from four major publishers. Photo by Chelsea Kurnick

Why are books under attack?

“I’m seeing all of these communities just completely tearing themselves apart over queer books and queer voices and, basically, whether or not they believe that queer and trans people are appropriate in the public sphere,” e says. “All of the personal benefits are pretty much outweighed by my fears over the rise of censorship, the defunding of libraries and all of the anti-trans legislation that’s being passed—limiting health care, bathroom access, sports team access and the teaching of history and pedagogy.”

E continues, “The wave of book challenges that started in 2021 was fueled by a very organized and intentional conservative push to make trans rights the new hot-topic talking point along with things like abortion and immigration,” Kobabe says.

E isn’t alone in characterizing book bans as part of a broader push against trans visibility and rights in the U.S.

In 2022, Randall Balmer, a Dartmouth professor of religion who researches evangelism in America, told The 19th* that the rise in anti-trans legislation is an effort to keep the religious right voting Republican.

“They have an interest in keeping the base riled up about one thing or another, and when one issue fades, as with same-sex relationships and same-sex marriage, they’ve got to find something else. It’s almost frantic,” Balmer said.

After same-gender marriage in the U.S. became legal in 2015, opposition to marriage equality quickly dwindled. Trans rights became the next issue to galvanize white evangelical voters, Balmer said.

The website “Trans Legislation Tracker” counts 558 anti-trans bills introduced across 49 states in 2023 so far. This is an exponential surge since 2015-2019, when each year saw fewer than 60 anti-trans bills introduced nationwide.

A March 2023 PBS NewsHour/NPR/ Marist poll found a majority of Americans oppose anti-trans legislation, but as more bills are introduced, opposition to them is shrinking. For example, in April 2021, 65% of people were opposed to legislation that would criminalize providing gender-affirming care to minors, as compared to 54% in 2023.

“[Book bans] are able to ease in people who may feel confused by terms and identities that are new to them by making it sound like they’re just focused on books. But it’s never been about the books,” Brown says. “It’s about wanting to deny people options … forcing everyone into a cis-allo-heteronormative white supremacist box.”

Trans Legislation Tracker graph 2015-2023 — According to Trans Legislation Tracker, 558 anti-trans bills were introduced in the first six months of 2023. In 2015, the year the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, states introduced 19 anti-trans bills.

While the most numerous and most successful efforts to ban books have been in Texas, Florida and other majority- Republican states, local schools and libraries also face challenges. Last June, a national group called CatholicVote launched a campaign called “Hide the Pride” which instructed parents to check out all books from LGBTQIA+ Pride displays at libraries, then announce to the library that they won’t return the books unless the library agrees to remove “the inappropriate content from the shelves.”

The campaign made waves locally when the group targeted the Rohnert Park-Cotati public library, sharing photos on the CatholicVote website of an empty bookshelf. The library called it a censorship effort against their values.

Kobabe regards book bans as one effort among many to erode public services and human rights e says have long been taken for granted. “Book challenges were step one,” e says. “The ability of trans students to be safe in schools is step two. Completely eradicating trans healthcare—including for adults—is step three.”

Steps four and five, which e fears are forthcoming, would be the eradication of public libraries and public education.

In April, the Missouri House of Representatives voted to completely defund the state’s public libraries. Their decision was a retaliatory reaction to the Missouri Library Association and ACLU suing the state over a recent law that bans hundreds of books from school libraries and criminalizes school officials who don’t comply with the law.

Kobabe worked in an academic library for ten years and is passionate about the resources libraries offer people.

“Beyond access to books, libraries are one of very few places where you can get free WiFi, use free restrooms, even sit in the shade,” e says, adding that many libraries provide after-school care to kids and help adults with taxes and job applications.

“Not having a library really impoverishes a community,” Kobabe says.

Maia Kobabe self portrait - courtesy of Maia Kobabe — In “Gender Queer,” Kobabe writes about how fashion helps em feel gender euphoria. Illustration courtesy of Maia Kobabe

What’s next for Kobabe?

This January, Kobabe announced eir forthcoming second book “Saachi’s Stories.” Written for a younger audience than “Gender Queer,” the new book is a graphic novel written in collaboration with nonbinary comics author-illustrator Lucky Srikumar. Scholastic Books’ Graphix imprint bought the rights to “Saachi’s Stories,” which is slated for release in 2025.

Between accolades and attacks, the continued spotlight on “Gender Queer” spurred a lot of interest in eir next book. “We showed the book pitch to six publishers and ended up getting offers from four of them,” e says.

