I didn't hear the first part of the council meeting, when I did log in, it was just as the council was returning from a break and I hear that the police chief has resigned. I am utterly ashamed of our city council that they took this manic moment our country is in and ended up making the just about worst decision it could, even if it was accidental. You are racing to bend a knee, abrogating your responsibility of leaders. It's clear that the council has been willfully ignorant in how the department works and its value to this city. Not that everything is 100% perfect, but nothing is. If you want to take one of the most special cities in America and run it into the dirt, you seem to be on the right track. I can and will say more about this, but for the rest of this message I will focus on the thoughts, views and policy suggestions I had while waiting to speak on today's workshop. I am a resident of the Willows, in my 20 years of living here, I am glad that we have a pretty good police department. Part of the reason that people want to live in our town is the low level of crime. And with all that has been happening recently, I still see no reason to change our system. In fact, seeing the mob try to dictate police is hurtful and anti-democratic and un-american. I wanted to share a few random thoughts I had while listing to the 4pm meeting. But let me be clear, I do not want to see any major changes to our police department our our city policies. I would be happy to elaborate, but that is my foundational view. Not that everything is perfect, but that our system here seems to be working pretty well. While the crowd has been yelling defund the police, decriminalize crime, and demanding political leaders bend a knee, I think they have entirely missed the point. People scream BLM, and they do, but then look at the statistics of police use of force and the facts tell a different story. There does not seem to be a wanton wave of police killing blacks for no reason. While there are cases where personal prejudice or other factors lead to an illegal act by a police officer, if you look at most cases, a fair reading would show probably 90% or more of leathal uses of force was justified. In this day and age, with body cameras, smart phones, I feel that the use of force we are seeing is primarily directed by the response of the suspect. Whatever is considered, I would suggest we need to pay attention to the unintended consequences. During today's call, some suggested decriminalizing petty crimes. That may sound nice, and sweet, but look to what has happened in San Francisco to show how bad a decision that has turned out. 100,000s of auto burglaries, wholesale shoplifting of drug stores, the need for an app to point out where there is human waste, and tens of thousands of homeless people. What the nice, sweet dreamers in our communitees don't realize is that for most people, their only point of contact to get any help is through the police and county jails. By failing to enforce these laws, the problems in society only get worse. On another point, we ask that officers enforce the law and use force to enforce those laws. But taking away qualified immunity would seem to leave us with a police force that may be constantly in courts as defendents as a way to avoid criminal responsibility. Look at what happened in Atlanta, good police won't remain to be served up to the mob. Let's also remember, that we are only 25 years from when East Palo Alto was the murder capital of the nation. A few years ago, there was a string of burglaries in the Willows. The perpertrators were based in East Palo Alto, so I am happy to have our officers help out the EPAPD with patrols. Keep in mind, our police are called peace officers, if they can diffuse crime before it happens in our neighborhoods, I am happy with that. Another thing to keep in mind, our police chief at the meeting last week pointed out that our police department interacted with about 43,000 people last year. Only 10 complaints were filed, a slim majority by citizens, the rest by fellow officers. Even if there is under counting, I don't see a massive, institutionalized problem among our police. Things can be done better, but this not Palo Alto with currently 3 recent serious events. To the woman who talked about her son being harassed for standing outside his own house on the call today, I bet you could call the chief to ask for an explanation, and I bet that they would set up a meeting to discuss the incident. I would also want to say that the host of today's call, Mr. Curtain, was not an unbiased mediator, helping to launch a discussion. He had a very specific bias or frame of reference and it plainly showed through. In reality, the impact of any systemic racism has likely already made its impact before the police are ever called. I think the way to fight systemic racism is to see that the system treats everyone the same, same laws and penalties apply to all. That there are legal recourses when the laws are not applied equally. In fact, some of the biggest issues effecting blacks and even poor whites are born out of the great society polices that started nearly 60 years ago. Misguided attempts to help ended up causing the greatest hurt. It eliminated responsibility and further divided our nation. As we look to reshape our system, let's keep it simple, base it on individual responsibility. I know these don't seem to be popular positions, but they are shared because I think they are rooted in reality, that they lead us to a goal of society without structural racism, and they protect the innocent from the wrong doers. Otherwise, we continue down the same path political leaders have been charting for decades and things will only become worse. And again, don't change our police department. Otherwise, those who can afford will move to better, safer cities, and the tax basis will collapse and no one will want to live here and our city will not be able to help anyone. Sincerely, Michael Received on Thu Jun 18 2020 - 19:52:56 PDT
