Photo project supports Black Lives Matter movement

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Photo project supports Black Lives Matter movement

For the last three weeks, peaceful protests around the North Bay and the rest of the country have brought tens of thousands of citizens to the streets to demand major changes to policing and to renew the call that “Black Lives Matter.”

Now, Sonoma County–based FTA (For the Art) Productions—formed by actor Carmen Mitchell and photographer Marcus Ward—is offering an additional way for locals to participate in these demonstrations through the Peaceful Protest Portrait Project.

FTA Productions kicked off the protest art project on Friday, June 5, with a Black Lives Matter curbside photo booth in Healdsburg, where approximately 75 people showed up with face coverings and handmade personal protest signs featuring messages of anger, hope and equality. 

Ward took individual and group portraits of protestors that can be viewed online now and will be turned into a large mosaic collage at a later date in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

FTA Productions organized a second photo-booth event last Saturday, June 13, at Brew Coffee & Beer House in downtown Santa Rosa, in which more than 80 people showed up and made signs that continued supporting the BLM movement while also celebrating Pride.

“We provide the paper, pens, everything for people; they just need to come with a mask,” says Mitchell.

A third photo event in the works is planning to add voters’ rights to the protest messages. 

FTA Productions co-founder Carmen Mitchell is a Sonoma County native who grew up as a competitive figure skater and ballet dancer, training at Snoopy’s Home Ice and the Santa Rosa Dance Theater respectively. Now working as an actor and singer, she recently formed the nonprofit Redwood Theatre Company in Healdsburg.

Out of work until the entertainment industry reopens, she found herself surrounded by other North Bay artists also stuck in the same predicament.

One of those artists is FTA Productions’ other co-founder, Marcus Ward, who works as a freelance photographer and dancer in the North Bay. For this project, the pair recruited coordinator Desmond Woodwar and videographers Alleya Torres and Eddie Melendéz .

“The definition of art is to hold a mirror up to humanity, it is a reflection of society,” Mitchell says. “This is very personal for me because I grew up in a Disney filter. For the first time, I feel like I’m tapping into powerful art that is more than just commercial.”

Mitchell notes that this project is not meant to replace the marches and gatherings that are happening every day, but to bolster those movements.

“We are trying to create a safe space where everyone is welcomed to participate in art without judgment,” Mitchell says. “There’s so many ways to take action, this was our way of hitting the pavement, and we’ve got some backlash hate from it, but it’s OK. We are trying to do better in creating community support and awareness through art.”

See more images and get details on the Peaceful Protest Portrait Project at carmenmariamitchell.com/protest-art.

In Praise of Dr. Marilyn Hulter

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In Praise of Dr. Marilyn Hulter

If, as Dr. Marilyn Hulter says, “Marijuana is God’s gift to mankind,” then surely the good doctor herself is the Goddess’s gift to marijuana patients, everywhere.

Hulter, now 75, and the daughter of a doctor, doesn’t say that about herself. I do. She’s the most remarkable “medical cannabis consultant” I’ve ever talked with and gotten to know, and I have conversed with dozens of them over the past 25 years.

For one thing, Dr. Hulter has had more cannabis patients than any other doctor I’ve known. At last count she had helped over 15,000 men and women. For another thing, she has used cannabis herself for excruciating pain.

“I have seen a few things,” she says modestly.

Dr. Hulter isn’t one bit ashamed or embarrassed to describe her personal connections to, and her long history with, the herb.

“Once, my friends and I ate brownies and got stoned out of our minds,” she tells me.

She was young and not yet savvy.

Last, but not least, Dr. Hulter knows precisely what cannabis does and doesn’t do in the human body. She explains the biology and the chemistry in language a layman such as myself can understand.

If there were a TV series about a pot doc, Hulter would be a near-perfect model. She can talk about science for hours and has given dozens of lectures on medical marijuana all over northern California. She has recommended specific dispensaries, suggested what products to avoid and lambasted prices that are exorbitant and not worth paying.

“Some topicals and tinctures will break your pocket book,” she says.

That kind of practical advice from a doctor is rare indeed.

