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SCPD to Cosponsor MLK Event - Questions for Chief Mills
An open letter to Chief Mills regarding the upcoming event on January 15th, "March for the Dream: Honoring the Past - Impacting the Future," which is co-sponsored by the NAACP and the Santa Cruz Police Department.
Martin Luther King called for a revolution of values, challenging the racism, militarism, and poverty central to American society. This letter asks how the SCPD might contribute to this struggle for justice, in light of its history which often has run counter to these goals.
Martin Luther King called for a revolution of values, challenging the racism, militarism, and poverty central to American society. This letter asks how the SCPD might contribute to this struggle for justice, in light of its history which often has run counter to these goals.
Dear Chief Mills,
I saw that the SCPD is sponsoring an event called “March for the Dream” in honor of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. As someone who takes great inspiration from King's life and words, I am glad to see that so many others want to honor him. At the same time, I have some questions about if the SCPD's dream for a better society is really in line with the dream of King.
When I was in school in the 80's and 90's, we used to have Black History Month every February. The overall history curriculum downplayed racism as a central feature of US society, and presented the US as the greatest country in the world. But once a year, we would talk about the Underground Railroad, Jim Crow, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King.
Later I realized how misleading this version of “black history” was. Rosa Parks was not, as I learned in school, a woman who one day decided she'd had enough; rather, she was a long-time organizer and leader in a mass movement fighting for racial and economic justice. Likewise, Martin Luther King was far more than the orator who dreamed of racial harmony and integration. King was a radical, a nonviolent revolutionary who challenged the entire social order, focusing on what he called the giant triplets of racism, militarism, and poverty. For this radical outspoken vision, King was spied on by the FBI, and was ultimately assassinated.
Therefore Mr. Mills, I am wondering how exactly are you going to help further this dream, from your particular position as the chief of police?
King fought against poverty, calling for a “revolution of values” which would no longer accept the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. “True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar,” he declared; “it comes to see that an edifice which creates beggars needs restructuring.”
While the police are not responsible for building this edifice of inequality and poverty, they play a huge role in enforcing and maintaining it. From the debtors prisons and vagrancy laws of centuries ago, and attacks on striking workers, to the current harassment of unsheltered people across the US for sitting, lying, or sleeping in public, the police have often acted as enemies of the poor.
In Santa Cruz, I have watched for years as the police harass homeless people and push them around without any obvious purpose. Although many people seem to think that such actions will make homeless people go away, in practice these tactics have failed to address the negative impacts on public space, while increasing the stress and suffering of those living on the streets. I am extremely impressed and grateful that under your leadership, the SCPD has worked with the City Manager to pursue a different approach that includes as part of the solution offering a designated area for people to camp, with increased sanitation and safety.
At the same time, the department has a long way to go to be a champion of King's dream. For example, just a few years ago a SCPD officer was filmed slamming Richard Hardy, a homeless man who was already hand-cuffed, face first into a curb, opening a gash in his face. Although the public was promised an investigation, the City sealed the results from public view. From what I could gather, it seems the officer involved was neither charged with a crime nor removed from the force, and Mr. Hardy received no compensation.
In a society where property rights are more valued than human rights in the legal code, how do you envision law enforcement acting as agents of social change against poverty and inequality, rather than enforcers of injustice?
King also challenged US militarism, opposing not only the Vietnam War but US intervention in Guatemala, Peru, Mozambique and around the world. If King were alive today he would certainly be concerned about the militarization of local police forces, as documented in the book, “Rise of the Warrior Cop” by journalist Radley Balko.
As a police chief who wants to march for King's dream, will you commit to a policy of civilian policing divorced from military methods and equipment? Including will you reject gifts of weapons and vehicles from the military, and return war machines already accepted?
Even apart from military equipment, handguns of course are also deadly weapons. Just last year, a SCPD officer shot and killed Sean Arlt, a man experiencing a mental health crisis who was wielding a garden rake. King dreamed of a society where conflicts could be resolved without violence, or with as little violence and loss of life as possible. Will you commit to enacting policies that help officers in these difficult and chaotic situations to have more options that feel appropriate and safe to them, instead of defaulting to the use of deadly force?
