San Diego News Fix

Death at the hands of law enforcement has come under renewed scrutiny in the weeks since a Minneapolis police officer spent eights minutes, 46 seconds with his knee pressed down on George Floyd’s neck as Floyd lay on the ground. The officer was White, Floyd was Black. Since late May, people have taken to the streets across the country to protest police bias and racial injustice, and to demand reforms.The demonstrations shine a spotlight on long-running tensions between law enforcement and communities of color, even in San Diego County, where residents say they are over-policed.Police say race is not a factor in the split-second decisions to use force, but rather they consider the totality of circumstances.Read more: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/public-safety/story/2020-06-21/in-20-years-217-people-have-died-in-encounters-with-san-diego-area-law-enforcement

School districts are getting ready to reopen this fall, and many plan to let parents choose what kind of schooling they want for their kids — normal in-person school, online learning, or a blended model that combines both.A county health order issued Monday allows schools in San Diego County to hold classes on campus as long as they comply with state reopening guidelines and post detailed reopening plans.Several San Diego County school districts anticipate some version of blended learning, with part of their instruction taking place on campus in smaller than usual classes and the rest occurring at home online.Some districts say they may also offer a parallel track consisting exclusively of online instruction for students who need stricter health protections or whose parents prefer a more cautious approach.Read more: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/education/story/2020-06-16/san-diego-schools-move-forward-with-reopening-schoolsRelated: County officials to schools: Prepare for students to wear masks

In a striking rebuke to President Trump, the Supreme Court on Thursday rejected his plan to repeal the popular Obama-era order that protected so-called Dreamers, the nearly 800,000 young immigrants who were brought to this country illegally as children.Led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the court called the decision to cancel the program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, arbitrary and not justified. The program allows these young people to register with the government, and if they have clean records, to obtain a work permit. At least 27,000 of these DACA recipients are employed as healthcare workers.Trump had been confident that high court with its majority of Republican appointees would rule in his favor and say the chief executive had the power to “unwind” the policy.

In San Diego, police agencies for years had insisted that the restraint was necessary.But within 48 hours of San Diego’s decision, every department in the county announced it, too, was banning use of the hold. Sheriff Bill Gore, whose department employed Ward, initially said the department would continue to use it. But the next day he reversed course and said while he still believed the hold is safe he would follow suit.Read the story: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/public-safety/story/2020-06-16/banning-carotid-restraint-motivated-by-politics-more-than-policy-reformers-say

Life inside San Diego’s largest homeless shelter can be tranquil, relaxing and friendly.And it could be a place where women are frightened by men who leer at them. Where possessions often go missing. Where sleep is disturbed every night by the sound of someone screaming.Perhaps it’s no surprise that 1,300 people living at the city’s largest homeless shelter — in the San Diego Convention Center — are not going to have a shared experience.Depending on who you ask, the bathrooms are either horrible or the best part of the shelter. The effort to find people permanent housing is either running smoothly or at a snail’s pace. The days can be tedious or can be pleasant and peaceful.Read more: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/homelessness/story/2020-06-13/1-300-under-one-roof-at-convention-center-shelter

Will life in the neighborhood around Euclid and University avenues quickly return to normal? Or will it take weeks, or months?Read the story: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/health/story/2020-06-14/reopening-san-diego-coronavirus-diary

After almost three long and lonely months, San Diego County residents are legally cleared to meet their friends for a drink, take a date to a museum or the zoo, visit a campground with the family and hit the gym to work off those quarantine pounds.Today marks the biggest reopening since county health officials began shutting down businesses and events in mid-March to curb the spread of the coronavirus, and it marks a return to some of the most-missed social connections and activities.But the slow return to normalcy does not mean things are quite normal. Many institutions will not be ready to open today. When they do, expect to make a reservation for the gym or a museum, don’t expect to see any animal acts at the zoo, and you might have your temperature checked when you enter many places, including some that are going to seem rather empty because of new capacity restrictions.Read more: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/health/story/2020-06-12/the-worlds-reopening-heres-what-to-expect

Mayor Kevin Faulconer announced Wednesday that San Diego Police Department officials are developing a new de-escalation policy, which a department spokesman said should be implemented by next week.The Police Department currently trains its officers in de-escalation techniques and has language addressing the approach — emphasizing that officers do all they can to avoid a physical confrontation — in its use-of-force procedure. But the new standalone policy “will be more robust,” Faulconer said during a Wednesday afternoon news conference.Faulconer said the new policy will give “officers clear rules of the road on how to safely control a situation, and resolve it, with lower levels of force.”

La Mesa police on Tuesday released a step-by-step account of what happened when a peaceful protest against racial injustice and police brutality more than a week ago turned into riots marked by fires, vandalism and looting.The timeline was pieced together from entries La Mesa police dispatchers made in a computer system as the May 30 protest unfolded in the heart of the city. It paints a picture of a large demonstration that gradually turned violent, at first within pockets of protest crowds, then more widespread as night fell.The information is the clearest, albeit incomplete, account to date from La Mesa police of how they say the unrest unfolded and how law enforcement officers responded.Read more: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/public-safety/story/2020-06-09/la-mesa-releases-account-of-protest-that-turned-riotous

When Ariel Gibbs arrived last Sunday morning at the Hall of Justice, the place where her protest was set to begin in downtown San Diego, she paused and turned to a friend.“Wow,” she said.She could not believe how many people showed up to march alongside her to demand justice for George Floyd, a black man who died after a white police officer in Minnesota knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.By 10 a.m., there were about 100 people present. Throughout the day, the crowd that gathered would grow to more than 1,000.Read more: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/public-safety/story/2020-06-07/as-protests-continue-across-the-county-a-new-generation-of-organizers-is-emerging

Protest signs are meant to be provocative, but these were especially so: “Abolish the police.”They showed up in San Diego and across the country over the past two weeks as thousands of Americans took to the streets to condemn the May 25 killing in Minneapolis of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, by a white police officer who knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes during an arrest over a counterfeit $20 bill.As far-fetched as the protest signs seem, they are part of a growing national debate that’s moved beyond the usual calls for change — better training, more diversity, increased accountability — to openly question the fundamental purpose of police in society.Are the officers guardians, or are they warriors?