Kobabe began a draft of what became “Saachi’s Stories” before the backlash to eir memoir started. After eir first book came out, Kobabe heard from many parents of queer and gender-expansive kids who asked if e would ever release a children’s version of the book. E wanted to respond to these requests, but re-working “Gender Queer” didn’t appeal to em.

“It felt weird to abridge my real, lived experiences, and I didn’t want to redo a book I had literally just finished,” Kobabe says.

Instead, e decided to write a new, fictional story geared toward a younger audience. Like “Gender Queer,” the new story is about gender, sexuality and exploring one’s identity. Kobabe first hired Srikumar to consult on writing the main character’s best friend as a first-generation Indian-American. After reading an early draft of the script, Srikumar instead suggested the story’s main character could be Indian-American. Kobabe loved their idea and asked if Srikumar would co-author the book.

“At this point, we’ve both worked on it so much, I couldn’t tell you who wrote many of the scenes. It’s been a very interwoven, collaborative process,” e says.

Kobabe is also working on a 32-page zine for transmasculine people about the physical and mental health effects of chest-binding. That project, written in collaboration with a researcher from University of Michigan, took about a year to create. E is nearly finished and beginning to pitch it to publishers.

“And then in the gaps when I’m waiting for editorial feedback on ‘Saachi,’ I have started writing the really rough outline of a third book. It’s a fantasy story that also has queer and nonbinary characters,” e says.

Backlash to “Gender Queer” has consumed a lot of Kobabe’s time and energy, but it hasn’t slowed em down ideologically. “If anything, it made me more determined to keep writing extremely queer stories for the rest of my life,” e says.

Kobabe urges other writers not to let book bans scare them away from telling authentic stories about their own minority experiences, whether that has to do with gender, race, disability, immigration status, neurodiversity or other aspects of intersectional identity.

“The publishers I’ve spoken to have made very firm statements about how they will not be censoring or refusing to buy these books out of fear of being challenged,” e says. “Don’t let fear silence you, because that is one of the goals of censorship—to cause people to censor themselves.”

To Kobabe’s allies, e advises, “Don’t fall into despair; we can’t afford despair. We need action.”

When Kobabe shares information to loved ones about anti-trans legislation or hate acts that make the news, e tries to pair the information with a suggested action they can take. Right now, for example, e suggests supporting the ACLU, which is fighting censorship efforts. Kobabe also asks people to write to government officials to voice opposition to the recently-introduced California bill AB-1314, which would require schools to notify parents when a student socially transitions gender at school.

Despite the challenges, Kobabe feels supported and embraced in the Bay Area, especially within San Francisco’s large queer-comics community. Locally, e credits the Charles Schulz Museum with fostering a cartoonist hub. When a Virginia politician attempted to sue Barnes & Noble for selling “Gender Queer” and another book he called obscene, Kobabe says Barnes & Noble in Santa Rosa reached out almost immediately to invite em to do a book signing.

“It was a lovely gesture of support,” Kobabe says.

Kobabe excels at finding respites from the stressors in eir life. Kobabe recently celebrated 20 years of reading at least 100 books per year.

And then there’s K-pop—popular music from South Korea that has amassed international fans and inspired reality TV shows, collectible pop star memorabilia, fan fiction, choreographed dance videos and more. “I’ve made more new friends recently through a shared love of K-pop than I have through any other venue since grad school,” e wrote in an Instagram post.

“I see live music and I also spend a lot of time with friends talking about album releases and music video releases and upcoming concerts,” e says.

K-Pop Outfits illustration - courtesy of Maia Kobabe — Kobabe illustrates outfits e wore to K-pop concerts and shares the images on eir Instagram. Courtesy of Maia Kobabe

Even during the COVID-19 lockdown, the K-pop industry couldn’t be deterred. Kobabe says, “I saw, like, 30 concerts from my laptop in my bed. And it was great. It really gave me something to look forward to.”

In short comics Kobabe shares on Instagram, e writes about eir love of K-Pop and other fandoms. Whether writing about eir hobbies or the toughest experiences in eir life, Kobabe’s effervescence and authenticity are always apparent.

“I’ve realized how powerful it is to write your deepest truth—to say, ‘I did this,’ or ‘I felt this,’” Kobabe says. “People can argue against it, but they can’t refute it because it’s your truth and you’re saying it from the core of yourself.”

This article was published in collaboration with The Oak Leaf Magazine, the news publication of Santa Rosa Junior College.

CalFresh Cliff: Food banks are being flooded by families seeking help

Rya Jetha

Jun 16, 2023

CalFresh Cliff: Food banks are being flooded by families seeking help

Every two weeks, cars line up at The Hill Church in Vallejo for a drive-thru food distribution. While Whitney Houston songs play over a speaker, volunteers load 39 pounds of food into each trunk—canned tuna, eggs, potatoes and other staples.

