Perhaps you were like me, and were concerned by what you know about the incident at Davis High School where two students were apparently pulled out of class and, according to one account, threatened by police that they either turn over the names of potential taggers or face legal consequences. Perhaps you were not concerned about that incident at all.
Immediately, Superintendent Winfred Roberson told the Vanguard that he was declining to comment on the specific situation. Instead he discussed the district’s policies.
Mr. Roberson explained that he disagreed with the ACLU’s letter and called their report, “one-sided.” Unfortunately, we will likely never know the other side of the story.
Likewise, the Davis Police Department declined to comment on the specifics of the incident.
However, Lt. Paul Doroshov did say, “Davis Police Officers are trained to preserve and protect student rights…and always follow the law. Such was the case with regard to the situation the ALCU commented on.”
He added, “The alleged facts as cited by the ACLU statement, which relies on only one side of the story, differ significantly from the facts as we understand them to be.”
Now, I get accused quite often of only telling one side of the story, but understand this, often I am limited by the fact that I do not get an account from the other side.
Leaving that point aside, there is a huge amount of frustration that I have in a matter such as this, because at the end of the day there is really no accountability for the public entity.
This is a general problem when dealing with complaints about police matters.
As Lt. Paul Doroshov explained to me regarding another matter, “We can discuss generalized circumstances, department philosophy, policies/procedures, and even how or why those policies/procedures exist.”
He added, “However, we do not discuss specific incidents, households, or people, except when doing so serves a specific public safety necessity.”
In other words, they get to pick and choose when they discuss specific incidents and they only do it when it serves their interest.
The question that this raises, at least for me, is how does the public hold a public agency accountable? The answer is that it is very difficult.
I have often stated that public agencies, whether it be the police, the District Attorney’s Office or even the school district, hide behind confidentiality laws regarding both personnel matters and juvenile records. They take laws designed to shield individuals from having their private matters aired in public and use it in a way to protect the public agency from scrutiny, accountability and transparency.
In the incident that we described, there is a second student. We know very little of that student’s experience because his parents wish to protect his identity. Fair enough.
We also know that Deputy DA Patricia Fong was threatening to charge him as an accessory for his refusal to come forward with the names of the individuals who were depicted as graffiti artists or taggers.
It had to do with the DA’s attempt to crack down on gang members and gang activity, from what we have pieced together. Now, if this were an 18-year-old, there would be a long public record as to what he was charged, if he was charged at all, and what tactics the DA was using.
As a juvenile matter, it is all sealed. The laws that were developed to protect juveniles are being used by public officials to hide behind it.
The Vanguard will run a follow-up story on this matter tomorrow. It is again a one-sided story that the police and school district will contend does not comport with their own understanding of the case, but of course we have no idea what their understanding is and cannot begin to even questions their policies and practices in this matter.
In Davis, at least five years ago a group of citizens fought for independent oversight of the police department. My wife led this effort and was heavily demonized for doing so. However, the office that was created out of that fight that led to the dissolution of the Human Relations Commission still exists.
That is Police Ombudsman Robert Aaronson, and we will push for him to investigate this incident, even though the larger problem here might not be the police action but rather the school district’s failure to follow their own policy.
Unfortunately, the Office of the Police Ombudsman is the only civil authority that can look into these matters. Everyone else is an interested party and can hide behind confidentiality laws. Without this office, we would have very limited means to challenge police and district policies.
Look at the City of Elk Grove and their recent police shooting. The DA has already exonerated the police of any criminal wrongdoing in the matter. Now the man must resort to filing a federal civil rights law suit.
Look what happened in Woodland with the shooting of Luis Gutierrez-Navarro. The DA’s report exonerated the officers, there was no independent Ombudsman, and thus that matter has largely been dropped.
If you think civil suits are the way to go, guess again. Most end with a meager settlement and no acknowledgement of wrongdoing on the part of the public agency, no oversight and no public accounting for what happened.
Six years ago, in 2005, then 16-year-old Halema Buzayan was arrested in her home at 10 pm at night in her pajamas for what was, at most, a small dent on a vehicle and for which her family had already paid for the repairs.
The victim was stunned to learn that, on the basis of her complaint, the police would arrest and charge this teenager with a misdemeanor. The charge would later be dropped, but during the course of the arrest, the family alleges that the police violated police policies and procedures and violated Ms. Buzayan’s civil rights.
It was that case that led to calls for independent oversight over the police, the eventual disbanding of the HRC and the resignation of the Police Chief.
Six years later, the family has reportedly spent perhaps half a million to a million dollars on a civil suit, and it remains a pending case, with no end in sight.
The family had the resources to fight this matter, where most families do not. A civil suit is clearly not the way to produce public transparency and accountability.
It is a problem. How strongly are records such as police records guarded? In a criminal matter, which has the highest degree of discovery access, all a defense attorney can do to view police records is file a Pitchess Motion.
