We provide local news updates on The North Bay Report Tuesday-Friday at 6:45, 8:45 a.m., and 5:30 p.m. on KRCB radio 91 and 90.9. Here's our North Bay Report episode for Wednesday, June 24. Subscribe to The North Bay Report podcast to listen on the go.  

 

In 2018, then-House Minority Leader Representative Nancy Pelosi, held the House floor for over 8 hours, reading testimonies and advocating for young immigrants. These youth relied on the protections of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program or DACA. Sonoma Valley resident, Denia Candela, was one of the people Pelosi spotlighted that day. KRCB's Adia White spoke with Candela about the ongoing fight over DACA, including the recent Supreme Court decision to temporarily protect the program.

 

  

 

 

This article is a translated, partial summary of  KBBF’s 30-minute special. Listen to the complete version in Spanish below. 

 

 

In this thirty-minute special, KBBF’s Edgar Avila speaks with Sonoma County residents about racism in our community and the Black Lives Matter movement. Guests appear in the following order:

Nichole Pyles, Co-president of Santa Rosa Junior College Black Student Union

Michael Doms, Co-president of Santa Rosa Junior College Black Student Union

Isabel Lopez, Founder of Raizes Collective, a local nonprofit focused on empowering the community through the arts

Eduardo Osario Juarez, A local resident from Oaxaca, Mexico

Stefan Bradley,  Professor of African American Studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles

Michael Ezra,  Professor of American Multicultural Studies at Sonoma State University

Omar Paz, Local activist, and lead organizer with North Bay Jobs with Justice

Osvaldo Jimenez, Owner of Noble Folk ice cream shop on Courthouse Square

(Image: Protesters gather outside of the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office to demand justice. Credit: Adia White)

At the start of this special, host Edgar Avila asked guests to describe how they felt as they watched the video of George Floyd’s murder. The video shows a white Minneapolis Police Officer pressing his knee into Floyd’s neck, pinning him to the ground for 8 minutes and 46 seconds until he died. Floyd called out to his deceased mother as he lay dying, repeating that he could not breathe.

“As soon as I saw the video I instantly started to cry,” responded Nichole Pyles. Pyles is a co-president of the Santa Rosa Junior College Black Student Union. Pyles said that at first, all she wanted to do was scream. Instead, she got in touch with her co-president and began to make a plan about what could be done in Sonoma County.

“In that moment, I wanted to feel something,” Michael Doms told Avila. Doms is co-president of the Black Student Union with Pyles. Doms said that after seeing so many of these videos, many feel paralyzed and begin to grow numb to the violence.  

Doms recalled that when he first attended the Black Lives Matter protests, the space was far too white and Black voices weren’t being heard. The only speakers he heard were white.

Eduardo Osario Juarez, A local resident from Oaxaca, Mexico, said when he saw the video he thought, ‘what are people in Sonoma County going to do.’ He also thought about the need to listen to and support the Black community. “Black people should be leading this movement,” he told Avila.  

Stefan Bradley,  Professor of African American Studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, explained that white people should be accomplices and not leaders in this movement. He told Avila, “Black people have to be in the lead of this, otherwise it will never count.”

Michael Ezra, is a Professor of American Multicultural Studies at Sonoma State University. Ezra, who is white, explained that unlike the Black Power Movement of the ’60s and ’70s, the Black Lives Matters message has gained more white supporters. The video of Floyd’s murder shows that Black lives don’t matter to many people in power who feel that Black people can be murdered with impunity. Ezra believes that the Black Lives Matters movement is monumental, in part, because it has gained support from a more diverse population.

Professor Stefan Bradley agrees that the current iteration of Black Lives Matter is more diverse than previous movements. In Ferguson, for example, there were not many white people protesting. Bradley also described that a confluence of events helped launch the current Black Lives Matters movement. He compared the movement to the ‘60s when the Vietnam war, the assassination of Martin Luther King, and other historical events, inspired mass action.

 In 2020, the COVID-19 epidemic has exposed deep institutional racism, as the virus disproportionately ravages communities of color. At the same time, graphic videos of Black people being murdered by police officers are being released to the public. People can no longer choose to ignore deep-seated racism in our nation. Bradley told Avila, “This confluence of things led to creating fuel for this spark, and I think that George Floyd’s death, peace be upon him, was the spark.”

Police responded to many of the protests with violence. According to an analysis by the New York Times, Santa Rosa was one of 98 cities in the United States that used tear gas on protesters.

Isabel Lopez, the founder of Raizes Collective, said the media portrayed the protesters as violent and highlighted damages to businesses in its coverage. For her, it was the police who brought violence to otherwise peaceful protests. She told Avila that property can be replaced while lives cannot.

During the protests, many downtown Santa Rosa business owners boarded up their windows to protect merchandise. Rather than board up their windows, the owners of the ice cream parlor, Noble Folk, expressed solidarity with protesters. Osvaldo Jimenez, one of the owners, posted a statement on Facebook explaining that the protests are the result of hundreds of years of systemic oppression and racism.

Michael Ezra told Avila that cell phone videos of protests show that many of the protesters vandalizing property are white. He told Avila that these protesters don’t have a lot of experience going to marches. They also do not have an understanding of the consequences of what will happen if things go poorly. 

“I’ve seen videos of protesters of color, Black protesters, stopping white protesters -- either white supremacists on the right or pro-Black Lives Matter protesters on the left -- from committing property damage.” He said. 