Dr. Hulter has treated Vietnam vets with PTSD, women with painful menstrual cramps and others with multiple sclerosis, and also aided patients of all ages with awful arthritis. She also credits cannabis with saving her own life. For a time, she says, she was in so much “great pain” that she was “looking for assisted suicide.” For three years, she took 18 Vicodin a day.

“As a Harvard-trained anesthesiologist I took away the pains that other people had and then I had my own pains,” she said.

Cannabis came to the rescue. Dr. Hulter filled capsules with ground-up shake, then popped the capsules and experienced what she describes as “100 percent pain relief,” which turned her into a “passionate advocate for marijuana.”

Two years ago, Dr. Hulter closed down her steady practice, and, while she hasn’t taken on new patients, she keeps track of old ones. After the pandemic she would like to give lectures again. I hope she does. During a recent phone interview, she provided excellent suggestions about how cannabis could alleviate my own back pain. Thanks, Goddess.

Jonah Raskin is the author of “Marijuanaland: Dispatches from an American War.”

Plastic Graduation

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I hate to be the one to point this out, but environmentally speaking, our Sonoma County school systems are very dysfunctional. At a time when the worlds’ oceans are filling up with plastic, our local schools are teaching their students to use even more plastic.

Last week I just happened to be working on a house directly across the street from a Petaluma elementary school that was having their graduation ceremony the same day. I couldn’t help but notice the massive amount of plastic balloons and streamers on display on the school grounds and on the exteriors of vehicles. I decided to keep an eye on the pavement that day to see if they would be leaving any trash on the ground afterwards. Indeed they did, and since nobody associated with the school thought it was important to be concerned with such matters, I picked up the trash myself. 

I asked myself the obvious question which was, if I saw one piece of trash myself, then how many other pieces of plastic trash were generated by that event in the area that I did not see that are on their way to the ocean even as this letter is being read? I figure there are probably at least 10 pieces of plastic from that one graduation ceremony that I did not see that nobody else ever bothered to pick up. So let’s do the math on that. California has a total of 10,315 schools.  If each school drops just 10 pieces of plastic on the ground at their graduation ceremonies, that means that all of those graduation ceremonies are dumping over 100,000 pieces of plastic into the ocean each year, just from California.

In order to affect a change on this issue personally, I will be contacting the local school systems to inform them that until I see two or three consecutive years of plastic-free graduation ceremonies, I will be voting NO on any initiatives involving teacher pay raises or school-bond issues. I suggest everybody else do the same.

If we are not going to fix our dysfunctional local governmental systems, let’s at least fix our dysfunctional local school systems, OK?

Doug Haymaker lives in Santa Rosa.

Local Importance

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Mill Valley has a mayor who just doesn’t get it. This was crystal-clear at the gathering in the town plaza on June 4, when Sashi McEntee once again tried to hide behind a technicality to excuse her stunningly dismissive assertion that showing that Black Lives Matter is “of no immediate local importance.” Yes, that’s out of context; and no, there is no context that makes it acceptable.

Whether or not McEntee remains in office, we in the local community need to look long and hard at ourselves. How did someone with such a narrow view of her responsibility as a leader, and such an apparent inability to hear community voices, get elected in the first place? A number of people have said on social media that they know and like McEntee—great, but that’s changing the subject. She was elected to serve, not as a friend, but in public office. We need to pay attention to local elections, and we need to elect leaders who want to grapple with the issue of police discrimination and violence against Black people—which is of great daily relevance in Mill Valley, and to every single one of us. 

Anne-Marie Harvey

Mill Valley

Public View

It’s so unbelievable that they would treat people in this manner (“Masks Off,” June 6)! The Santa Rosa PD members should all read this article so they can see how they are portrayed to the public—as people who think that the people they arrest are not worthy of their basic respect. The behavior reported here is abhorrent!

Amity Hitchkiss

Santa  Rosa

Neighborhood Bar Endures

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Neighborhood Bar Endures

On a recent Monday morning, Cody Brown removed the dollar bills from the ceiling of his bar, The Dirty, and counted them one by one.

“It comes to about $2,300,” he tells me. “Enough to pay the insurance and keep the place open.”