Now, that is a hearing in front of a judge, where the judge determines whether there is a sufficient grounds to view personnel records, and even then, the defense does not get to see the file. They only get to the learn of the contents in the file, which may give them enough information to do their own investigation and learn what happened.
The state’s public records act is one of the weakest in the country. A recent court ruling in the last few years further weakened efforts at civilian oversight.
The bottom line is that if you are concerned with transparency and accountability of public agencies that have the ability to impact the lives of your children and yourself, and have the power to arrest, shoot and kill, then you have much to worry about.
The truth is that we will likely never learn the truth as to what happened to Alana de Hinojosa. We will know her story, but we will never learn for certain the whole truth, and we will likely never be able to hold the school district and the police accountable if they acted wrongly. In fact, we will really never know for sure if they did act wrongly, since we will only hear one side of the story. And that is really a travesty for all involved.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
“Look what happened in Woodland with the Shooting of Luis Gutierrez. The DA’s report exonerated him, there was no independent Ombudsman, and thus that matter has largely been dropped.
If you think civil suits are the way to go, guess again. Most end with a meager settlement and no acknowledgement of wrongdoing on the part of the public agency, no oversight, and no public accounting for what happened.”
There was a further investigation, I think by the feds, that found that his death was “not prosecutable.” That is a far cry from exoneration. There will be a large civil settlement costing the county perhaps millions.
As far as I can tell the Feds reviewed the matter to see if there was an abuse of discretion, they did not interview witnesses, attempt to find new ones, etc.
Second, I don’t know that the family filed a suit. But regardless, a civil settlement is not accountability, it is money. It doesn’t tell us the truth of what happened and it does not hold those who may have committed wrongdoing accountable publicly or even privately.
But short of a criminal case money is the only justice you can get. No civil case? Why not? Also a civil suit does create an opportunity for a public airing of the facts in a judicial setting. For all the public outcry I just can’t imagine why there would be no civil suit.
[quote]The truth is that we will likely never learn the truth as to what happened to Alana de Hinojosa. We will know her story, but we will never learn for certain the whole truth, and we will likely never be able to hold the school district and the police accountable if they acted wrongly. In fact, we will really never know for sure if they did act wrongly, since we will only hear one side of the story. And that is really a travesty for all involved.[/quote]
Perhaps if the ACLU had not stuck their nose in this case, we might have gotten more information…
Secondly, we have gotten enough information to know the school’s policy is too loosey-goosey in its language, which needs to be tightened up. If nothing else, the parents of those children who were questioned should be vigorously pushing for 1) a change in school policy about parental notification in the instance there will be police questioning; 2) demand the school do more oversight with respect to articles that go into school publications, in light of what happened here (no articles that would put students in harms way for covering stories involving criminal activity that could put the students in the position of being questioned by police to identify their sources).
One other comment. Dmg, what are you advocating for here? Or are you just railing at the injustice of society in general? All systems are imperfect and always will be. The idea should be to put forth specific solutions to solve the injustices. I suggested a couple with respect to the “taqger” issue. Do you have any particular solutions to suggest for that situation?
King Robbo and Banksey,two British graffiti artists who use pseudonyms to protect their freedom as they do their work in the dead of night on blank city walls, are currently “hot” in the art market with major gallery showings. King Robbo’s work is derivative tagger-style while Banksey puts up massive stencil-art pieces. Both make pointed social/political comment, challenging what they see as the the current repressive status-quo. Banksey’s famous work of a massive “big-brother” face stencil with the word OBEY is one of his well-known “graffiti” works. The movie, “Exit Through the Gift Shop”, a recent Academy Award nominee, is a good introduction into this world.
[quote]”We can discuss generalized circumstances, Department philosophy, policies/procedures, and even how or why those policies/procedures exist.”
He added, “However, we do not discuss specific incidents, households, or people, except when doing so serves a specific public safety necessity.”[/quote]
I am not sure you can blame all this on public officials. Since many/most of these cases will involve judicial hearings/trials the police would be foolish to comment and no doubt their legal counsel has told them not to.
I think this differs from publishing public records about salaries where the data is more straightforward.
The officials who can comment on this and who can investigate further, in public if necessary, are the elected members of the school board.
EMR
I would like to expand upon your suggestions to prevent this kind of event from happening again :
1) Rather than censoring the article on what is a very timely and relevant article, it could have been suggested to the author that she restructure her article to a different format in which it was not clear that she had personally interviewed specific individuals for the piece. while I feel even this is more restrictive than necessary, it would have protected her from this kind of interrogation.
2) The parents of both of the involved students, if they have not already, should request private meetings with both the chief of police and the senior school administrative officials to address the manner in which this was handled. As a parent, I would be requesting, at the very least advance notification of an interview, having it occur off campus and at a time where I, and if felt needed my attorney could be present.
Just because something is legal, or covered by policy, doesn’t mean it is the optimal action.
3) I feel that these kinds of intrusions into the normal functioning of the school should be reserved for cases in which there is imminent threat of harm, such as a student having potential knowledge of a kidnapping, or gun threat. This was clearly not the case here and I am sure that this questioning could have occurred outside school hours and in a location to provide anonymity to the students.
