Voices: River City

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Folsom State Prison is showing all of us just how bad the prison guard culture in California (and beyond) is.

To put it bluntly, they're a state-sanctioned gang responsible for unspeakable acts.

Take, for instance, the guards being accused of conspiring to kill inmates. (There's video evidence of this, per sources.) Or the guard who was found dead after acting as a whistleblower on his colleagues' abhorrent behavior. Or the guards who covered up the 2016 killing of an inmate after a state employee tripped him while his hands were cuffed behind his back.

It's a rampant, systemic problem. So it should come as no surprise that the FBI is in town to investigate.

In other news, wild-eyed anti-vaxxer moms with ties to far-right anti-government movements are forming a militia. We've talked about the lady lobbing a volley of menstrual blood upon California legislators, and we remember anti-vaxxers disrupting state proceedings in recent years, so perhaps this is the natural next step. (Oh, and here's the Mamalitia's Instagram page, for those interested.)

Sacramento County's vile district attorney, Anne Marie Schubert, has decided that she will be running for California Attorney General in 2022 against the progressive, governor-appointed incumbent Rob Bonta.

We take a moment to introduce the Schubes to the people of California. Her highlights include:

Not charging a single cop in nearly 35 police shootings during her tenure

Letting Stephon Clark's killer cops go free

Needlessly assassinating Stephon Clark's character on national TV when she announced she would not be charging his killers

Pushing the wildly unpopular Prop 20, which would have taken California back decades by making sentencing in criminal cases more draconian

Acting as secretary-treasurer of the California District Attorneys Association while the group misappropriated millions of dollars meant for environmental cases, and misused civil asset forfeiture funds 

The list goes on, and we'll be sure to cover it as more comes out.

Enjoy the introduction, defund the police and, as always:

Twitter: @youknowkempa, @guillotine4you, @ShanNDSTevens, @Flojaune

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/voicesrivercity

Sacramentans can hear us on 103.1 KUTZ Tuesdays at 5 pm and again Wednesdays at 8 am.

Also, if you require a transcript of our episodes, please reach out to [email protected] and we'll make it happen.

And thank you to Be Brave Bold Robot for the tunes.

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California's Democratic leadership has outright given up on fighting climate change.

Earlier this month, a bill to end fracking--a practice Governor Gavin Newsom claimed he was against as recently as last September, before going silent in the midst of fighting a recall effort--died in the state Senate's Natural Resources and Water Committee, with key Democrats refusing to cast their votes. One of the deadbeat senators was Bob Hertzberg, who screamed at Sacramento City Councilmember Katie Valenzuela last session when she rose in support of a bill to create buffer zones around wells (a provision also included on this fracking bill).

Why do these Democrats hate fighting climate change? We know Newsom is afraid of the recall effort. But other state electeds are fearful of stepping on the toes of building trades labor groups, which formed an unholy alliance with Big Oil in recent years. Then there's the money.

The state Democratic Chair Rusty Hicks took $330,000 from fossil fuel interests after pledging that he would not do that very thing. When a young party delegate pressed him on this move, saying he wanted a world that he could live in when he was 80, Hicks derisively responded, "I bet you'll enjoy the lights on in your apartment and the gas in your car along the way."

Meanwhile, the entire goddamn state is a tinder box, with ongoing drought, unprecedentedly low water levels in our dams, and a promise of increasingly dangerous wildfires in our near future. Newsom has called for a water emergency in Mendocino and Sonoma counties, but he's holding off on any bolder/broader emergency declarations. I think you know the reason for that.

Better to downplay the current environmental crisis and ignore the determinants of climate change if it means your governorship is secure for a couple more years, right?

Right?

Facing a recall campaign on his right, California Governor Gavin Newsom is also feeling pressure from the Left to support a bill that would provide universal health care to all Californians. CalCare, as they calling it, would expand medical coverage to nearly 3 million uninsured residents, so why wouldn't he support it? Well, Newsom's close relationships with the medical establishment don't help the cause.

 

But you know what might help? Some direct action. Stay tuned for next Monday, when the Democratic Socialists of America will be taking to the streets at the Capitol.