The bar, which is one of the oldest in Santa Rosa, has a storied past.

“It was the first speakeasy in the city during the prohibition against alcohol, and it was also the first gay bar around here,” Cody explains.

He named it The Dirty soon after he bought it in November 2019. 

With the coming of Covid-19, it was shuttered. As of June 1 it reopened, partially.

“I call it ‘fine parking-lot dining,’” Cody says.

The Dirty offers outdoor barbecue chicken, rice bowls, mac salad and booze, including mixed drinks from veteran bartenders. The pandemic hit Cody especially hard.

“I lost $87,000 and I’m $40,00 in debt,” he says. “Plus, I’m three months behind on the rent and on the cusp of being homeless. I feel like my grandfather, who used to say, ‘I’m floating on the wings of a butterfly.’”  

Cody has followed the protests in Sonoma County and around the country with more than casual interest. From behind the bar, he sings a line from a Rage Against the Machine song—“Those that work forces are the same that burn crosses”—which links cops and the KKK.

“There needs to be a teardown of the whole police system,” he tells me. 

When he first opened The Dirty, there was big-time crime in the neighborhood and the bar itself was, as he explains, “really fucked up.” Cody cleaned it up, attracted a crowd of locals, bohemians and folks who like karaoke, live music and strong drink. 

“Crime dropped 26 percent after we opened,” he says.

Maybe instead of beefing up police departments, cities like Santa Rosa need guys like Cody Brown and establishments like The Dirty, where the color of your skin doesn’t matter and everyone who bellies up to the bar is on an equal footing.

The Dirty, 616 Mendocino Ave. Santa Rosa. Open 3–8 pm, Tuesday–Saturday.

Delivering food security

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Delivering food security

If we want to be a community ready for transformative change, we can begin making it happen by listening to what people actually need, and then responding. 

Sonoma County–based Daily Acts and The Botanical Bus: Bilingual Mobile Herb Clinic are doing just that. They have distributed over 1,000 garden kits in the past weeks to Latinx community members experiencing food insecurity in Sonoma County. 

“Mother Earth feeds us with her fruits and vegetables and heals us with her plants,” says Maria de Lourdes Pérez Centurión, Promatora with The Botanical Bus. “It is impossible to live without them.”

Partnering with Graton Day Labor Center, La Luz Center and CAP Sonoma at their existing resource distribution sites, The Botanical Bus, Daily Acts and the United Farm Workers delivered the garden kits with essentials for growing food anywhere. Kits include potting soil from West Marin Compost and Grab N’ Grow Soil Products; seeds from Mercy Wellness and Sonoma County Climate Activist Network; plant starts of various edible and medicinal plants culturally relevant to the Latinx community from Shone Farm, Petaluma Bounty, The California School of Herbal Studies and Occidental Arts & Ecology; GeoPot Fabric Pot planters from Left Coast Wholesale, medicinal teas from Traditional Medicinals and Tadin and a packet of bilingual educational gardening resources. Starts include organic corn, tomatoes, tomatillos, chile, squash and medicinal herbs.

Additionally, the organizations are coordinating with Santa Rosa Garden company Avalow to build, fill and plant two raised beds for community gardening at La Plaza, a Latinx Cultural and Wellness Center in Santa Rosa.

“We believe the Covid-19 gardening movement is rooted in a deep human instinct to nourish ourselves through connecting to earth,” Joceyln Boreta, co-founder of The Botanical Bus, says. “As we touch soil, tend plants and grow food we reclaim our power to nourish ourselves and our communities.” 

The distributions are part of Daily Acts’ Be the Change campaign in which citizens take personal action to build community resilience. At Daily Acts’ website, people can pledge their actions to Grow a Garden, Practice Self-Care, Save Resources and/or Build Community. Daily Acts offers instructive resources, video content and webinars to support these actions. Along with partners from Petaluma, Cotati and Windsor, Daily Acts tracks the overall impact from this campaign, with a goal of 5,000 actions pledged to demonstrate that our community is ready for transformative change and is making it happen.To pledge your actions, visit https://dailyacts.org/bethechange. To fund a garden kit for a community member, visit: https://thebotanicalbus.org.

