Plainclothes Cop Walking Pacific Avenue

Sorry to say, Bradley, but your usual journalistic integrity appears to be slipping on this one. Plainclothes cops have always wandered around on Pacific, it doesn't necessarily involve a "Coonerty Crackdown", some grand-scale attempt at police repression, or whatnot. I don't exactly get what's so newsworthy about what has historically been a police tactic, even in Santa Cruz.

What's the point? There is an undercover cop in Santa Cruz?

that this debbie woman is directing the cops and they're clearing out supposed ne'er-do-wells, keeping SC safe for shopping. let those two derelicts hang out too long, and next thing you know you've got a hippy commune in the street blocking traffic and scaring aware to good, wealthy folk

not that it hasn't been done before, a street sweep, but now, in at least this one instance, how busy-body citizens along with plain clothes and uniformed cops work together has been documented. I'm sure they'd prefer no one take pictures of what they're up to.

thank you, B

We all have our own viewpoint and perspective.

You see a busy-body citizen. I see a friend and neighbor.

You see a corporate narc and some free spirits. I see a Santa Cruz community member and a couple more drifters who landed here for free food, easy begging, and illegal camping.

You see locals who you think don't want their picture taken. I see locals who don't really care, because they believe they're helping keep Santa Cruz real. Weird, but real.

Vote yes to weirdness and diversity in Santa Cruz. Vote no to being a stopover for drifters looking to be taken care of via social services and panhandling.

This is a clear, local example of who the police take orders from--businesses and the city. Working for the city is a given, but when you have police that are protecting the interests of those holding office, and those who hold office represent/protect the interests of all that is money, then in the end, the police are here to protect business and those in power, not the people.

It is akin to the stated duty of the UC Police Force to "protect the property of the UC Regents."

Not so far off as the police in St. Paul to protect the GOP's business as usual, US military personnel to protect interests of the neocons, or private mercenary firms like Blackwater to protect Halliburton and Co.

Yet, police are underpaid and continually have to work through a union to represent themselves to those they protect... as they continue to put themselves in harms way for people who hardly take care of them.

voc, YOU see a woman "directing" the police in their job(s). Nowhere does Bradley's photography nor the "information" attached to them and these comments says that. You see, in many communities, it's not unusual for a community volunteer to meet with local city officials. It only seems strange to you because you see a culture war around every corner.

Maybe I'm missing it, and perhaps Bradley can clarify, but was she indeed telling the cops what to do?

And j, the cops work for the city. No big surprise. And the city has made clear its policy of enforcing behavior downtown, because apparently people can't use self-control anymore. If it were legal to draft an ordinance that says "all people downtown must act in a respectable manner towards others and not crowd the sidewalk, act aggressive, or other behaviors that you learned early on in life were bad" then we'd be set. Instead, they have to set actual rules and boundaries (like the directory sign rule).

thanks for the pictures of that scumbag

According to the SCPD Media Release Log*, at 1:37 in the afternoon of Tuesday September 23rd, someone vandalized an SCPD squad car for over $400 damages at the corner of Pacific and Lincoln. Cheers to that brave person!

The Media Release Log from Wednesday says that "unknown suspect(s) threw rocks through the front window" of an undisclosed building on Tuesday evening. Though the cops blacked out the identity of the recipient of those rocks, we can confirm that it was the office of City Attorney John Barisone, the vile architect and legal defender of the City of Santa Cruz's repressive laws. That same night there was also a failed attack on the Santa Cruz Police Station itself, which we've learned has shatter-resistant windows.

Let's see more acts of resistance against the cops and the bureaucrats behind them! Open season on the pigs!

*http://www.ci.santa-cruz.ca.us/pd/

The point of this news story is that Armed Thugs are roaming the streets of Santa Cruz, and they're harassing youth in the streets, and they've declared war on public displays of musical creativity, and they're proven time and time again that they support terrorist organizations like the ICE, who take members of our community and hand them over to private corporations who run ICE detention centers, not because they've done anything wrong, or are illegal, but simply because of their skin color.

If you saw a uniformed group of armed men, who you know had no accountability to you, who you had no control over, who are using military techniques and weapons, who are in "patrol mode," with heightened senses of awareness and lowered senses of good judgement, and if you further knew that this armed group of men in uniforms had a history of committing undeserved acts of violence in your community, would you not be alarmed when you saw them patrolling your streets?

Cheers to someone who distroyed public property?? Would you cheer if someone bashed your winshield in (or would you call the police)? The men and women who work as peace officers - yes, that is the correct term - work for the good of society. That means that if someone is disruptive, they need to stop being disruptive. Society is all of us in the aggregate sense and the good of the whole is more important than the self-aggrandisment of the few. It is the height of self-centered arrogance to assume that one can do anything one wants without regard to the rights of others, and it is the job of policemen and policewomen to ensure that we all still can enjoy a walk down Pacific Av. without worrying about who will acost us or having to dodge around people who are too self-important to allow others' passage along the sidewalk.

To "Fuck Cops",
Please please please think about what you are saying. You are taking what someone does for their job and transforming them into monsters. Yes, there are a few very bad cops and they ruin the image for everyone. The majority (99%) dedicate their entire lives to raising the standards of living for "your" community. What do you do for a living?
And you mentioned those ICE "terrorists"... yeah. I understand these people who come to America are in desperate need of some way of self-betterment, but entering a country illegally is not the best way to do it.
I am seriously questioning the moral fabric of your beliefs based on your posts, as well as the poster above you.