VVPD Targets Mutual Aid Event, Arrests and Assaults Activists

On Sunday, the 24th of January 2021, Voices of VV did a mutual aid event in which they provided food, hygiene products, and other supplies to the community, as well as a community clean-up. Afterwards as everyone was leaving, a comrade was pulled over for expired tags, and an air freshener hanging from their mirror, by an entire team of officers with six vehicles. Nine people, including Voices, arrived soon after to record and cop watch. More officers then arrived, now in riot gear and heavily armed with wooden batons in hand and others with guns. The officers declared six of the observers standing and recording to be an “unlawful assembly” and forced them down an alley way, leading them back to the other side of the street on which the events were happening, where the other three were still recording. Comrades continued recording as the officers in riot gear formed a line and began pushing them backwards into the street. A few minutes later, they pushed the observers further, onto the sidewalk on the other side, shortly before sending a second team to push, grab, tackle, assault, and arrest various comrades. The founder of Voices of VV, a Black woman, was specifically targeted. An officer can be heard pointing to her and saying "yes her, grab her!"

They tackled her, put all their weight on her, with their knee in her back and neck. They twisted her arm and held it so tight, she sustained bruises on her arms and wrists for days after.

Two nearby comrades attempted to protect her. The two of them were tackled and assaulted (including their faces being shoved into the concrete, a knee in their back, and an elbow to the neck) to the point of sustaining injuries, including large bruises splayed across their bodies, and were arrested immediately after. The rest, multiple of which were also injured, were separated and pushed further down the sidewalks. Another comrade, further down, had what appeared to be a paintball gun pointed at her face as she was made to drop her phone and was also arrested. The cop arresting her told the person recording the arrest not to touch the phone. The remaining observers were able to get away without being arrested, but not unharmed. Vacaville Police confiscated the phones of all those arrested as "evidence," despite the arresting charge being "failure to leave the scene of a riot" and has yet to return them.