Anti-Racist Reads

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Anti-Racist Reads

As street protests against police brutality continue, and are met with more police brutality, many media outlets churn out anti-racist reading lists to meet the demand created by the tragically-newfound interest in white supremacy and anti-Blackness. Due, perhaps, to corporate America’s choke-hold on the publishing industry, it seems the same books are being cited over and over again. This has some people questioning both the efficacy and the intent of these lists. Are they helpful, or are they just a way for the media to virtue signal while selling their products?

One of the fundamental problems is that, while white supremacy and anti-Blackness are on the same continuum, these lists mention books that seem to focus entirely on Black people while failing to mention any books that examine white supremacy, whiteness or how this fatal dynamic in America came to be. The books listed below offer alternatives that do.

The History of White People

Nell Irvine Painter

Historian Nell Irvin Painter covers one of the most overlooked, and under-studied, topics in history by guiding readers through more than 2,000 years of Western civilization, showing both the invention of race and also the constant valorization of “whiteness” for economic, scientific and political ends. The History of White People re-frames the focus by pointing out that “race” is a concept and assignation, more than a biological or genetic fact. 

How the Irish Became White

Noel Ignatiev

Fleeing an Ireland that was under foreign occupation and a caste system that deemed them untouchable, the Irish came to America in the 18th century to find a very different form of social hierarchy—one that was based on the color of a person’s skin. Noel Ignatiev’s 1995 book tells the story of how the new Irish immigrants achieved acceptance among an initially hostile population by proving that they could be brutal in their oppression of African Americans in order to gain white acceptance.

Black Skin, White Masks

Frantz Fanon

Along with Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth, Black Skin, White Masks is essential reading for both anti-racists and Black people seeking to understand the colonial ties of both anti-Blackness and white supremacy. The book is an often heart-wrenching examination of how the Black psyche is affected in a white-supremacist world. Since its publication in 1952, the book remains a vital source today from one of the most important theorists of revolutionary struggle, colonialism and racial difference in history.

Stamped from the Beginning

Ibram X. Kendi 

In this deeply researched book, Kendi examines America’s consistent arch of anti-Black racist ideas and their staggering power over American history. Using the narratives of Puritan minister Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, W.E.B. Du Bois and legendary activist Angela Davis, he shows how racist ideas were created to justify and rationalize deeply entrenched racist policies and to maintain racial inequities. This book can serve as a tool for exposing racist thinking and attitudes often hidden from view. 

Counternarratives

John Keene

Ranging from the 17th century to the present, and crossing multiple continents,  Counternarratives draws upon memoirs, newspaper accounts, detective stories and interrogation transcripts to create new and strange perspectives on our past and present. 

Keene employs a disarming and silent cunning in this book. His re-inventions are more than mere word-play, they are direct, active resistance—through stories of resistance—to the quiet servitude that characterizes existing roles for African American, Asian Americans, Latinos and queer folk in contemporary fiction. The depth and scope of Counternarratives leaves so much more room for saying the unsaid: The violence, the wars within and without, seeing the unseen and discovering the pathways through the passages of these fugitives’ journeys. 

The Fire Next Time

James Baldwin

Both a stirring evocation of Baldwin’s early life in Harlem and a furious examination of the consequences of white supremacist terror, this book consists of two “letters,” written on the occasion of the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, that call for all Americans to resist the terrible machinations of racism. Described by The New York Times Book Review as “sermon, ultimatum, confession, deposition, testament, and chronicle…all presented in searing, brilliant prose,” The Fire Next Time stands as a literary classic.