Within a few weeks of these protests, counties across the United States, including Sonoma County, promised to make a change. In Minneapolis, where Floyd was murdered, the municipal government agreed to dismantle the city's police department. In Sonoma County, as in others, law enforcement has agreed to adopt reforms to reduce violence.

Nichole Pyles told Avila that she feels as though this is a start, but she wants to see actions that support these promises.

Michael Doms said these promises aren’t sufficient and made his own promise, that the protests won’t stop until there is justice.

By Elizabeth Castillo, CalMatters

Barbecuing at Lake Merritt in Oakland. Selling water without a permit. Both instances in which a Black person was doing something deemed criminal by a white person. Both instances in which a white person called the police. 

Now, as racial tensions continue to flare as the nation protests the death of George Floyd and others, a California lawmaker plans to introduce legislation that would make discriminatory 911 calls a hate crime, joining a handful of states in pushing to criminalize emergency calls. Three states — New York, Oregon and Washington — have recently enacted new laws. 

California’s proposal “would provide multiple pathways for justice for victims of racially weaponized 911 calls,” said Assemblyman Rob Bonta, an Alameda Democrat and the bill’s author.

(A California proposal could make racially motivated 911 calls a hate crime. Illustration by Anne Wernikoff for CalMatters; elements via iStock)

He said calling the police when no crime has occurred can be “incredibly dangerous” for victims since officers have wide latitude to detain people in ways that can quickly escalate. The bill, however, isn’t in print yet. Bonta says he is still formulating the circumstances in which Californians may be punished for bias. 

Similar instances of racially motivated 911 calls have occurred across the country. In May, a white woman walking her dog in Central Park called the police on a Black birdwatcher after he asked her to leash her dog. 

“I’m going to tell them there’s an African American man threatening my life,” said Amy Cooper, the dog walker, during the recorded incident. The governor of New York signed legislation making these types of 911 calls a crime. 

In California, making a false police call is a misdemeanor with a $1,000 fine and up to a year in county jail. But there are currently no other protections for those on the receiving end of a racially motivated police call. 

In 2017, there were 28.1 million calls to 911 in California, the Orange County Register reported. And the Los Angeles area handled 8.5 million calls that year alone. The California Highway Patrol is largely responsible for 911 calls made on cell phones and often directs emergency calls to the appropriate authorities. Who would be responsible for tracking these types of calls remains unclear. As demands to “defund the police” continue to grow, questions remain about a larger police role. The California Police Chiefs Association had no comment on Bonta’s proposal. 

For an instance to qualify as a hate crime, there has to be proof that the victim was targeted because they belonged to a protected group. Bonta said proving these calls are hate crimes “can definitely be a challenge.” He pointed to the Central Park incident as an obvious example of a racially motivated call. 

“She knew exactly what she was doing,” Bonta said. “He was not harassing her. She was calling based on race.” 

In fact, some of the most progressive parts of California are where obvious cases of racial prejudice appear. In the Bay Area, a man identified as Mali Watkins was detained by police officers in May after the police received a call about someone dancing in the street. Body camera footage of the arrest shows an officer calling Watkins’ movements Jazzercise. 

“It looks like you were dancing. I was watching you for a little bit, it’s like Jazzercise type of thing,” an officer says in the footage.

In 2018, a woman called the police over the use of a charcoal grill at Lake Merritt in Oakland. In another incident that year, a woman in San Francisco called the police on an 8-year-old girl for selling water without a permit. 

Bonta says, if anything, a bill is needed to acknowledge this behavior is unacceptable and harms people. “They’re incidents where police do not need to be called,” he said. 

Even if the state doesn’t act, local jurisdictions are moving toward change. Los Angeles and San Francisco are calling for legislation based on racial prejudice. In Santa Clara County, some local officials want racism to be declared a public health crisis. 

For Californians on the receiving end of racist 911 calls, it can be difficult to sue. 

“It’s hard to get damages,” said Laura Gómez, a UCLA law professor. “It’s hard to find a lawyer willing to take that case because there’s not going to be a lot of money to recover.” 

Though there have been exceptions, including one in Los Angeles. In 2014, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge David S. Cunningham settled with UCLA after Cunningham alleged mistreatment and racial profiling by campus police. UCLA agreed to pay $500,000, though Cunningham originally filed a $10 million claim. 

And, after an arrest in 2015 by the New York Police Department, Thabo Sefolosha, an NBA basketball player, settled with the department for $4 million. Sefolosha said the police caused injuries while he was arrested including a fractured fibula and ligament damage. 

Still, access remains an issue for many Californians. Bonta said his bill would give victims of the 911 calls more legal options. He added there must be consequences for people who make the racially motivated 911 calls. 

“We’re not going to tolerate these acts,” he said. 

 

 

The Community Action Partnership of Sonoma County has begun hosting weekly conversations on race. The series supports the partnership’s mission to fight racism in Sonoma County.  In the most recent conversation, Vince Harper, director of community engagement, interviews  Rubin Scott, President of the local chapter of the NAACP. In this excerpt, Scott starts by talking about how the Black community in Sonoma County responded to the murder of George Floyd and the nationwide movement that followed.   

 

 

 

 

 

Watch the entire conversation with NAACP Santa Rosa, Sonoma County Chapter President Rubin Scott on Community Action Partnership of Sonoma County's facebook page.  

 

The next conversation in the series will take place Monday, June 29th. Marycruz Rios and Ana Sanchez of the Youth Civic Engagement Project (YCEP) and Vince Harper will interview Santa Rosa Police Chief, Ray Navarro.