AN OPEN LETTER TO VICE-MAYOR SCOTT KENNEDY

to: Vice-Mayor Scott Kennedy
re: the elimination of Citizen oversight of the police

January 31, 2003

Dear Vice-Mayor Scott Kennedy,

On Tuesday, January 28th, you, along with the rest of the council acted to dissolve the Citizens Police Review Board citing budget woes as your reason. Since the council's plan is to replace the 7 all-volunteer board members with a highly paid attorney, certainly any cost savings will be negligible. Nor did you even consider the reasonable request upon the part of Chair Mark Halfmoon and Vice-Chair Brent Fouse to at least finish the 5 complaints they had already spent dozens of hours reading all materials and viewing evidence in order to present their findings on those remaining complaints.

That was the last thing you wanted to happen. For the CPRB was investigating over 29 incidents of selective enforcement or harassment of poor, homeless, or people of color. You voted to order the CPRB to "cease operations" on January 29th, the very next day.

It is obvious to me that you, the actual person who gutted the effectiveness of the CPRB when it was originally enacted in 1994, were more than happy to axe the program as quickly as possible. You have on several occasions stated that you trust the police, that you count on police to use discretion---which in itself is a good thing, but in reality, this turns out to be a slavish adherence by the police to any request by a merchant and a disproportionate focus on poor and homeless people, young people, and people of color for ticketing and arrest. Did you axe the board to stop the review of the SCPD policy of selective enforcement against poor, homeless, and people of color?

You mentioned my name in your deliberations and accused me of filing three complaints in the past year. What was your meaning in this? Were you saying that because I filed them, they were false or insignificant? I know you are aware that I work closely with homeless people, and all three complaints I filed were on behalf of the poor and homeless people who I had evidence and testimony of the abuse and misconduct they had suffered at the hands of the SCPD. In the 8 years in which the CPRB has been in operation, I have filed 8 complaints. So what is your point, Scott?

I am still waiting for the CPRB to consider my complaint against Officer Guerrasio for the death of David Andress, a homeless man who Guerrasio took into custody. The death certificate reports Andress had "numerous contusions to the head from beating his own head against a brick planter".

I'm still waiting for the CPRB to review my complaint regarding the Button St. shooting on March 1998, where Bryan Andruss' wife was assaulted by an officer and then he was shot five times for attempting to defend her with a baseball bat. A case in which Sgt. Hennig shot Andrus in the back but testified he shot Andrus "as he was charging towards him."

As you were eliminating the last vestige of citizen oversight of our bloated, piggish police department (who's budget I predict will be miraculously spared in the upcoming budget cuts) your parting shot is to impugn the reputation of those who filed complaints? Insult to injury and hardly the behavior the public has the right to expect from a self-proclaimed "statesman" like yourself.

I do have sympathy for the council in trying to keep the City functional in light of the shrinking budget. I understand that scaling back on expenses is neccessary and I expect a lot of belt-tightening to occur. But your elimination of the CPRB was just wrong.

Hundreds of people worked for months and years to get that board established, and in four short days you acted to eliminate it completely with phoney stats on what the actual budget savings will be. The people of Santa Cruz are worse off today than they were before Tuesday. Your efforts to sanitize Santa Cruz of the poor, downtrodden homeless people and beggars will not go unnoticed. Your actions to eliminate any protection they may have demonstrate what a pawn you are to bigots, power-brokers, and to unchecked police power.

Sincerely,

Becky Johnson of HUFF
Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom
(831) 423-HUFF or becky_johnson (at) sbcglobal.net