Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on June 1, 2020

It was supposed to be a demonstration to bring attention to the excessive use of force by police and the racial injustices that persist. Instead, Saturday afternoons protest at the La Mesa Police Department turned into a destructive free-for-all that lasted into the early morning hours of Sunday.

Rioters set fire to cars, torched two banks and looted several businesses along the streets of downtown La Mesa and at several shopping centers in the East County city, a bedroom community with a tangle of freeways.

Civic and faith leaders from around the region said its important the original messages of the protesters do not get lost amid the glass shards and rubble. Demonstrators who showed up for the 2 p.m. protest carried signs that read Black Lives Matter and Dont Shoot and chanted I cant breathe! I cant breathe! to honor the memory of George Floyd.

Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, died on Memorial Day after a white police officer in Minneapolis pressed his knee into Floyds neck for nearly nine minutes.

Lois Knowlton, chairwoman of community outreach ministry at First United Methodist Church, has lived in La Mesa for four decades with her husband, Roger.

She said the church has been getting notices from its council of bishops recognizing that we are at a tipping point in this whole race issue, and the COVID-19 pandemic adds to it. Her church group Sunday spoke about the protesters and the violence that followed.

We know it is not the people of La Mesa doing that damage; its outsiders coming in, she said. But there is anger here, too, and to say there is not is to be in denial. We have a lot of good people who spent time picking up the pieces last night, and today.

The rioting moved into the downtown village, the heart of the community and host to weekly farmers markets, Oktoberfest, summer car shows and an annual Holiday in the Village celebration.

For our little city of La Mesa, in my 40 years here, never ever has anything like this ever happened, Knowlton said. I think we need to do something about the racism. We cant keep quiet. I believe we all need more training. Were going to have to raise the level of things we talk about to see what can we do to make a change here. Its not a time for silence.

Aeiramique Glass Blake, a public safety consultant and director of the leadership group Generation Justice, has been working with La Mesa Police Chief Walt Vasquez for several years. The two teamed up to help create new protocols for the La Mesa police force after a 2018 incident involving a white officer who twice body-slammed a handcuffed black student at Helix Charter High School.

She said people quickly made the connection between the high school student, Brianna Bell, and the arrest Wednesday of a black man by a white police officer at the Grossmont Transit Center. The officer repeatedly pushed the man onto a bench.

When you see a protest, we are not just talking about George Floyd; this is about all those before Floyd, all the others who were killed and all those who were beat up real bad, she said.

Blake said one of the biggest problems is the police bill of rights, which she said offers built-in protections for officers regardless of their actions.

We are so upset and so tired, Blake said. We know how easy a black man can die in America. We need chiefs of police to stand up in a way that they have not before. We must burn down the systemic racial system that has oppressed communities for so long and create change. I do not believe in abolishing the police but we do need a new way of (policing) to make sure people are really safe.

On Sunday, the Rev. Shane Harris of the Peoples Alliance for Justice was in Minnesota with the family of Floyd to grieve with them and present money he and other San Diegans had raised to help them financially.

Harris said police departments across the country need serious policy changes and a need to reform, and echoing Blake, he said, Moving forward, weve got to continue to break down the systemic plague in the police department. We know there are good cops, but it is extremely hard to deal with the bad apples, because the system is set up to protect the department, so there is no accountability.

Harris said he was concerned that the protests inevitably escalate into riots, distracting from the end goal, which is for racial justice and police reform.

What were seeing all over, including La Mesa, is the (looters) are coming in and around and trying to take away from the actual goal of the protesters, Harris said. They use (the event) for their own purposes, shifting the message from reform and policy change to looting and rioting.

Harris said he hoped that those in leadership roles would look closely at those who are looting and rioting and call that out. He said that vetting early would show that the protesters are not the ones who are looting, just rioters hoping to connect our message to theirs, and we need to ask them to leave or report them if they are here to do damage.

Harris said there needs to be more done similar to Assembly Bill 392, authored by Assemblywoman Shirley Weber. AB 392, passed last August, allows law enforcement officers to use deadly force only when necessary, when their life or the lives of others are in imminent danger and when there is no other alternative to de-escalate the situation, such as using non-lethal methods.

Francine Maxwell, the San Diego president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said the pervasive injustices committed against people of color for generations has been exacerbated by the president and his administration.

She said her 28-year-old son, Eugene, attended the peaceful protest in La Mesa, it was beautiful to see, with all ages and all ethnicities, unifying voices that were heard.

We had peoples attention, all allies in all age ranges who kept the days theme focused on social injustices and changes that need to occur with the law enforcement and judicial systems, Maxwell said.

But she said as the day progressed into evening, there arrived on scene a different group not associated with the protesters, there to destroy and distract, and unfortunately the protesters doing the right thing got lumped in with those who were doing the wrong things.

Its a shame people wanted to come and destroy the La Mesa community, she said. That was just a distraction to keep from focusing on what needs to occur, which is the unifying of all the age groups, all the ethnicities looking at the root cause which is racism. Because of (rioters), now people expecting to, cant go to their local Vons, and its just ridiculous.

La Mesa resident Bonnie Baranoff, a member of the citys Citizen Task Force on Homelessness, said she doesnt know the full extent of the hardships for people of color, but said theres just pain everywhere, with George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery (a black jogger killed by a retired white cop and his son in Georgia) so close together, compounding things.

Baranoff said, however, that theres always a silver lining and I think COVID-19 started bringing out all these inequalities, exposes what is there... everything is bubbling up to the surface. Weve all been cooped up and others need to get their frustrations out. All of this is a perfect storm. The universe is telling us to stop. It may be that this ugliness had to come out, but its not going to solve how many hundreds of years of wrong. But we can start trying to make it right in the community.

Tammy Gillies, regional director of the San Diego Anti-Defamation League, said humanity is at its best when all people are treated equitably, with dignity and respect. Gillies said the world has seen the raw emotions of protesters spill into the streets and cities of America from Minneapolis to La Mesa.

We must acknowledge the pain, and commit to being allies, to reaching out, to helping the community move forward in a way that uplifts those who need it most, she said. We must not be paralyzed by anger or fear. We must have the courage to move forward toward justice.

See the article here:
Community leaders: Don't lose the message behind the protests - The San Diego Union-Tribune

Category: Anti-Defamation League
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