Why No Confederate Flags in Mexico

Ishmael Reed


During the Civil War, the Confederacy attempted to colonize Mexico and was thwarted by a multi-racial coalition composed of Mexican, Black and Indigenous peoples, mostly children and teens, who successfully resisted them. This is why there are no Confederate statues in Mexico. From this point of buried history, uncovered in the opening essay, “To Exterminate or Extirpate,” Ishmael Reed builds on the theme of resisting white supremacy through the power of multi-racial coalitions with pugilistic essays that pull no punches. Never one to back down from a fight, the author of The Complete Muhammad Ali takes on politics, art and culture with a storied wit and a steady hand. From addressing the vilification of Black men in essays such as “How I Became a Black Bogeyman and Survived to Tell the Tale,” to directly taking on Trump and the resurgence of white supremacist nationalism with essays such as “Trump’s Anti-Black Animus and How the Media Armed Hate,” Reed also reminds us of the beauty of the art of resistance with musings on jazz, Amiri Baraka and Oliver Clark. His essay “White Nationalism’s Last Stand” is so hopeful that it alone is worth the price of admission.

The Many-Headed Hydra

Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker
Both whiteness and anti-Blackness were constructions borne from plunder. When an expansion of trade, colonization and chattel slavery began in the early 17th century, it launched the first global economy; a vast, diverse and landless workforce was created to aid in that expansion. These people crossed national, ethnic and racial boundaries, as they circulated around the Atlantic world on trade ships and slave ships, from England to Virginia, from Africa to Barbados and from the Americas back to Europe.

Pulling an exemplary range of research from archives in the Americas and Europe, the authors show how these ordinary people resisted through rebellions on both sides of the North Atlantic. The rulers of the day called the multi-ethnic rebels a “hydra” and brutally suppressed their uprisings; yet some of their ideas fueled the age of revolution, and they still can today.

Eventful Father’s Day Weekend in North Bay Includes 24-Hour Protest & Virtual Variety Show

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Eventful Father’s Day Weekend in North Bay Includes 24-Hour Protest & Virtual Variety Show

Slowly, but surely, the North Bay is re-opening. After more than two months in self-isolation due to Covid-19, residents in Sonoma and Napa County are starting to return to shops, restaurants and other social venues.

In addition to relaxing shelter-in-place orders, the Black Lives Matter movement and protests against police brutality continue to take to the streets in spots like downtown Santa Rosa, meaning that Father’s Day weekend 2020 is shaping up to be a busy few days in the North Bay.

Of all the events taking place between June 20 and 21, the most ambitious endeavor is the planned 24-Hour Protest in Santa Rosa. Organized by a group of young activists, the planned protest aims to make a stand against police brutality and to champion peace and justice. On the event’s Facebook page, organizers write, “We want to shed light on police brutality in our community and are trying to create a platform where all people of color can come and express the change they feel is important. We want to provide a safe environment for everyone to come together and HEAR each other on the issues they feel are important to make a change. “

With that goal, the protest will begin on Saturday, June 20, at 1pm in Doyle Park near downtown Santa Rosa where organizers will be handing out calling cards with demands for local, county and state government representatives for protesters to call. The event then marches to Juilliard Park, where group activities, educational talk and an open mic stage will cover topics such as knowing your rights and how to effect change the community.

A silent candle-lit march in remembrance of lives lost to police violence then moves the protest to the Old Courthouse Square, where protesters will camp out overnight until a Father’s Day brunch on Sunday morning caps off the event. The protest organizers ask participants to adhere to Covid-19 precautions such as wearing a face covering and keeping socially distant when possible.

“The purpose of this protest is to give a voice to the people who need it most. This is absolutely a protest 10000% in support of the Black Lives Matter movement and want to give the opportunity to them and others alike to express the change they feel needs to happen within our community,” write protest organizers on Facebook.

In the art world, many North Bay galleries and arts groups are re-opening to the public after months of closures. One such group is the Arts Guild of Sonoma, which announced the reopening of its gallery this week, just in time to participate in the National Arts Drive on June 20.

The national grassroots fundraiser is a multi-city community experience taking place across the US. During the “Drive,” artists will showcase their work in ways that can be seen in-person from a safe distance.

“While online showcases of creativity are abundant, nothing compares to an arts viewing experience in person,” says Heidi Luerra, founder and CEO of organizing group RAW Artists. “While arts events have gone dark, this is our creative response to ensure artists are still seen, heard and supported.”

