Wednesday, October 29, 2014

National Police Brutality Day in Salinas

The family of Frank Alvarado was joined by community supporters for a protest at the Salinas Police Department on October 22, which is National Police Brutality Day. Frank Alvarado was killed by Brian Johnson and Scott Sutton of the Salinas Police department on July 10 of this year.

Frank Alvarado Sr.

"We got to keep working hard to show the police department that we are united and they have to stop destroying Latino families," said Frank Alvarado's father, Frank Sr. at the beginning of the rally, which began at Salinas City Hall.

Officers with the Salinas Police Department killed four people in 2014: Angel Ruiz was killed on March 20 by Sergeant Mark Lazzarini, Officer Daniel DeBorde, and Officer William Yetter; Osman Hernandez was killed on May 9 by Sergeant George Lauricella and Officer Derek Gibson; and Carlos Mejia-Gomez was killed on May 20 by Sergeant Danny Warner and Officer Josh Lynd.

After leaving City Hall, the group of about 50-75 people marched to the Salinas post office, then to the police station, where one demonstrator said over a megaphone, "let's remind them that the people whose lives they have taken are still alive in our struggle."

Angelica Garza, Frank Alvarado's sister, spoke outside of the police station. She explained that after the Salinas Police Department released the names of the officers involved in the 2014 killings, she became convinced the department was racist.

"I have to apologize to you. All this time I have been saying that it's not a race thing," Garza said. "I tried to give the police the benefit of the doubt. Four Latino men were murdered by nine non-Latino men. That does not add up. I apologize to you."

"I'm angry at myself for not believing in you because it was four men, my beautiful brother, and it was nine cops, not one Latino, and they want to say it's not a race thing," she said. "They proved themselves wrong."

"We demand the department of justice come into Salinas and investigate the whole department," said Margaret Serna Bonetti outside of the police station. She is a civil rights activist who is working closely with Alvarado's family.

Bonetti said she doesn't believe the Chief of Police, Kelly McMillin, has been objectively handling the investigations into the killings.

"He's actually excusing the behavior of the police officers, and he should be representing the whole city and not just the police department," she said.

Bonetti said the problem is the Salinas Police Department is only looking out for themselves, like a "good ole boy's club."

"They should not be investigating themselves," she said.

Frank Sr., who was once a martial arts instructor who trained officers with the SPD at his studio, said the Salinas Police Department was "polluted inside."

"We need the department of justice to come and clean this department," he said. "There is something wrong in the department and we won't stop until we get justice."

Ana Barrera, who is a school teacher in Salinas, and involved with Ni Una Muerte Mas - Salinas, one of the groups that organized the protest, spoke out against the American system of mass incarceration, which criminalizes and oppresses Latino youth from a young age, she said.

"We do not want our kids shackled. We want access to public education without fear of intimidation," she said.

Barrera warned community members about two measures up for vote in next week's election, Measures G and H, which would give the Salinas Police Department more money.

"Both of those measures represent money to the police department that continues to put out messages that they are going to continue to suppress our communities," she said. "We say no to suppression. Our people deserve better, we demand people to be held accountable."

"We demand justice and we want people to be removed from their positions," Barrera said. "Police Chief McMillin needs to go. The Mayor needs to go. They represent the same institution, the Salinas PD."

"We're not going to allow people to come into our schools with guns, with badges, we have school teachers there, like myself. We're there to educate and provide the best education to our kids," Barrera said.

"We have become slaves," Frank Alvarado Sr. warned.

"[We] get up at four o'clock in the morning and come back home at six, seven o'clock, tired and they still harass," he said.

"Why? Because they look at us like slaves. We pay taxes too. We deserve to get respect. We need the police department to be cleaning up because it is so polluted inside."

The Alvarado family has retained the legal services of John Burris, but they have not filed suit against the city yet, Frank Sr. said.


Frank Alvarado Sr. holding a replica of a sign his son Frank held at a political demonstration in Santa Cruz before he was killed by the SPD.

Ana Barrera

These three coffins represent those killed by SPD in 2014 before July, and were carried in the March for Respect, Dignity, and Justice held in Salinas in May.









Margaret Serna Bonetti


Angelica Garza (on the left)


Burning sacred herbs.