The third element of King's focus was of course racism, which did not disappear with the end of Jim Crow, but persists today primarily through social institutions like the criminal justice system. On every level from stops and arrests to convictions and sentencing, there are massive racial disparities. Like his successors in the movement for racial justice, surely King would have been appalled by the racialized War on Drugs and the associated Prison Industrial Complex, which Michelle Alexander has called the new Jim Crow.
To make King's dream a reality in Santa Cruz, is the SCPD prepared to stop enforcing drug laws, which were created to target racial minorities, and which contribute to increased violence and crime, while failing to reduce addiction? Will you join Law Enforcement Against Prohibition and advocate for addressing drug addiction as a public health problem?
Another intersection of racism with law enforcement is racial profiling in police stops. I've lived in Santa Cruz for sixteen years, and during that time there has only been one person of color that I remember serving on our City Council, Tony Madrigal. During his term in office, some young Latino men confided in Tony their perception of having been racially profiled at a public event. When Tony tried to have a public conversation about it, the SCPD attacked him, as did other Council members.
Chief Mills, are you prepared to take seriously the reality of racial bias, including implicit bias, and to take steps to reduce and eventually eliminate it?
A final consideration I want to raise is that for decades, the SCPD had a Deputy Chief and spokesperson who routinely attacked people for their political beliefs and activism. For example, Mr. Clark investigated and intimidated a young man who'd advocated successfully for the creation of a citizen police review board, and made threatening statements to the Council members who approved it. More recently in 2014, he went on television two weeks ahead of an election to attack a City Council candidate, calling her a dangerous anarchist for having participated in trainings for nonviolent protests against the WTO in 1999. SCPD officials also spread false rumors about disease outbreaks at the Occupy Santa Cruz camp in 2011.
Martin Luther King spent his whole life resisting, agitating, and protesting, often facing great repression from the police, as well as widespread criticism from mainstream society. Yet for King, tension and struggle were necessary to achieve justice. As he noted in his famous letter from a Birmingham County jail,
“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice...”
As a champion of this event in honor of King, I am wondering can I expect a new era of policing in Santa Cruz where the SCPD focuses on defending public safety, and refrains from using its power to smear, criticize, and undermine those advocating for social change? And beyond simply avoiding the excesses and abuses of power by Mr. Clark, will the SCPD honor King's position that sometimes protest and disruption are necessary and valuable, and that it is immoral to impose an unjust peace?
Throughout my life I have participated in many marches and demonstrations in which the protesters were overwhelmingly peaceful and orderly, yet police responded with extreme violence, and/or mass arrests. This of course is nothing new, but has been true throughout US history, including the Civil Rights movement for which King is famous. As Chief of Police, will you commit to defending the right of peaceful assembly?
On this topic of allowing demonstrations and protests, I noticed that the City is asking people to register for this event, including the signing of a waiver. I find this idea of registering with the government to march in honor of Martin Luther King so absurd, I can only appeal to Gil Scott Heron by saying that the revolution will not be indemnified. There will be no one held harmless, no release of liability, and no lawyers' fees because, brothers and sisters, the revolution will not be indemnified!
Putting satire aside, the fact is that myself and many others feel the First Amendment provides sufficient permission to assemble peacefully in public. Will you as the head of the SCPD defend the constitutional protection for peacable assembly, or will you send SCPD officers to issue citations or perform arrests?
Thanks for your time,
Steve Schnaar
Santa Cruz resident
I saw that the SCPD is sponsoring an event called “March for the Dream” in honor of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. As someone who takes great inspiration from King's life and words, I am glad to see that so many others want to honor him. At the same time, I have some questions about if the SCPD's dream for a better society is really in line with the dream of King.
When I was in school in the 80's and 90's, we used to have Black History Month every February. The overall history curriculum downplayed racism as a central feature of US society, and presented the US as the greatest country in the world. But once a year, we would talk about the Underground Railroad, Jim Crow, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King.
