Marin Voice: Police across county need to live up to a new standard

Peace isn’t found in the absence of conflict. Our local government policies, by design, are the methods both elected and hired leaders use to address how security is implemented throughout Marin neighborhoods for the purpose of ensuring peace in our county.

Yet, when concepts of security and peace are interwoven in this way, our “at peace” county moves further away from being the peaceful society it seeks. Over the years, Marin’s security forces, the municipal police departments and the Marin County Sheriff’s Office have been called out for incidents of violent and excessive force against people in Marin. The over-policing most commonly happens to those members of our community identifying as Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC), as well as to Marin’s poorest at-risk communities – the unhoused and those awaiting trial in the Marin County Jail.

A concerted effort has been made to publicly justify how Marin’s police and sheriff departments escalate violence. It happens through discriminatory verbal harassment and brutal uses of force when interacting with Marin’s BIPOC and poor community members during pretextual stops and when patrolling on foot and bicycle.

One way Sheriff Jamie Scardina and his predecessor Robert Doyle claim that police performance across Marin County is successful and accepted by residents and workers stems from the fact their office receives so few community complaints each year. They need to acknowledge what I believe to be true: BIPOC and poor residents with complaints are afraid to complain for fear of future retaliations.

Justifying how Marin is kept peaceful through the security police provide has led to individual police departments hiring private public relations (PR) companies with community tax dollars.

For example, San Rafael contracted with crisis consultants Cole Pro Media for $42,000 for help strategizing, communications coaching of San Rafael Police Department Chief David Spiller and Mayor Kate Colin, as well as implementation of social media strategies after police department officers beat up a Latino man named Julio Jimenez Lopez last year. The Marin County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) hired a similar PR outside consultant, Meliora Public Safety Consulting, at a cost of $174,000, after county supervisors voted to implement oversight of MCSO operations and policies through California Assembly Bill 1185.

Our taxpayer dollars are being used to hire companies charged with branding and shaping community perspective through a flood of negative fear-based press releases and positive performative imaging. In my opinion, spinning the public narrative through private PR companies is a highly unethical use of tax dollars and this practice halts trust-building, ultimately twisting and tearing at the social fabric of our county.

It is wrong to feel compelled to police Marin residents differently because of the color of their skin and the neighborhood they live in, and we will not become more secure when we continue to normalize and accept these acts.

The 2022 Race Equity Plan states that “Every member of the Marin County community deserves to thrive.” Yet how is it possible for BIPOC and poor communities to thrive when police departments often hire active and retired local police officers to “investigate” police violence and promote pretextual stops of these community members?

In September, Meliora (Scardina’s PR company) set up four “ghost” meetings that failed to foster feedback or ensure information was shared. In fact, of the potential 260,000 residents in Marin, only 27 attended. Many who attended the Marin City meeting stated they left feeling unheard when communicating about the serial discriminatory sheriff practice of pretextual stops.

We cannot wait for laws to fix the fire that has come from unjust verdicts and biased policing. Our laws enforce boundaries instead of changing ideologies and resistance is inseparable from oppression.

There is no safe and free reporting mechanism for victims disproportionately targeted by well-documented police cultural norms like pretextual stops, verbal harassment and escalation of physical violence while patrolling. This is precisely why we must continue our commitment to independent oversight of agencies tasked with providing security in Marin.

Every person has the right to join the movement by challenging those we pay to keep the peace and demand we are policed justly, equitably and transparently.

It’s time for police and sheriff departments to believe all Marin’s people are equally valuable and have the right to move freely. The nexus of civil rights is a precondition to sustaining lasting peace and security in Marin County.

Tara Evans Boyce is a Marin resident with degrees in anthropology and historical archaeology.