The National Arts Drive was originally set to take place in Atlanta, Austin, Chicago, Cleveland, Denver, Los Angeles, New York (Brooklyn), San Francisco, Seattle and Washington D.C., but has quickly spread to multiple cities, and the Arts Guild of Sonoma is participating from 1pm to 4pm on Saturday. “We are taking every precaution to make sure all remain safe and will adjust as need be with changing circumstances,” writes the arts guild in a statement.

Not every venue is ready to re-open, namely small music and events venues like West Sonoma County’s beloved Occidental Center for the Arts. Last month, the center first took to the web to combat social distancing and share an abundance of music and fun with the Arts In Our Hearts Virtual Variety Show, featuring a cavalcade of performers. The free streaming show was such a hit that the arts center is doing it again on June 20 at 8pm, with another stellar line-up of popular Bay Area and North Bay artists including T Sisters, Jon Gonzales, Dirty Cello, Mimi Pirard, Nina Gerber, Emily Lois and a dozen others performing. The virtual variety show will stream on YouTube, and the center has also created some fun playlists featuring many great performers who’ve been at OCA.

Other music events happening online for those still social distancing include Petaluma’s Drive-In Concert at East Washington Place shopping center. The concert on June 20 is already sold-out for in-person (or, in-car) attendees, though the event will live stream on Facebook, with headliners Majestic: San Francisco’s Ultimate Tribute to Journey.

Also on June 20, Clif Family Winery in Napa Valley hosts a virtual Summer Solstice Concert with music from up and coming artists introduced by CLIF GreenNotes, a community of musicians and nonprofits committed to environmental justice. The virtual event will also be sharing cooking tips from Chef John, and special guest appearances from Clif Family winemaker Laura Barrett and winery owners Gary Erickson and Kit Crawford. To RSVP and receive an exclusive link to the virtual show, purchase a Summer Solstice Kit on Clif Family Winery’s website.

Rethinking Public Safety As Protests Continue

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Rethinking Public Safety As Protests Continue

Over the past three weeks, conversations around policing in America have shifted drastically. Suddenly, defunding law enforcement has become a regular part of the public conversation, just ahead of meetings in which many governing bodies will review proposed budgets for the fiscal year, which runs July 1 to June 30 throughout California.

The issue came to prominence following widespread protests against police brutality and racism that started in Minneapolis after videos of a police officer killing George Floyd, a middle-aged Black man, went viral online. Since then, those conversations have become local in cities throughout the country.

While there aren’t yet answers regarding what reforms or structural changes will be enacted in the weeks and months to come, it’s worth giving some context to the current conversation.

Reform vs. Defund vs. Abolition

The logic behind reforming and defunding is very different. Reform means that the larger system is left largely unchanged, while defunding—or abolition—means that the money goes elsewhere, potentially leading to increased funding for social services.

On Wednesday, June 10, mayors and law enforcement officials from nine Sonoma County cities announced a range of planned actions in response to the widespread Black Lives Matter protests. The local officials, in line with many other elected officials across the country, presented a range of reforms.

Rubin Scott, director of Santa Rosa’s NAACP chapter, spoke at the press conference. On June 11, he shared a letter he had sent Mayor Schwedhelm on June 6, which called on Santa Rosa to invest in #8toAbolition rather than #8CantWait.

8 Can’t Wait is a project that pushes police to adopt eight policy reforms to reduce police brutality. Launched in response to the killing of George Floyd, 8 Can’t Wait is a project of Campaign Zero, an organization that has been pushing for police reforms since 2015. Campaign Zero claims that these reforms would reduce police killings by 72 percent.

In response to 8 Can’t Wait, a group of police- and prison-abolitionists formed 8 to Abolition, listing eight strategies that seek to replace police and prisons with communities that are “equipped to provide for their own safety and wellbeing.”

Proponents of 8 to Abolition say that Campaign Zero’s claim of a 72-percent reduction in police killing is neither accurate nor enough. In a statement by Los Angeles Community Action Network (LACAN) and Black Lives Matter LA, they write, “#8CantWait offers a relatively easy way for police departments and government officials to appear to embrace the idea of reform without actually changing the structure of policing and without confronting powerful political interests like law and order advocates and police unions.”