Later I realized how misleading this version of “black history” was. Rosa Parks was not, as I learned in school, a woman who one day decided she'd had enough; rather, she was a long-time organizer and leader in a mass movement fighting for racial and economic justice. Likewise, Martin Luther King was far more than the orator who dreamed of racial harmony and integration. King was a radical, a nonviolent revolutionary who challenged the entire social order, focusing on what he called the giant triplets of racism, militarism, and poverty. For this radical outspoken vision, King was spied on by the FBI, and was ultimately assassinated.
Therefore Mr. Mills, I am wondering how exactly are you going to help further this dream, from your particular position as the chief of police?
King fought against poverty, calling for a “revolution of values” which would no longer accept the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. “True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar,” he declared; “it comes to see that an edifice which creates beggars needs restructuring.”
While the police are not responsible for building this edifice of inequality and poverty, they play a huge role in enforcing and maintaining it. From the debtors prisons and vagrancy laws of centuries ago, and attacks on striking workers, to the current harassment of unsheltered people across the US for sitting, lying, or sleeping in public, the police have often acted as enemies of the poor.
In Santa Cruz, I have watched for years as the police harass homeless people and push them around without any obvious purpose. Although many people seem to think that such actions will make homeless people go away, in practice these tactics have failed to address the negative impacts on public space, while increasing the stress and suffering of those living on the streets. I am extremely impressed and grateful that under your leadership, the SCPD has worked with the City Manager to pursue a different approach that includes as part of the solution offering a designated area for people to camp, with increased sanitation and safety.
At the same time, the department has a long way to go to be a champion of King's dream. For example, just a few years ago a SCPD officer was filmed slamming Richard Hardy, a homeless man who was already hand-cuffed, face first into a curb, opening a gash in his face. Although the public was promised an investigation, the City sealed the results from public view. From what I could gather, it seems the officer involved was neither charged with a crime nor removed from the force, and Mr. Hardy received no compensation.
In a society where property rights are more valued than human rights in the legal code, how do you envision law enforcement acting as agents of social change against poverty and inequality, rather than enforcers of injustice?
King also challenged US militarism, opposing not only the Vietnam War but US intervention in Guatemala, Peru, Mozambique and around the world. If King were alive today he would certainly be concerned about the militarization of local police forces, as documented in the book, “Rise of the Warrior Cop” by journalist Radley Balko.
As a police chief who wants to march for King's dream, will you commit to a policy of civilian policing divorced from military methods and equipment? Including will you reject gifts of weapons and vehicles from the military, and return war machines already accepted?
Even apart from military equipment, handguns of course are also deadly weapons. Just last year, a SCPD officer shot and killed Sean Arlt, a man experiencing a mental health crisis who was wielding a garden rake. King dreamed of a society where conflicts could be resolved without violence, or with as little violence and loss of life as possible. Will you commit to enacting policies that help officers in these difficult and chaotic situations to have more options that feel appropriate and safe to them, instead of defaulting to the use of deadly force?
The third element of King's focus was of course racism, which did not disappear with the end of Jim Crow, but persists today primarily through social institutions like the criminal justice system. On every level from stops and arrests to convictions and sentencing, there are massive racial disparities. Like his successors in the movement for racial justice, surely King would have been appalled by the racialized War on Drugs and the associated Prison Industrial Complex, which Michelle Alexander has called the new Jim Crow.
To make King's dream a reality in Santa Cruz, is the SCPD prepared to stop enforcing drug laws, which were created to target racial minorities, and which contribute to increased violence and crime, while failing to reduce addiction? Will you join Law Enforcement Against Prohibition and advocate for addressing drug addiction as a public health problem?
Another intersection of racism with law enforcement is racial profiling in police stops. I've lived in Santa Cruz for sixteen years, and during that time there has only been one person of color that I remember serving on our City Council, Tony Madrigal. During his term in office, some young Latino men confided in Tony their perception of having been racially profiled at a public event. When Tony tried to have a public conversation about it, the SCPD attacked him, as did other Council members.
Chief Mills, are you prepared to take seriously the reality of racial bias, including implicit bias, and to take steps to reduce and eventually eliminate it?