 

With class nearly back in session for the Sacramento City Unified School District, school workers with SEIU 1021 (that's all workers who aren't teachers--from food service workers to bus drivers to custodians) had been finalizing an agreement with the school board on childcare, stipends and physical distancing guidelines. But in the last minute, the board threw a grenade on the process, declaring an "impasse" mid-bargaining.

 

More than 90 percent of union members voted to reject the board's proposal, so these workers are going on strike April 22 and 23. Want to hear some great news? SCUSD's teachers have their colleagues' backs, and will join them on the picket lines.

 

We also take a moment to discuss Assembly Member Lorena Gonzalez's FAST Recovery Act, or AB 257. This bill is set to put more power into the hands of California's fast food workers, who have dealt with some of the worst working conditions over the course of the coronavirus pandemic.

 

Closing arguments were presented Monday in the trial for Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis cop on trial for killing George Floyd. A verdict is expected by the end of the week.

 

Throughout the country, meanwhile, people are claiming the streets for Daunte Wright and Adam Toledo, who were also killed by cops in recent weeks. People are angry, grieving and done with police killing Black and brown boys. Here in California, Oakland demonstrators went as hard as they always do. And in Sacramento, four cops reportedly spent Saturday evening in the hospital after being sprayed with an "unknown irritant."

 

Stay tuned on the Chauvin verdict. And expect the people to continue to reclaim the streets.

 

Thanks for listening, defund the police and, as always:

Twitter: @youknowkempa, @guillotine4you, @ShanNDSTevens, @Flojaune

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/voicesrivercity

Sacramentans can hear us on 103.1 KUTZ Tuesdays at 5 pm and again Wednesdays at 8 am.

Also, if you require a transcript of our episodes, please reach out to [email protected] and we'll make it happen.

And thank you to Be Brave Bold Robot for the tunes.

[To listen to/view the full episode, become a patron today!]

The city and county of Sacramento are set to get a windfall of federal stimulus funds, to the tune of $420 million. The question is, where does this money go? The People's Budget of Sacramento have their own ideas. So do the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department and Sacramento Police Department. Thankfully, there's a nationwide effort to ensure that the country's violent cops don't get a single cent.  

Here in Sacramento County, supervisors have been engaging with the community on the topic with a county budget workshop. Well, some members of the community. For some reason, District 1 Supervisor Phil Serna, ostensibly one of the more progressive members on the dais, has refused to engage with two Black residents who have been deeply engaged in regional politics for years. One of those residents, Kula Koenig, called him out on Facebook. Serna hopped in the comments claiming that she once said, "FUCK YOU PHIL!" during a public comment. She did not. 

Out in Minnesota, 20-year-old Daunte Wright was killed by police some 10 miles from where the cop who killed George Floyd is facing his trial. Protests have broken out throughout the country, including in Sacramento. But here locally, police are taking some troubling steps, demanding a private emergency meeting with Sacramento City Council "to discuss matters posing a threat to the security of public buildings and essential public services."  

Naturally, people have questions. And given the local police's recent behavior, folks are concerned.  

To defuse the situation, Mayor Darrell Steinberg held a press conference directly after the meeting. But he didn't really say anything, leaving reporters with more questions than before.

An unhoused woman was found dead Saturday near the American River bike trail, and evidence suggests that she was killed. She was not a regular guest at Loaves & Fishes, but her death has left other women experiencing homelessness here in Sacramento understandably shaken up. Shannon released a statement to FOX40 on Monday.

Meanwhile, a bunch of doofuses over the weekend staged 'White Lives Matter' events throughout the country--one of them taking place in Sacramento's McKinley Park. Barely anyone showed up to the demonstrations, but we'll give you two guesses what happened here in California's capital city.

 

That's right: Sacramento police arrested at least three anti-racists who came out to meet the fascists, hitting them up with trumped up charges that reached a total of $250,000 in bail. The charges included felony attempted robbery and felony 'conspiracy' to commit a crime.

 

While white supremacists continue to terrorize the AAPI community and hold little get-togethers in our parks, the Los Angeles Times is joining Sacramento city officials and police in targeting demonstrators on the Left, who appear to be some of the only folks fighting against white supremacy and state-sanctioned violence against our neighbors. (Perhaps because the white-supremacist-cop Venn diagram is closer to a circle than most Californians might think.) 