Scott’s letter notes, “when we use the terms ‘dismantle and defund’ in no way are we saying there should not be law enforcement or policing agencies or we should not fund these institutions. We are saying that the current legal system as well as other systems governing Black Americans, that are funded by those same Black Americans being denied their civil liberties, need to be dismantled and reinvented.”

Scott calls for many changes, including a stronger community oversight committee which would be active in credentialing law enforcement officers every two years, community housing development for 18-to-24-year-olds, an increase in Parks and Recreation centers, and vocational training for high school students not interested in college.

Oakland-based abolitionist organization Critical Resistance says that more than 50 years of organizing for stronger civilian oversight committees has not resulted in any committees that are actually empowered to make decisions about police actions, and ultimately such committees “entrench policing as a legitimate, reformable system with a ‘community’ mandate.”

Local Reform Efforts

After a Sonoma County Sheriff’s Deputy shot and killed Andy Lopez in southwest Santa Rosa in 2013, activists put pressure on the county and city of Santa Rosa to enact reforms and establish oversight.

In 2015, the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors established the Independent Office of Law Enforcement Review and Outreach (IOLERO), a body meant to review complaints against the Sheriff’s Office among other tasks. IOLERO, which was one of many reforms recommended by the Community And Local Law Enforcement Task Force, a group formed by the county after Lopez’s death, has never been as strong or well-funded as local advocates hoped it would be.

More recently, those advocates, including IOLERO’s former director Jerry Threet, have been pushing to add a ballot measure to the November 2020 ballot that would empower IOLERO to subpoena records from the Sheriff’s Office and lock in IOLERO’s budget at one percent of the Sheriff’s total budget.

Over the past four years, even with IOLERO in place, reform of any kind has been painfully slow, according to activists.

The use of the carotid hold, a procedure in which an officer places a subject’s neck in the crook of their elbow, is one example of the relationship between the Sheriff’s Office and IOLERO. Despite a recommendation from IOLERO Community Advisory Council (CAC), a group of volunteers who spend time researching policies and interacting with the community, the Sheriff’s Office resisted giving up the technique until two weeks ago.

If performed properly, the hold restricts blood flow to the head and the subject passes out. If done incorrectly, the subject can be killed or seriously injured due to a prolonged lack of blood flow or airflow if the officer’s arm slips into an “arm bar” position.

The CAC spent over a year crafting numerous proposed changes to the Sheriff’s use-of-force policies. They formally submitted the policy recommendations last November, just two weeks before a Sheriff’s Deputy attempted to use the hold—along with a Taser and blunt force—on David Ward, a Sonoma County resident.

Ward was pronounced dead at the Petaluma Valley Hospital shortly afterwards. An autopsy released in May concluded that his death was a homicide primarily caused by “Cardiorespiratory Collapse, Blunt Impact Injuries, Neck Restraint and Application of Conducted Energy Device.”

In its response to the CAC’s recommendations last December, the Sheriff’s Office dismissed the need to stop using the hold pending more research.

“In order to truly consider this recommendation, we would need to see data that supports the assumption the carotid restraint and maximum restraint are unreasonably dangerous when applied appropriately,” the Sheriff’s Office wrote of the carotid-hold recommendation.

Then, on the afternoon of Friday, June 5, a note appeared on the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office’s website. “Effective June 5, 2020 the carotid hold is no longer authorized. Policies and training are being updated accordingly,” a line at the top of the Sheriff’s Policies and Training web page stated.

The Sheriff’s announcement came the same day that Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered the state’s law enforcement training body to stop teaching officers to use the carotid hold.

Oversight efforts in Santa Rosa have run into their own problems. In early 2016, the city hired Bob Aaronson, a Palo Alto attorney, to audit the Santa Rosa Police Department.

Then, in late 2018, after a public disagreement with Aaronson about the scope of his work, the city and Aaronson parted ways. To date, the city has yet to hire another police auditor.

Public Safety Beyond Law Enforcement

Police are often called upon as first responders in non-criminal situations including mental-health crises. Many calls to defund the police look to free up funds to instead support alternative methods of crisis intervention. Some reformists propose strengthened partnerships between police and specialized professionals such as trauma-informed social workers.