Elvira Santiago, a retired medical assistant living in senior housing, is particularly excited about the bag of apples.

“We eat them every afternoon. And I’ll cook chicken adobo with the chicken and vegetables,” said Santiago, who visited the distribution Wednesday for the first time this month and expects to return again. “When you go to Savers or the Filipino grocery, $50 is hardly enough.”

Santiago is one of the thousands of Californians visiting food banks this year, some for the very first time. The Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano, which organizes the Vallejo distribution, is serving 350,000 people every month across the two counties—double the 175,000 people it served per month before the pandemic.

“With inflation going up and CalFresh food assistance going down, I see people in their 20s to people of retirement age all coming out for help,” said Geo Dinoso, who manages distributions for the food bank. “I’m requesting more food every month at my distributions.”

California food banks, which saw more families seeking help during the pandemic, are now serving more people every month as extra benefits started during the pandemic come to an end. That is reducing benefits to 5.3 million Californians—and prompting the statewide food banks association to warn of a “catastrophic hunger crisis” this year.

Instead of functioning as sources of emergency aid, food banks say they are becoming long-term supermarkets for Californians facing food insecurity.

Recipients of CalFresh, California’s version of the federal food stamp program, were given the maximum benefits available for their household size during the pandemic, or at least $95 more a month if they were already at the maximum. However, those emergency allotments ended March 26, meaning that for some single-person households, CalFresh benefits dropped from $281 to as little as $23 a month.

Also, a federal program that gives eligible households food benefits to replace in-person school meals will conclude at the end of this school year. While a summer program will replace it, the benefit will be $40 per month for each child, a substantial drop from the $125 per month for each child families received last summer.

Now, food banks are also worried about the federal debt ceiling agreement, which imposes more work requirements on food aid recipients.

“Often when people receive less CalFresh benefits or are kicked off the program more permanently, they turn to food banks to make up the difference. So we’re concerned about what the debt ceiling agreement will mean for food banks,” said Lauren Lathan Reid, director of communications at the California Association of Food Banks.

Allison Goodwin, the director of programs at the Redwood Empire Food Bank, said demand at the organization’s Sonoma County locations rose 19% in March and has yet to drop.

“We figured there would be an impact, but we did not anticipate the actuality of it,” Goodwin said. “Not only was the food distribution aspect of things more popular, but in March, we had crummy weather. People were coming out in really torrential downpour weather to access food. Normally, that would be something that might cause participation to decrease.”

Moreover, families are coming more frequently. The average patron has gone from using the food bank 2.3 times per month six months ago, up to 2.7 times per month since March, according to Goodwin.

Other food banks in Northern California have seen similar spikes in demand. Berkeley Food Pantry, which serves families in Berkeley and Albany, has seen a 56% increase in demand in the first five months of 2023 compared to 2019.

Dharma Galang, director of the Berkeley Food Pantry, traces this increase in demand to a letter CalFresh recipients received in January informing them that emergency benefits would be scaled back in March.

Since then, the pantry has been running out of fresh vegetables, meat, eggs and dairy products—nutritious foods that are often more expensive at groceries.

Across the Bay, the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank is serving 56,000 households per week compared to 32,000 households before the pandemic. The programs it offers, including neighborhood pantries and home-delivered groceries, are at or over capacity, with long waiting lists.

“To deal with this, we’ve had to scale back and simplify our menus,” said Meg Davidson, the food bank’s policy and advocacy director.

The food bank also works with a multilingual outreach team that helps people sign up for CalFresh benefits. Since March, many people have stopped applying for CalFresh because the benefits have reduced so drastically.

“To go from $281 to $23 a month is devastating, you cannot come back from that,” Davidson said. “In a place like the Bay Area, the benefit allotments are completely out of touch with reality.”

Even with the extra benefits during the pandemic, 20% of Californians still faced food insecurity in 2021. This year, the number is expected to rapidly rise.

From experiences during the 2008 Great Recession and recent survey results from food banks, Reid of the state association anticipates an increase in demand for food for many years to come.

There are efforts underway at the Legislature to increase the minimum CalFresh benefit. Senate Bill 600, authored by state Sen. Caroline Menjivar, raises the amount from $23 to $50 per month.

The bill, however, is estimated to cost $95 million a year, a steep price tag amid California’s $31.5 billion budget deficit. The Assembly-Senate budget deal unveiled on June 12 included $30 million for a pilot program in some counties.

