Santa Barbara Law Enforcement: Two Ways to Handle a Riot

Donald Trump Is Trying to Blow Up California. Can It Be Stopped?

Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown (left) and SBPD Chief Kelly Gordon | Credit: Daniel Dreifus file, Zach Mendez

BLOWING UP: Watching Donald Trump’s invasion of Los Angeles unfold, I am reminded of an early-morning raid Ventura law enforcement agencies launched on my next-door neighbor many years ago. My neighbor was a big biker guy, and it turns out that he was a suspected meth dealer. There was an overwhelming show of force in the predawn hours.

From my neighbor’s perspective, a whole bunch of strange people invaded his house, and they had guns.

So, too, it turns out, did he.

Alarmed, he yanked out the .357 handgun he kept under his pillow. This being America, he acted in self-defense and shot one of the cops right in the chest.

The good news is that the cop was wearing a bulletproof vest. No one, miraculously, got killed. But the cops went batshit. They dragged my neighbor and his wife outside, naked and shivering. Then, they proceeded to trash the place.

Later, attorneys representing my neighbor would question the forensic value of this temper tantrum. As far as meth, the cop only discovered enough to whiten his mustache. I don’t remember how much my neighbor got from the settlement, but I suspect it was a lot more than the cops thought he was making as a dealer.

Perhaps most amazingly, he was still alive.

At the time, the harshest critics of this botched police action were not my neighbors or even his attorneys; it was other people I knew in law enforcement.

There are ways of getting things done. And ways of blowing shit up.

Cops need to know the difference, and stupid always plays out harder. People tend to get killed.

Donald Trump, as he has repeatedly demonstrated, likes to blow shit up.

Right now, he’s attempting to blow up our state.

Right now — in this truly historic moment — we don’t have the luxury of stupidity. We don’t have the luxury of violence. Throwing rocks at cops, burning cars, and throwing firecrackers — blowing shit up — only gets people killed.

I am struck, also in this moment, by the two press releases just released this Tuesday: one by Sheriff Bill Brown and the other by Santa Barbara Police Chief Kelly Gordon. In some ways, they were singing the exact same song: We are not working with ICE; we are not enforcing federal immigration law; please don’t be violent; if you are violent, we will arrest you.

But in the tone of their delivery, they could not have been more different.

Sheriff Bill Brown announced his department was sending 32 deputies down to Los Angeles to assist law enforcement agencies keeping the peace to “ensure the safety and security of their communities in response to these violent disturbances.”

He then went on to denounce the protests: “These events unfolding in Los Angeles … are far from peaceful First Amendment protests. We are witnessing destructive attacks on private property and targeted attacks on law enforcement officers.”

True enough. But the vast majority of the protestors are, in fact, peaceful. The entire conflagration was triggered by federal authorities allegedly tasked to round up dangerous criminals who are here illegally.

If you are going after dangerous criminals, proper police tactics are supposed to be done surgically. But trawling neighborhoods looking for anyone who looks like an immigrant? Agents — their faces covered — showing up in vans and buses and grabbing people, regardless of age? That’s inciting a riot.

Brown made no distinction between peaceful and violent protests. He made no acknowledgement that a major line has just been crossed in our country. I like Brown. I think he’s a good man. He needs to do a whole lot better in these historic times.

I understand that as a national and statewide leader in law enforcement, he’s walking a tightrope. But Brown should have reminded people — as he did when he was still a Lompoc police chief — that without the heroic help of “illegal aliens” — Los Angeles’s Hillside Strangler would never have been caught.

Back then, Brown was running for sheriff against an incumbent stupid enough to say he thought his deputies should assist immigration agents. Right now, we need law enforcement leaders like Brown to say a few heartfelt syllables in support of the Constitution, free speech, and a community of immigrants now under siege who, for centuries, have been an integral part of California.

By contrast, Santa Barbara Police Chief Kelly Gordon did just that. In a statement — written in both Spanish and English — Gordon affirmed that “the right to protest is a cornerstone to our democracy…. Whether people gather to speak out on immigration issues, racial justice, economic inequality, or any other cause, our officers are committed to safeguarding the public’s right to assemble.”

Only after making this point — using language that Trump has all but banned from all federal communications — did she address the issue of violence. “We ask that all demonstrators remain nonviolent and respectful of others,” she wrote in a first-person voice to the community.

“But if people engage in acts that threaten public safety,” she added, “our department will act swiftly and decisively to separate agitators from lawful demonstrators to protect both public safety and the integrity of the protest itself.”

As any writer knows, it’s what you don’t say that counts. What Brown didn’t say spoke volumes. That there are both peaceful protestors as well as agitators. That people have a right to protest.

Perhaps Brown felt this was too obvious for words. Right now, nothing is too obvious.

To read the companion piece to this Angry Poodle, click here.