Friday, October 24, 2014

Dream Inn Workers Keep Pressure on Management During Contract Negotiations

On October 17, workers, union reps, labor organizers, and community supporters returned to the Santa Cruz Dream Inn for a second rally in a month's time as workers at the hotel continue to demand a fair contract during negotiations. Management wants workers to take a three-year wage freeze, with raises limited to 1% and 2% in the fourth and fifth year. Dream Inn Workers have been negotiating with the Dream Inn for several months now and this offer continues to be unacceptable to them.


"We're here for the long haul. This employer doesn't want to give wage increases," said Cesar Lara, Executive Director of the Monterey Bay Central Labor Council at the rally.

The Monterey Bay Central Labor Council (MBCLC) is affiliated with the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO). 65 labor unions are affiliated with the MBCLC, including Unite Here! Local 483, the union that represents Santa Cruz Dream Inn workers, as well as many other workers at hotel and restaurants in the Monterey Bay area.

Members of several different labor unions were present at the October 17 rally to support the Dream Inn workers, including SEIU 521, the Teamsters, the Teachers Union, and the California Nurses Association.

"We're here to fight with you, we're here to support you," Lara said.

"We are fighting for better wages," said Martha Hernandez, who is a housekeeper at the Santa Cruz Dream Inn and the leader of the union at the establishment.

"The company is making a lot of money. We are working hard every day for several years, and they are not taking care of us. They are taking care of their own money," she said.

"This is a just fight," said Hector Azpilcueta, an organizer with Unite Here! Local 483.

"The workers in this hotel sacrifice their lives, sacrifice their families, working on holidays, and Saturdays and Sundays, when many of us are enjoying with our families," he said.

"They have already sacrificed for a while helping the company to come out of hard times, but they want to keep us in a crisis forever."

Union representatives have stated they will continue to picket the hotel until their demands are met.
















HUFF Releases Evidence of SCPD Profiling, Joins National Police Brutality Protests

On October 22, the organization Homeless United for Friendship and Freedom (HUFF) participated in the 19th annual National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and Criminalization with a demonstration in front of the Santa Cruz Police Department. This week, HUFF announced that after analyzing the citation records of SCPD Community Service Officer B. Barnett, they have found that he has disproportionately targeted homeless people and African-Americans. According to HUFF, nearly three of every four of Barnett's citations made downtown were issued to homeless people for essentially victimless crimes, such as sitting, smoking, and skateboarding. Additionally, nearly 10% of the citations Barnett issued were to African-Americans, in a county where 1.4% of the population is black according to a recent census.


Barnett patrols the downtown area and Pacific Avenue, and HUFF has received complaints about him since last year. After filing a California Public Records Act request, the citations Barnett issued between July of 2013 and August of 2014 were made available. The incident reports that were provided in electronic form to the organization by the SCPD, however, did not include any information pertaining to the race or ethnic identity of the individuals to which they were issued. To gather that information, HUFF was required by police to visit the station to examine the actual physical copies of the citations so they could compile their own statistics.

At the protest, HUFF has also denounced the recent decision by the Santa Cruz City Council to expand penalties under the parks stay-away ordinance that was first adopted in May of 2013.

Park Rangers now have the ability to force individuals to stay away from city parks when they have been issued citations for low-level infractions. A person can be banned from a park for a full year after receiving multiple citations. A violation of a stay-away order can result in a misdemeanor conviction, which can carry up to a year in jail and/or a $1000 fine.

"Note that one doesn't have to be convicted of any offense, even charged in court with any offense, simply cited for an offense for this law to go into effect," wrote Robert Norse, the founder of HUFF.

HUFF members are presently compiling statistics on the citations issued in Santa Cruz city parks, and the organization says it plans to, "co-ordinate Copwatch efforts city-wide."

Nationally, police protests were held in over 100 cities, according to the website of the Coalition to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation.



Robert Norse

October 22 Coalition





Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Witnesses Report Excessive Use of Force by SCPD during Arrest near Court House

Witnesses to the recent tasing and arrest of a man in Santa Cruz describe the incident differently from the account communicated by police through the reporting of the Santa Cruz Sentinel. Individuals on the scene report excessive force was used when officers with the SCPD arrested Oliver Howard near the Court House on Water Street on the afternoon of October 13. They say officers struck Howard with a baton, tased his bare body, piled on top of him, wrenched and twisted his limbs, and grinded his face and body into the ground, all unnecessarily.