Food banks across California are in favor of this bill, in addition to SB 348, which would ensure access to summer food and school meals programs, and SB 245 and Assembly Bill 311, which would provide state-funded nutrition benefits to all Californians regardless of their immigration status.

“We’re heartened to see that lawmakers at the state level have been acknowledging that this hunger crisis is still going on,” said Davidson of the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank. “We’ve been seeing the exact opposite at the federal level with Congress holding the debt ceiling hostage over SNAP restrictions, and unfortunately we’re seeing it from our local government.”

All four bills have passed their first house, but could face hurdles to become law as the Legislative Analyst’s Office warns that the state cannot afford costly new programs.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s May budget plan includes $60 million for CalFood, which enables food banks to distribute California-grown produce; more than $300 million for School Meals for All; and a total of $2.7 billion in combined state and federal funding for anti-hunger programs.

The budget does not include any money for Market Match, California’s largest nutrition incentive program that allows CalFresh shoppers to double their benefits on fruits and vegetables at farmers’ markets across the state. This has sparked concern from farmers, food banks, and CalFresh recipients who obtained 38 million servings of fruits and veggies through the program.

Newsom’s plan also does not include money to increase the monthly minimum CalFresh allotment, and Menjivar said it will be a challenge to get it included.

Food banks are continuing to advocate for the bill to be in the final budget, which is now being negotiated, with a June 15 deadline for the Legislature to pass at least its version.

“Levels of hunger during the pandemic did not significantly spike, and that was only because we had public programs and food banks that stepped up. If we don’t continue to have investments from the state and federal governments, then all the weight is going to be put on food banks,” said Reid.

For now, people from all walks of life will continue to line up in their cars at the Vallejo food bank. Alvin Angeles, a 32-year-old caretaker in Vallejo who just had a baby, will wait in his car alongside Dave Terry, a 64-year-old on disability.

“It’s a sad thing to see in our United States of America,” said Terry. “I don’t see an end in sight. We need a lot of policy changes.”

Will Carruthers contributed to this report.

Pig’s blood vandalism case returns to Sonoma County court

Chelsea Kurnick

Jun 13, 2023

Pig’s blood vandalism case returns to Sonoma County court

With her phone and handgun by her side, a Santa Rosa woman said she lay awake every night of the Derek Chauvin murder trial in mid-April 2021.

She was anxious because Barry Brodd, her ex-husband, testified as a defense witness as an expert on use-of-force, saying he felt it was “justified and objectively reasonable” of Minneapolis Police Officer Chauvin to kneel on George Floyd’s neck. Brodd said the action—which killed Floyd—wasn’t painful and, thus, Brodd didn’t even consider it a use of force.

The Chauvin trial and Brodd’s testimony kept a lot of people up at night; Floyd’s murder set off international protests against police brutality and for racial justice, including some of the biggest protests in Santa Rosa history.

When Brodd’s ex learned that her former husband would be a defense witness at the trial, she installed Ring security cameras outside the home they used to share. Before becoming a private consultant on police practices and use of force, Brodd worked for 22 years as a police officer at the Santa Rosa Police Department and for 35 years as an instructor at the Santa Rosa Public Safety Training Center.

Brodd moved out of state in 2020, yet his ex feared his testimony and his long career in Santa Rosa might endanger her life.

Last week, Brodd’s ex, who asked that the court refer to her as Jane Doe, shared her story at the beginning of a two-day preliminary hearing in Sonoma County Superior Court. The crimes in question, though bloody, weren’t an attempt on her life, but rather a night of vandalism that made national news and prompted a costly SRPD investigation. The evidence presented shed light on some of the impact Floyd’s murder had in Santa Rosa, thousands of miles away from Minneapolis.

A few nights after Brodd’s testimony, Doe’s Ring app on her phone pinged her with an alert around 3am. On the camera, she saw a person in her yard, so she called 911 and went to her window, Glock in hand. There, she saw a person throw something on her house and run away. Reviewing footage later, she and detectives learned four masked people actually visited her house. The group apparently splashed pig’s blood on her garage door, porch and front door, and left a severed pig’s head on her doorstep.

Around the same time Doe’s house was vandalized, people also vandalized the Agraria hand-shaped marble sculpture outside Santa Rosa Plaza Mall, coating it in blood and leaving a painted sign that said “Oink Oink” leaning against it.

In May 2021, SRPD arrested five local activists, initially charging all of them with felony vandalism and felony conspiracy to commit a crime. One defendant, believed to have created the “Oink Oink” sign at the sculpture, later pled guilty to reduced misdemeanor charges. Her case was dismissed after she completed a diversion program.