Mayor Kevin Faulconer and his appointed police chief, David Nisleit, on Monday announced SDPD will immediately stop using the carotid restraint.The neck hold used to subdue people has come to be viewed as dangerous and unnecessary, and minority groups in particular have condemned it. Other police departments increasingly have abandoned the practice.San Diego police officials had continually defended the tactic, as they did in an in-depth article last year by Lyndsay Winkley of The San Diego Union-Tribune.The reversal was stunning enough. But Faulconer wasn’t done. Later on Monday, as protesters again marched downtown, he threw his support behind a 30-plus-year effort to establish an independent commission to investigate alleged police misconduct and examine police practices.“That is moving forward,” the Republican mayor said at a news conference. “It will be on the ballot. . . I look forward to giving it my full support.”Read the column: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/columnists/story/2020-06-03/column-

San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore has requested the help of the California National Guard to support police in La Mesa and deputies around the county amid continuing protests calling for racial justice and police reform, according to sheriff’s officials.“San Diego County has requested the National Guard (to) assist with security in the region due to the recent civil unrest,” La Mesa city officials said in a statement Wednesday night. “A portion of them will be responding to La Mesa this evening. You may also see them throughout the county.”Read more: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/public-safety/story/2020-06-04/sheriff-national-guard-troops-to-help-protect-critical-infrastructure-free-up-officers

San Diego's protests following the death of George Floyd continue. The region is not immune to police brutality and racism, communities reporter Andrea Lopes-Villafaña discusses the state of things in the county.Follow the movement here: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/topic/george-floyd

On the heels of protests over the death of George Floyd, the San Diego Police Department announced it would stop using a controversial neck restraint that a U-T analysis found is disproportionately used on black San Diegans.Floyd, a black man, died after a white officer in Minneapolis knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.Learn more from Public Safety reporter Teri Figueroa and Watchdog reporter Lyndsay Winkley.Read more here: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/public-safety/story/2020-06-01/san-diego-police-end-use-carotid-restraint-effective-immediately

After spending most of the afternoon in a standoff with police in downtown San Diego, protesters calling for justice for black people killed by police found a place to breathe.They suddenly turned away from the officers who had fired tear gas, flashbangs and less-lethal ammunition at them and made their way to the County Administration Building, where the group of roughly 1,000 held a moment of silence for more than six minutes.Speakers called for unity and end to racial inequity in policing.“Black lives matter now and forever,” one man said, addressing the crowd through a megaphone.

The more upbeat tone in San Diego has been mirrored across the state. All 160 dealers who responded to a survey released Wednesday by the California New Car Dealers Association said their showrooms are open and 94 percent reported increased traffic.“There’s a lot of pent-up business,” said Campos, who estimated his dealership has brought back about 90 of the roughly 100 employees it laid off or furloughed. “Customers are tired of being locked up indoors, they’ve been wanting to buy a car for months.”But the survey also highlighted the financial impact of the shutdown. Since mid-March, 54.5 percent of the dealers reported decreases in sales of between 30 to 60 percent. Another 25 percent said sales had fallen between 60 and 80 percent.“Those are Great Recession numbers,” said Brian Maas, the president of the new car dealers group. “And it took 2 1/2 years for that drop to occur and this happened in eight weeks.”Read more: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/story/2020-05-29/heres-how-san-diego-car-de

Most of what we know about COVID-19 comes after people are infected, but current science suggests that fecal matter can show where outbreaks hit before people become symptomatic.

The Del Mar Fairgrounds needs you, according to a new website saveyourfairgrounds.com created to spread the notion that without financial assistance the state-owned property could be closed.Fairgrounds officials are urging residents to write their elected officials in support of $20 million the 22nd District Agricultural Association, which runs the facility, has requested in federal economic aid for state and local agencies affected by the COVID 19 pandemic.If you need a sample letter, the website provides one. Same with email and tweets. Or you can telephone your representative, share your fairgrounds photos, or buy a fairgrounds printed tee-shirt. The talent that normally markets the San Diego County Fair, cancelled this year because of the pandemic, is recruiting people to help push for financial aid.

It was a Memorial Day unlike any in memory. But the spirit was the same.Be it donning masks and watching video on a flight deck without crowds, joining a parade of cars, or feeding hungry veterans, San Diego County — home to the highest concentration of the nation’s military personnel — honored its fallen heroes Monday with socially-distant, pandemic-shaped tributes.“It’s not about the audience, it’s not about the pomp and circumstance,” Navy Rear Admiral Bette Bolivar said during a gathering at the USS Midway Museum. “It’s about what’s in your heart and honoring those who gave the ultimate sacrifice.”And San Diego’s beaches — the region’s other usual Memorial Day gathering site — saw plenty of people, including some who had to be shooed along for trying to get together in defiance of state and county orders.