By Doug Porter
The San Diego County District attorney’s office announced on Monday that video of an incident at Lincoln High School will not be released, according to a report on 10News. A SDUSD police officer was injured, two students were arrested and five people were hospitalized on Friday.
At issue are conflicting reports over what happened. Students say police overreacted to roughhousing. A cell phone video shows a police officer tasering a student lying face down and another officer pepper-spraying onlookers at the historically black high school. Police are asserting that an officer was jumped from behind and say more arrests are expected in the near future.
From 10 News:
Charlotte Johnson, whose son is a 10th grader at the school, said, “They grab the kids, they twist their arms, all that, and it’s like the 10th and 11th graders play fighting with the 9th and 10th graders; they shouldn’t have did it like that.”
“Why would you need a Taser for a kid? If I was that kid’s mom, I’d be getting a lawyer right now and suing the city of San Diego, San Diego Unified School District and the school police,” Johnson said. “They try to act like they’re the San Diego Police, but then they’re handling kids, sometimes people don’t have kids, and they don’t know how to handle kids.”
From the Union-Tribune:
Initially the school had planned to hold an assembly to address the brawl, which occurred in the Imperial Avenue campus’ parking garage, but officials ultimately chose to start conversations with students at the classroom level with help from a special curriculum, said San Diego Unified School District spokeswoman Linda Zintz.
The school’s class schedule was altered so that students could spend all day discussing the matter during classes, Zintz said.
“It will give students and adults the chance to share their feelings about what could be done to prevent it from happening again,” she said Monday morning.
From KUSI:
The tazed student currently in juvenile hall, 16-year-old sophomore Jesse Duncan, happens to be the son of controversial rapper Brandon Duncan, more widely known as “Tiny Doo.”
In March of 2015, criminal charges were dropped against Doo, who faced 25-years-to-life in prison. He was charged with inciting violence with his rap lyrics. The judge would later throw out all of the charges.
Now Duncan is likely to be on the offensive side of the courtroom, hiring his former lawyer, Brian Watkins, to help sue the San Diego Police Department after tazing his son, who was reportedly walking away from the brawl when an officer confronted and later tazed him. Attorney Watkins is considering a lawsuit against S.D.P.D. for using excessive force.
Jesse Duncan is a 3.0 student at Lincoln and has no criminal record.
UPDATE: Supporters of Jesse Duncan are planning to show up at his court hearing on Wednesday Morning at 8am at the Kearny Mesa Courthouse to demand #JusticeForJesse.
As was the case with surveillance video from April 2015 capturing a fatal shooting in which a veteran San Diego police officer shot and killed an unarmed, mentally ill man, the District Attorney has once again apparently placed her thumb on the scales of justice.
The ‘blue wall’ protecting law enforcement officers from charges of misconduct is apparently more important than the public right to know. The routine withholding of videos certainly leaves the impression there is something to hide.
What would they hide? Maybe something like this, from NBC7 News:
A police officer who responded to a fight that turned violent last Friday at Lincoln High School has been involved in at least one other violent incident with juveniles according to documents obtained by NBC 7.
The nearly 30-page report from October 2014 said Officer Bashir Abdi drove past two teen off-campus when he thought he smelled and saw marijuana. Abdi said he recognized one of the young men from a school where he previously worked.
The synopsis of the report stated Abdi tried to detain the teen multiple times by foot. At one point the teen allegedly reached into his pockets as he ran away from Abdi. Eventually he used his taser on the teen.
Students at Lincoln in prayer on Monday–via Twitter
A story on KPBS this morning–not available on their website as I’m writing this–started off by saying only that the assault of an officer at Lincoln was being investigated, never mentioning any controversy over police actions.
The local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union is investigating the incident.
Parables From the Convadium Crisis
Scott Lewis has penned a decent overview for Voice of San Diego about the Chargers quest for a new stadium, the Citizens Plan initiative and Kevin Faulconer’s rapidly dimming plans for an initiative authoring expansion of the existing convention center. Be sure to read the comments.
The GOP’s go-to campaign treasurer (She does a few Democrats) April Boling has an op-ed posted at Voice of San Diego full of ‘concerns.’ It’s too bad she didn’t actually read the initiative first. Backers of the Citizens Initiative claim the post reveals that the real motive here is a scheme for high-density development in Mission Valley as opposed to the idea of a complex for higher education. Again, read the comments.
While we’re on the topic of true or maybe-not-true narratives, I’d like to pass along a story currently circulating at city hall. The source, of course, wishes to remain anonymous.