San Francisco recently announced that their police department will stop responding to non-criminal calls and will be replaced by trained, unarmed professionals. This concept is not novel—White Bird Clinic in Eugene and Springfield, Oregon have operated Crisis Assistance Helping Out On the Streets (CAHOOTS) since 1989. This non-police, 24-hour mobile crisis intervention service operates through a dispatcher and sends a team of one medic and one crisis worker to provide immediate stabilization to people in need.

Since 2012, Sonoma County has had a Mobile Support Team (MST) whose job is to “provide field-based support to requesting law enforcement officers responding to a behavioral health crisis.” Staff at MST are described as “licensed mental health clinicians, certified substance abuse specialists, post-graduate registered interns, mental health consumers and family members.”

In 2019, MST expanded their police partnerships to reach some areas of West Sonoma County. Their service does not extend north of Windsor.

Unlike CAHOOTS, Sonoma County’s MST operates in close partnership with local police departments. A civilian in need cannot call to request that the MST be dispatched; the police themselves make the assessment that MST’s services would be of use.


During the Healdsburg City Council meeting of June 15, 2020, Healdsburg Police Chief Kevin Burke presented ideas to the community for experimental police reforms that grew out of a recent conversation he had with the Criminology Department at Sonoma State University. Among his proposals, he pushed for hiring a licensed clinical social worker (LSCW) who would work for the Healdsburg Police Department.

While Chief Burke stressed the value that a social worker’s training could add to community policing, he said that he believes such change must happen from within the police department, rather than outside of it.


PG&E pleads guilty to 84 counts of manslaughter in Camp Fire case

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PG&E pleads guilty to 84 counts of manslaughter in Camp Fire case

Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) on Tuesday pleaded guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter and one count of unlawfully starting a fire.

The rare acknowledgment of corporate culpability brought to an end two-years of litigation that stemmed from the Nov. 8, 2018 blaze, which burned more than 150,000 acres, razed the town of Paradise, destroyed more than 18,000 structures and killed 85 people.

Standing in Butte County Superior Court, PG&E CEO and President Bill Johnson said he was there to “accept responsibility for the fire here that took so many lives and changed these communities forever.”

“I have heard the pain and the anguish of victims as they’ve described the loss they continue to endure, and the wounds that can’t be healed,” he said. “No words from me could ever reduce the magnitude of such devastation or do anything to repair the damage. But I hope that the actions we are taking here today will help bring some measure of peace.”

Nobody from PG&E will face criminal charges or prison time in the case, as no individuals have been charged. But the company agreed to pay a $3.5 million fine, and a half-million dollars to cover the cost of the investigation.

Court filings refer to PG&E’s “longstanding corporate culture of favoring profits over public safety” and its “ongoing failure to comply with its safety obligations.”The company has also been accused of failure to remove combustible vegetation from power lines, transformers and other equipment, and failing to update its aging infrastructure.

The Camp Fire was not the first time PG&E has found itself in legal hot water for its role in disasters. It was convicted in 2016 for the gas pipeline explosion in San Bruno that killed eight people.

The company has filed for bankruptcy and is in the process of paying $25.5 billion in settlements to cover damages from the Camp Fire and other fires. The details of that case—which includes $13.5 billion for fire victims—will be completed by June 30.

“I wish there were some way to take back what happened or take away the pain of those who’ve suffered,” Johnson said. “But I know there’s not. What I can say is this: First, PG&E will never forget the Camp Fire and all that it took from this region. We remain deeply, deeply sorry for the terrible devastation we have caused.

”Johnson said that PG&E has worked to help the Paradise region recover and rebuild, and said the company is “ working hard” to compensate the victims. He also discussed the lessons he says PG&E learned from the Camp Fire, and outlined new measures such as improved inspection and operational protocols. The company also is “hardening” its energy system, Johnson said, and is bolstering its technology to better predict and detect extreme weather conditions.

“We know we cannot replace all that the fire destroyed,” Johnson said. “We do hope that by pleading guilty and accepting accountability, by compensating victims and supporting rebuilding efforts, and by making significant, lasting changes in the way we operate, we can honor those who were lost and help this community move forward.”

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