When the five were arrested, far-right media outlets and influencers shared their photos and personal information online, some calling them “BLM-Antifa extremists” and “militants.” Kristen Aumoithe and Amber Lucas, two of the defendants, said they faced numerous death threats from strangers.

Amber Lucas and Kristen Aumoithe - April 2021 - Photo by Chelsea Kurnick — Days after their 2021 arrest, three vandalism suspects returned to SRPD headquarters, this time to read poetry in a peaceful protest outside the building. Photo by Chelsea Kurnick

The Evidence Presented

Last week, Hon. Judge John Behnke heard the cases against defendants Aumoithe, Lucas, Colin Metcalfe and Christina Henry.

At a preliminary hearing, a judge hears the prosecution’s case against defendants and determines whether there is probable cause a crime was committed and probable cause the defendants committed it. The prosecution called four witnesses.

Doe testified that the blood left stains and debris that could not be removed, so she had to replace her garage door, front door and vinyl windows. She spent $2,500 to pay her insurance deductible, though the damages were around $35,000, well beyond the $400 threshold of felony vandalism. She said she feels vulnerable and violated, still sleeping with her gun beside her.

SRPD officer Nolan Cleall and Sgt. Ryan Hepp testified about their investigation of the defendants. An anonymous phone tip from a butcher eventually led Cleall to get a search warrant for surveillance footage and receipts at Sonoma County Meat Company, where he said Kristen Aumoithe placed a special order for two gallons of pig’s blood.

Officers surveilled Aumoithe and her friends before serving search warrants at her home and Lucas’ home. They seized laptops and smartphones from the defendants, accessing text and audio conversations on the application Signal between Aumoithe, Lucas, Metcalfe and others.

Aumoithe’s lawyer, Vincent Barrientos, said there was more than 200 gigabytes of discovery in the case. On the stand, Hepp told Lucas’ lawyer, Omar Figueroa, the investigation probably took hundreds of hours of police time.

The prosecution alleged that on April 13, 2021, Aumoithe and Lucas, reacting to Brodd’s testimony, discussed the idea of vandalizing Brodd’s home. Later, they also discussed vandalizing the Agraria sculpture, which was defaced at least twice during the Black Lives Matter protests that began in 2020.

After her arrest, Lucas gave a statement to SRPD before she retained Figueroa. Lucas said she and Aumoithe vandalized the sculpture the same night Metcalfe and Henry vandalized Doe’s home. Lucas said she and Aumoithe had no part in vandalizing Doe’s home.

Barrientos and Figueroa both argued their clients only poured blood on the Agraria sculpture.

While investigators do not believe Lucas or Aumoithe went to Doe’s house, they presented evidence that the two spoke about the idea on April 13 and discussed inviting Metcalfe to participate in the blood vandalism. Later, Aumoithe bought blood and gave some of it to Metcalfe.

On Wednesday, June 7, attorneys for each of the four defendants filed motions asking that their clients’ charges be reduced to misdemeanors. Barrientos sought military diversion in lieu of a trial for Aumoithe, a veteran U.S. Marine.

Judge Behnke said if the vandalism of the hand sculpture was the only crime, he would likely accept everyone’s motions, but he could not in good conscience reduce the vandalism of Doe’s home to a misdemeanor.

However, only three of the four defendants will face charges. Behnke said the prosecution did not present sufficient evidence that Christina Henry participated in either the conspiracy or the vandalism itself. Behnke dismissed Henry’s case.

If found guilty, the maximum sentence Aumoithe, Lucas and Metcalfe could face is three years eight months in state prison.

Barrientos was upset that Behnke did not consider his request for military diversion, which is only applicable to misdemeanor offenses. A decorated veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, Aumoithe toured Afghanistan twice before she was honorably discharged. Barrientos said Aumoithe is exactly who the program is designed for.

Aumoithe said she returned from war with diagnosed PTSD. She said she experienced many abuses of power during her time in the military and faced racist bullying by once friends when she married a Black Marine and started a family. George Floyd’s murder and Chauvin’s trial troubled her.

“Witnessing the same [abuses of power] play out again by people in power—police, who are supposed to serve and protect—was triggering,” Aumoithe said.

If found guilty, Aumoithe might still be offered the opportunity to participate in Veterans Court, a California program that allows qualified veterans to face probation and undergo court-ordered treatment as a consequence of a felony conviction, instead of serving time in jail or prison.

The defendants will appear on July 20 for arraignment, where, unless the prosecution offers a plea bargain, a pre-trial hearing and trial dates will be set.