A final consideration I want to raise is that for decades, the SCPD had a Deputy Chief and spokesperson who routinely attacked people for their political beliefs and activism. For example, Mr. Clark investigated and intimidated a young man who'd advocated successfully for the creation of a citizen police review board, and made threatening statements to the Council members who approved it. More recently in 2014, he went on television two weeks ahead of an election to attack a City Council candidate, calling her a dangerous anarchist for having participated in trainings for nonviolent protests against the WTO in 1999. SCPD officials also spread false rumors about disease outbreaks at the Occupy Santa Cruz camp in 2011.
Martin Luther King spent his whole life resisting, agitating, and protesting, often facing great repression from the police, as well as widespread criticism from mainstream society. Yet for King, tension and struggle were necessary to achieve justice. As he noted in his famous letter from a Birmingham County jail,
“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice...”
As a champion of this event in honor of King, I am wondering can I expect a new era of policing in Santa Cruz where the SCPD focuses on defending public safety, and refrains from using its power to smear, criticize, and undermine those advocating for social change? And beyond simply avoiding the excesses and abuses of power by Mr. Clark, will the SCPD honor King's position that sometimes protest and disruption are necessary and valuable, and that it is immoral to impose an unjust peace?
Throughout my life I have participated in many marches and demonstrations in which the protesters were overwhelmingly peaceful and orderly, yet police responded with extreme violence, and/or mass arrests. This of course is nothing new, but has been true throughout US history, including the Civil Rights movement for which King is famous. As Chief of Police, will you commit to defending the right of peaceful assembly?
On this topic of allowing demonstrations and protests, I noticed that the City is asking people to register for this event, including the signing of a waiver. I find this idea of registering with the government to march in honor of Martin Luther King so absurd, I can only appeal to Gil Scott Heron by saying that the revolution will not be indemnified. There will be no one held harmless, no release of liability, and no lawyers' fees because, brothers and sisters, the revolution will not be indemnified!
Putting satire aside, the fact is that myself and many others feel the First Amendment provides sufficient permission to assemble peacefully in public. Will you as the head of the SCPD defend the constitutional protection for peacable assembly, or will you send SCPD officers to issue citations or perform arrests?
Thanks for your time,
Steve Schnaar
Santa Cruz resident
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Today's Bathrobespierre's Broadsides Free Radio show plays and analyzes KZSC''s John Malkin interviewing SCPD Police Chief Andy Mills.
At http://huffsantacruz.org/lost/FRSC%201-14-18%20final.mp3 .
At http://huffsantacruz.org/lost/FRSC%201-14-18%20final.mp3 .
Micah Posner wrote this in an email to his supporters.
Dear Fellow Citizens,
Please join me tomorrow, Martin Luther King Day, to march with the NAACP and the City Police Department at 10AM at Cathcart and Pacific downtown. Yes, I said Police Department. And yes, I am surprised at myself. But the fact is that our new Police Chief, Andy Mills, has not just balanced civil rights with security, he has been a courageous leader in ending the criminalization of the homeless, which is our town’s biggest civil rights issue. So I will march with him.
I know I haven’t put out one of these for a long time. I have been following the Council somewhat, but they don’t seem to be up to anything noteworthy, at least not in public. Of course maybe it just seems less important when I am not on it.
The Mayor's year of housing ended with some very dull recommendations- so incremental as to verge on meaningless, which were then passed to a committee. The most important part of the report was about the two potential ballot measures for November 2018 that are not sponsored by the Council. One is a county- wide bond measure to build affordable housing and shelters for the homeless, which I very much support. If all goes well it will be agendized by the Board of Supervisors and will not have organized opposition. The other is a City wide proposal for rent control. We will start collecting signatures for this one in a month or so.
Yes. Rent Control!!!
Rent control would protect a portion of our City’s residents from the merciless housing market, providing a modicum of stability for our workforce, our schools and our community. I support it as a resident, a father, and a landlord.
The struggle for rent control will not be easy. We will be opposed by the state wide apartment owners association, who will likely outspend us by 10 to one. They did that in Richmond and Alameda and we won anyway. But we will have to spend 100s of hours gathering signatures and raise 50 thousand dollars. If you are a property owner or landlord, this is a unique time for you to spend some money on adding mercy and stability to the real estate system. To learn more or to sign up to gather signatures or make a donation go to https://movementforhousingjustice.org. If you have already made a pledge, this is a good time to send it in.