 

Thanks for listening, defund the police and, as always:

Twitter: @youknowkempa, @guillotine4you, @ShanNDSTevens, @Flojaune

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/voicesrivercity

Sacramentans can hear us on 103.1 KUTZ Tuesdays at 5 pm and again Wednesdays at 8 am.

Also, if you require a transcript of our episodes, please reach out to [email protected] and we'll make it happen.

And thank you to Be Brave Bold Robot for the tunes.

[Become a patron today and listen to/view the full episode here!]

After another mass shooting--this one in South Carolina, claiming the lives of five people, including two children under 10--the Biden administration is tightening restrictions on guns nationwide. Some of the new regulations seem like common sense to most Americans, but is there more to consider here?  

Gun ownership has risen sharply in the communities of color since the rise of the Trump administration. Circumventing the racist National Rifle Association, Black folks are starting their own organizations, most notably the National African American Gun Association, which was founded in Atlanta in 2015, boasts a membership of over 34,000 and is 60 percent women.   

This is especially notable when considered in tandem with the NRA’s waning membership and influence ever since the Las Vegas shooting that killed 60 people and wounded another 400. The NRA has a history of outsized influence in American politics, but is also pretty choosy about whose gun rights they are willing to champion.   

This is illustrated plainly in the story of when the Black Panthers entered the California Capitol in 1967 with guns of their own, legally (at the time). Race, unsurprisingly, is inextricably linked to the Second Amendment and the way Americans think about gun control.  

Finally, we touch on Santa Rosa, where a tent city with about 70 structures, showers, bathrooms and hand-washing stations set up in May of 2020 in an affluent park sparked lots of ire from neighbors when the idea was first proposed. But unlike some of our local leaders at the outset of the pandemic, the Santa Rosa City Council didn't flinch, opting to act and then educate angry/wealthy residents, rather than allow them to crush a good idea that would save lives.

Police abolitionists and the Defund the Police movement have seen a number of wins throughout the nation, with qualified immunity being outlawed in New York City, Portland cops leaving the department in droves, and Austin, TX, defunding their police force in favor of affordable housing.

California saw a few small wins in last year’s legislative session, but most major bills leveled at police accountability never even came to a final vote. Can the Golden State make good on holding increasingly weak police forces accountable for their officers' violence?

 

Thanks for listening, defund the police and, as always:

Twitter: @youknowkempa, @guillotine4you, @ShanNDSTevens, @Flojaune

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/voicesrivercity

Sacramentans can hear us on 103.1 KUTZ Tuesdays at 5 pm and again Wednesdays at 8 am.

Also, if you require a transcript of our episodes, please reach out to [email protected] and we'll make it happen.

And thank you to Be Brave Bold Robot for the tunes.

[Wanna hear/see this whole episode? Become a patron here!]

Sacramento's library galleria warming center has closed, and guests are being encouraged to check out the new Safe Ground location near Southside Park. This location--the culmination of over a decade of hard work from the region's homeless advocates--will be stocked with tiny homes, and will serve as a triage center and space for folks to get medical attention and vaccines.  

Meanwhile, Marcos Breton has a new piece out and it’s uh, really something.  

Enjoy!

Before beginning this episode, it’s important note that Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg and his long-term colleagues have blood on their hands for years of gross negligence toward our unhoused neighbors and a constant, obstinate refusal to hold our police force responsible for their violence. The same goes for City Manager Howard Chan.

 

So it should come as little surprise that when Darrell pulled together his usual cast of characters to publicly denounce the ‘violence’ of a group planning a demonstration outside Chan’s house—and trying, in a remarkable show of bad faith, to tie their action in with recent anti-AAPI animus—few people took him seriously.

 

The demonstration was, predictably, peaceful.

 

We discuss who signed onto Darrell’s statement (and why), why his words ring hollow, and touch on the childish behavior of one small man with thick skin. 

 

Thanks for listening, defund the police and, as always:

Twitter: @youknowkempa, @guillotine4you, @ShanNDSTevens, @Flojaune

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/voicesrivercity

Sacramentans can hear us on 103.1 KUTZ Tuesdays at 5 pm and again Wednesdays at 8 am.

Also, if you require a transcript of our episodes, please reach out to [email protected] and we'll make it happen.

And thank you to Be Brave Bold Robot for the tunes.