Ryan Kiar of the Santa Cruz Police Department was the first officer to initiate contact with Oliver Howard..

Debra Ellis was driving on Water Street that afternoon on her way to a medical appointment when she observed what she called an "aggressive police officer" pursuing a man near the Court House who was backing up with his hands raised above his head. She immediately exited her car because she wanted to be a witness to what she thought could be an "escalation of violence" by the police officer.

The officer's body language and facial expressions were "tense and angry," Ellis recalled. "I did not feel the man he was pursuing was dangerous or a threat to the officer or me."

"The man being pursued appeared scared and confused," she said.

Ellis said Howard was asking to be "left alone" as he walked backwards and away from the officer. It was at this time the officer took a swing at Howard with his baton, making contact with the man's leg below his knee.

"I could hear a loud sound from the impact," Ellis said. Howard's face showed the pain felt from the hit, and his body buckled. "I feared for the man's safety," she said.

As the situation continued to escalate, Ellis said a small group of observers began to form. "Each one that spoke to me expressed concern with what they were witnessing."

Photographer Shmuel Thaler of the Santa Cruz Sentinel also happened to be on the scene, and he was taking photographs constantly, Ellis said.

Moments later another officer arrived and Howard, who had no shirt on, was shot on his bare back with a taser gun. His back buckled, Ellis said, and he was brought forcibly to the ground by the officers. Additional officers arrived on the scene and joined in holding his body.

"During this time I saw an officer bend the man’s left leg in what seemed to be a painful angle for no apparent reason. I felt I was witnessing torture," she said.

"Not only was the force used by the officers excessive, the response was also excessive," Ellis said. She noted that numerous police cars arrived with what she estimated to be a dozen or more officers, plus medical responders and an ambulance. Ellis later placed a phone call to Dominican. She said they confirmed that Howard had been admitted to the hospital.

"The man did not have a weapon, did not seem threatening, and what I witnessed was excessive, unnecessary force," she said.

Ellis has lived in the Santa Cruz area for over 20 years, and besides being a mother and a recently retired UCSC administrator, she is active with the Resource Center for Nonviolence (RCNV). She took it upon herself to exchange contact information with the other witnesses in an effort to find out what exactly had occurred for the police to have responded so aggressively.

Two of the witnesses told Ellis their vehicle had been pulled over on Water Street by the first officer on the scene that afternoon (later identified as Ryan Kiar of the SCPD). When the officer was talking to them from outside of their car, Oliver Howard pulled up behind them in his vehicle. She said Howard exited his car and approached the officer, asking him about dead bodies and dead body parts in Santa Cruz and why weren't police doing something about it. She said Howard then walked away and was pursued by the police officer.

Another woman told Ellis that she saw Howard push away from the officer after the officer grabbed him by his hair and was shaking him violently. She told Ellis it appeared Howard was trying to pull away from this action.

Another one of the witnesses, Justin Mittie, felt the use of force by Santa Cruz police officers was excessive.

Mittie, a 23-year-old from Lodi, was visiting Santa Cruz that day and he is considering moving to the area. He was in his truck on Water Street when the incident caught his attention.

He said he saw a police officer pointing his finger at Oliver Howard as the man was walking away from him backwards, and with his hands up.

"He [Howard] was saying he wanted to go home," Mittie recalled.

Mittie said he saw the officer trying to grab at Howard and it appeared that the officer was "trying to antagonize" him.

Mittie noted that after hitting Howard with a baton and tasing him, multiple officers then piled on top of the man, even though, "the guy was clearly not fighting," he said.

"They were grinding his face into the ground, and his whole body," Mittie said. "It was not necessary. He was one man and not fighting back."

When Mittie was trying to find out from the other witnesses what may have triggered the incident, the woman who was initially pulled over in her car by the first officer on the scene told him that Howard had yelled at the officer.

"I think having peace officers is a good thing, they are here to protect us, not to abuse power," Mittie said.

After Howard was arrested, Mittie said the first officer on the scene approached him to apologize, saying, "sorry for the inconvenience."

