I’m stirring this pot again because it needs to be stirred. P. Price has done something very controversial and while the facts are still developing, we need to harden public opinion until it recognizes the truth.
Once more, Price’s resentment of police is on full display.
The back story: Three cops were sent to deal with an out-of-control person in Alameda city in April, 2021. Residents had called 911 complaining about a violent man “talking strangely and smashing a bottle on a tree stump.” As happens so often, the perp, who was a big, strong person, resisted being detained. The three officers then pinned him to the ground and sought to handcuff him, as was their right and duty. After a few minutes, the subject stopped moving.
A coroner attributed his death to the “stress of altercation and restraint” while noting the “toxic effects of methamphetamine,” “morbid obesity” and “alcoholism.” Confusingly, though, the coroner also determined that the death had been a “homicide,” which is hard to reconcile with the other facts. If being a drugged-out, fat alcoholic who fought cops until his heart gave out caused his death, then how could he have been murdered? Then-Alameda County Nancy O’Malley after an investigation ruled that “The officers’ decision to detain and arrest Mr. Gonzalez, and their subsequent use of force was objectively reasonable considering the agency policies, the totality of the circumstances, and the officers’ stated rationale.” The matter rested there for the next two years, until the other day when Price reopened it by charging the three officers with involuntary manslaughter.
Citizens are justified in asking why Price did this. True, she promised during her campaign to go after police officers, and this is in large part why she won her race: so many voters in Alameda County have been propagandized to believe that police officers are racist brutes who terrorize communities of color. So, in that sense, Price merely did what she said she would do.
But why now, when the issue of her being soft on crime and vindictive to cops is so potent in voters’ minds? With the Recall imminent, it would seem this is the worst possible time, from Price’s point of view, for her to remind voters that she holds on tenaciously to her anti-cop bias.
Price issued a press release when she refiled charges against the cops, but in that formal statement she did not explain why she decided to do so. Attorneys for the three cops, on the other hand, wasted little time in condemning Price’s action as “blatantly political persecution.” The Alameda County Sheriff, Yesenia Sanchez, also rushed to the officers’ defense. The victim’s “pre-existing medical conditions and the level of toxicity of methamphetamine found in his system during the autopsy,” she said, “contributed to his death as Alameda Police officers tried to overcome his resistance."
And then, of course, there’s Cat Brooks, who spends her days hovering like a vulture watching the police, ready to swoop and pounce at the slightest provocation. “They called the police, [the subject] was dog-piled, and he died. Somebody needs to be held accountable for that.”
Who, Madame Brooks, should be held accountable for the hundreds of Black homicides that occur annually in “the community”?
I’m tired of these woke lies every time like this happens. Sometimes, all we need is a little common sense. Why did the subject die? Because he resisted arrest and ignored repeated pleas to stop fighting. It always comes down to that. In 99% of these killings by police officers, the subject got shot or was immobilized because he fought the cops and needed to be stopped. You’d think the word would go out into “the community,” to use one of Price’s favorite terms, to not resist cops, but to surrender peacefully to them. If the guy is innocent, he’ll have his day in court, with a public defender—and then again, there’s always a civil lawsuit, which police departments seem all too willing to settle for big money.
But no. Instead, the left instigates mentally unbalanced, angry people to commit crimes and then to resist arrest, and when the resister ends up dead, the left screams “Murder! Police brutality! We demand justice!” and hails the dead perp as a hero. Well, it’s all a big game. Frankly, fewer and fewer people care when a thug is put out of commission. One less predator for us to worry about. As for Price, she’s obsessed with the Recall, and her announcement of these three officers’ arrest shows exactly how she’s fighting it, which is pure, cynical politics: appealing to her dwindling base of police haters, hoping to rally these delusional voters for an election Price seems destined to lose and deserves to.
Steve Heimoff