…before the Chargers agreed to join with the Citizens Plan they met with the mayor and NFL reps. At one point during the meeting Faulconer asked Spanos to step outside so he could talk privately with the NFL. I was told Spanos said, “Fuck you” and stormed out. Shortly thereafter they announced they were joining forces with the initiative.
And did I mention that former City Councilman Carl DeMaio is raising money to oppose this “tax increase?” He voted while on the city council to allow fees on hotel bills as long as they didn’t call it a tax.
This quibbling over a stadium is actually turning out to be more entertaining than most Chargers games.
Gloria Dissents on June Charter Measures
The City Council has opted to put all it’s Charter Reform measures on the June Primary ballot.
The only dissenting vote came from Councilman Todd Gloria, who pointed out that the city would likely save a million dollars by waiting until November.
From the Times of San Diego:
On Tuesday, the City Council will consider a sixth — a measure that would establish a dedicated funding stream for infrastructure.
If passed by voters, the three charter clean-up items would:
- Update bond authorization procedures to conform to state law
- Replace a provision on the way the city levies, assesses and collects property taxes to conform with state law
- Clarify the authority to fix salaries of elected officials and employee
Three other proposed measures were postponed for one week so the City Attorney’s Office can replace the term “city manager,” to “mayor,” and references to “auditor” and “comptroller” to “chief financial officer.”
If those are approved for the ballot at the March 8 meeting, the total number of ballot measures would grow to nine.
Aside from the foolishness of the dedicated stream of funding for infrastructure (it’s political gesture and not enough money to solve the problems), am I the only one who’s troubled by the seeming lack of vetting by the City Attorney’s office? Did somebody from the council not send it in? Was somebody in Jan Goldsmith’s office too busy throwing darts at their Cory Briggs dartboard? Inquiring minds want to know.
Supreme Court Leaves Affordable Housing Law Intact
The building industry hired the righties at the Pacific Legal Foundation to challenge a San Jose law requiring housing developers to include affordable, below-market priced units for low-income buyers on any new projects within the city.
On Tuesday the US Supreme Court has declined to hear the case, meaning a unanimous ruling upholding the law last year by the California Supreme Court remains in place.
From the Mercury News:
San Jose’s law would require developers to offer 15 percent of units in new projects of 20 or more units at below-market rates. Developers could opt out of building affordable units by paying a fee, which the housing industry estimates could run about $122,000 per house.
Housing advocates warned of dire consequences if the Supreme Court invalidated San Jose’s affordable housing regulation. California has been considered a model for such laws, designed not only to provide more low-income housing but also to get it built in a larger cross-section of neighborhoods.
Dick Cheney Edited 1975 Report on CIA Assassinations
Just about the time I’m about to write off all conspiracy theorists (they are a uniformly unpleasant bunch), something like this comes along.
From the National Security Archive:
The Gerald Ford White House significantly altered the final report of the supposedly independent 1975 Rockefeller Commission investigating CIA domestic activities, over the objections of senior Commission staff, according to internal White House and Commission documents posted today by the National Security Archive at The George Washington University (www.nsarchive.org). The changes included removal of an entire 86-page section on CIA assassination plots and numerous edits to the report by then-deputy White House Chief of Staff Richard Cheney.
Today’s posting includes the entire suppressed section on assassination attempts, Cheney’s handwritten marginal notes, staff memos warning of the fallout of deleting the controversial section, and White House strategies for presenting the edited report to the public. The documents show that the leadership of the presidentially-appointed commission deliberately curtailed the investigation and ceded its independence to White House political operatives.
Yeah, I know, nobody cares. Just don’t get prickly when I call the former Vice President a serial liar and war criminal.
On This Day: 1936 – An article in the March 1936 edition of the magazine Popular Science lists what it terms “the world’s craziest jobs,” all of them in Hollywood. Included: Horse-tail painter (to make the tails stand out better in the movies); bone-bleacher (for animal skeletons in Westerns); and chorus-girl weigher, whose function the article did not make terribly clear. 1973 – Pink Floyd released “Dark Side of the Moon”. 1974 – Seven people were indicted in connection with the Watergate break-in. The charge was conspiring to obstruct justice.
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Doug Porter
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HOLY COW! What a ton of good information.
Thanks SDFP.
It is highly unlikely that an old PR hand like Mayor Kev would make such a faux-pas but I do believe The Other Guy would answer that way.
But, this story comes from a “source” who apparently heard it from someone else (“I was told Spanos said…”). That makes it third-hand. So, why is The Starting Line printing gossip?
Slow news day, perhaps? After all, it’s only Monday :-)