In solidarity,
Micah Posner
Dear Fellow Citizens,
Please join me tomorrow, Martin Luther King Day, to march with the NAACP and the City Police Department at 10AM at Cathcart and Pacific downtown. Yes, I said Police Department. And yes, I am surprised at myself. But the fact is that our new Police Chief, Andy Mills, has not just balanced civil rights with security, he has been a courageous leader in ending the criminalization of the homeless, which is our town’s biggest civil rights issue. So I will march with him.
I know I haven’t put out one of these for a long time. I have been following the Council somewhat, but they don’t seem to be up to anything noteworthy, at least not in public. Of course maybe it just seems less important when I am not on it.
The Mayor's year of housing ended with some very dull recommendations- so incremental as to verge on meaningless, which were then passed to a committee. The most important part of the report was about the two potential ballot measures for November 2018 that are not sponsored by the Council. One is a county- wide bond measure to build affordable housing and shelters for the homeless, which I very much support. If all goes well it will be agendized by the Board of Supervisors and will not have organized opposition. The other is a City wide proposal for rent control. We will start collecting signatures for this one in a month or so.
Yes. Rent Control!!!
Rent control would protect a portion of our City’s residents from the merciless housing market, providing a modicum of stability for our workforce, our schools and our community. I support it as a resident, a father, and a landlord.
The struggle for rent control will not be easy. We will be opposed by the state wide apartment owners association, who will likely outspend us by 10 to one. They did that in Richmond and Alameda and we won anyway. But we will have to spend 100s of hours gathering signatures and raise 50 thousand dollars. If you are a property owner or landlord, this is a unique time for you to spend some money on adding mercy and stability to the real estate system. To learn more or to sign up to gather signatures or make a donation go to https://movementforhousingjustice.org. If you have already made a pledge, this is a good time to send it in.
In solidarity,
Micah Posner
The time for talk has ended. Change is what needs to start happening. I believe it is an insult to MLK and all his supporters like James Baldwin who stood up for "civil rights of all!"
SCPD has been talking for too long already. Either commit to zero tolerance of civilian abuse —especially to poor, mental disabled, people of color, unhoused— or stay away from the event. I was angry when I saw a photograph in the Sentinel of Lieutenant LeMoss at the MLK event when he was the officers who abused, harassed and violated Donna Deiss rights! He did this when he broke this 80 year old's arm which crippled her. He then, as I was told by HUFF and others, gave her a ticket for littering the coffee cup he knocked out of the arm he broke. He miss used his position, authority and uniform to retaliate for hot coffee getting on him. The event started over her seeking survival in housing of last resort, an RV. I don't believe this is the kind of abuse MLK would stand for! Le Moss to this day has never apologized nor owned up to his excessive force.
Until SCPD can come honest or stop engaging in violence against the people, they should not sponsor or engage in marches for Civil rights. I would have no problem if officers clear of abuse engaged in the march out of uniform. Now that would be a statement of change!
SCPD has been talking for too long already. Either commit to zero tolerance of civilian abuse —especially to poor, mental disabled, people of color, unhoused— or stay away from the event. I was angry when I saw a photograph in the Sentinel of Lieutenant LeMoss at the MLK event when he was the officers who abused, harassed and violated Donna Deiss rights! He did this when he broke this 80 year old's arm which crippled her. He then, as I was told by HUFF and others, gave her a ticket for littering the coffee cup he knocked out of the arm he broke. He miss used his position, authority and uniform to retaliate for hot coffee getting on him. The event started over her seeking survival in housing of last resort, an RV. I don't believe this is the kind of abuse MLK would stand for! Le Moss to this day has never apologized nor owned up to his excessive force.
Until SCPD can come honest or stop engaging in violence against the people, they should not sponsor or engage in marches for Civil rights. I would have no problem if officers clear of abuse engaged in the march out of uniform. Now that would be a statement of change!
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