However, Mittie said he was angry about what he had just witnessed and he told the officer that, "You are a sorry excuse for a man."

"Your use of force was unnecessary," Mittie told him.

"He wouldn't even look at me," Mittie recalled. "He wouldn't look me in the eye."

Mittie said the officer then walked away and returned the taser to its place in the patrol vehicle.

"I know there's good cops out there," he said. "He abused his power."

"I don't think he should be an officer for that," Mittie concluded.

Debra Ellis said she still felt "shaken and confused" about what she had witnessed, and she wanted an explanation from police.

"Why, if the officer had called in back up did he not remain calm or attempt some form of communication to de-escalate the situation rather than insight it?" Ellis wondered.

Because so many officers had arrived on the scene so quickly, Ellis felt that Howard could have been contained without the use of weapons.

Later that afternoon Ellis visited the police station to speak with the supervisor of the two officers she saw, in her words, "beating and tasing" Howard. She was given a number to call, and she eventually spoke with Lieutenant Flippo and Sergeant Croft on the phone.

She described Flippo as being "all jacked up" during the call, and that he was acting defensive. Flippo told her that he becomes "concerned" when the public asks the police to do their job, and then doesn't let them "protect their guys."

Ellis asked them the question, “under what circumstances is it acceptable to use a taser?” She was told by Flippo the use of the taser is considered a "mid-level" response, but she felt the question was never answered clearly.

Flippo and Croft told Ellis that Howard had charged at the first officer on the scene, ripped the badge off of him, was under the influence, and had resisted arrest.

Additionally, Flippo informed her that Howard was tased once by the first officer who made contact with him.

Ellis expressed concerns about the number of officers who responded to the incident. Flippo explained it was necessary because the man had been tased, but that the weapon had not affected him, explaining, "when these guys are on something they don’t feel pain.”

Flippo said a call had come into the station from officers that one of their own had been beaten and that his guys were responding with the thought in their head that an officer had been hurt.

Ellis believes that is partly why officers had responded with such an agitated orientation, and why so many of them were sent to the scene.

However, she said she was also informed that after the first few cars arrived on the scene a separate message was relayed to the station that the crowd was growing, and empathetic with the victim, which is why so many more officers swarmed in.

It was for crowd control.

Smiitie agreed that the response was an overreaction, and that assigning officers for crowd control in this case was not necessary.

"The crowd was staying back," he said.

Ellis was concerned about this because, "it was clear they tried to divide us all up, some more aggressively than others, and you couldn't have had a more gentle group of folks."

Ellis described what she witnessed as "pack behavior" on the part of the police, and that officers were exhibiting an "entitled use of power and violence" that day when they thought one of their own had been threatened.

"I even think they will cover for one another, and apparently the Sentinel does the same for them," Ellis said.

She was referring to the fact that the report published later that day in the Santa Cruz Sentinel made no mention that witnesses on the scene believed there was an excessive use of force by police. There was no mention of the witnesses at all in the article, which was written by local reporter Jessica A. York.

Ellis said the Sentinel article was, "certainly written pro-police."

Shmuel Thaler was using a "long lens" and "snapping away," she said.

"I approached him and he said he worked with the Sentinel, which did not take sides and that his photos couldn't be used in court," she said.

Ellis had hoped Thaler's photographs would show that police had used excessive force against Howard.

Though Deputy Chief of Police Steve Clark is quoted in the Sentinel article as stating that Howard was arrested for "battery on a police officer," the charge was not listed in the press log released by SCPD on October 15.

The arrest is listed as Case # 14S-08499 in the SCPD press logs, and Howard is listed as having been arrested for violating 148(A) Obstruction/Resisting Public Officer and 23152(E) DUI Drug. The Sentinel lists the SCPD officer who was first to initiate contact with Howard as being officer Ryan Kiar. According to Santa Cruz County Jail records, Howard was never booked into jail after he was released from the hospital.
Ellis said police took reports from all of the witnesses, and she said Flippo told her the police cars have cameras. Two witnesses also video recorded the incident.

"I told the department that in my 24 years in Santa Cruz I have never witnessed something like this from our police," Ellis said. "I hope to never do so again."

"Watching a man tased on the naked back at close range, who was already on his knees, was disturbing, upsetting and gravely disappointing."