Finally, if the police believed ( which I do not for a moment believe they did ) that the taggers interviewed for the article presented a real threat, such as might be the case with gang related activity, might the police themselves be putting the journalism students at risk from gang members seeking to protect their identity?
To medwoman: ALL VERY, VERY GOOD POINTS!
[quote]the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls, tenement halls…[/quote]Simon & Garfunkel… Sounds of Silence…
ERM and hpierce
Thanks to you both for the smiles ! They definitely improved my day.
“Perhaps if the ACLU had not stuck their nose in this case, we might have gotten more information… “
No. The ACLU first of all got involved to defend one of the individuals from a possible criminal prosecution at the request of the individual. Second, it does not change anything.
You could be right that we know enough to know the current regs are poor.
As to what I want? I want to know what happened. If the district acted appropriately I want to know that. If they acted inappropriately I want to know that.
“The officials who can comment on this and who can investigate further, in public if necessary, are the elected members of the school board. “
The school board cannot comment on this publicly either. Just like they could not comment on the coach being fired, they cannot comment on student matters. They can demand an investigation, however, we would have no guarantee that we would know the results of it.
[i]”The officials who can comment on this and who can investigate further, in public if necessary, are the elected members of the school board.”[/i]
I think Don is exactly right.
However, based on the girls’ basketball coach case, I am not sure that the school board, if it investigates, will ever make its findings public. They likely will discover something and then hide behind confidentiality, same as David has suggested all other officials are doing.
Nonetheless, as I think Don Shor said previously, the school board can clarify the current policy; and if the public does not like it, the board can change the policy, especially if, as the ACLU alleges, it violates the constitutional rights of the children involved.
[i]”The ACLU first of all got involved to defend one of the individuals from a possible criminal prosecution at the request of the individual.”[/i]
Can you clarify this, David? Is there someone in Davis on the board of the ACLU-NC who is involved in this case? If the child or her family was the one who initiated the ACLU’s involvement, why was it that they chose to contact the ACLU-NC, which is based in San Francisco (39 Drumm Street)?
It seems like a lot of legal cases you report on (though none recently) involve the law firm of Whitney Leigh and Matt Gonzalez. Are they involved in this case? Or are they involved with the ACLU-NC?
Lt. Paul Doroshov: “We do not discuss specific incidents, households, or people, except when doing so serves a specific public safety necessity.”
Vanguard: “But what does that have to do with your files on me?”
“We’d like to know a little bit about you for our files. We’d like to help you learn to help yourself. Look around you, all you see are sympathetic eyes. Stroll around the grounds until you feel at home.”
“But you say you want me to hide ‘it’ where the kids cannot find it?
“Hide it in a hiding place where no one ever goes. Put it in your pantry with your cupcakes. It’s a little secret, just the Greenwalds’ affair.
Most of all, you’ve got to hide it from the kids.”
“I really don’t see what this has to do with religion?”
Coo, coo, ca-choo, Mr. Greenwald. Jesus loves you more than you will know (Wo, wo, wo) God bless you please, Mr. Greenwald. Heaven holds a place for those who pray.”
“I need to get out of here. The debate is about to start. I need to cover the debate!”
“Sitting on a sofa on a Sunday afternoon. Going to the candidates debate.
Laugh about it, shout about it. When you’ve got to choose. Ev’ry way you look at it, you lose.”
“Look, you don’t seem to understand. This is politics. It’s not about baseball players!”
“Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? A nation turns it’s lonely eyes to you (Woo, woo, woo). What’s that you say, Mr. Greenwald? Joltin’ Joe has left and gone away. Hey, hey, hey…hey, hey, hey.”
[quote]Can you clarify this, David? Is there someone in Davis on the board of the ACLU-NC who is involved in this case? If the child or her family was the one who initiated the ACLU’s involvement, why was it that they chose to contact the ACLU-NC, which is based in San Francisco (39 Drumm Street)?
It seems like a lot of legal cases you report on (though none recently) involve the law firm of Whitney Leigh and Matt Gonzalez. Are they involved in this case? Or are they involved with the ACLU-NC? [/quote]
I knew about this case in June but held off on reporting on it for awhile for a variety of reasons. As far as I know, the local affiliate knew nothing about this case until it appeared in the paper. Alana told me she called the ACLU after the incident, they called her back three hours later and at some point decided to get involved.
Matt Gonzalez is no longer in private practice, he is the assistant public defender to Jeff Adachi in San Francisco and I have not been in touch with Mr. Leigh in some time.
I don’t know that that sheds any light, but it appears the path to the ACLU was directly from the student to the ACLU.
ERM, “2) demand the school do more oversight with respect to articles that go into school publications,”
Maybe you should read a poster’s response to your comments on the original story’s message board re: what can be published in student newspapers.
wikipedia re: Hazelwood “However, it is important to note that seven states have passed laws guaranteeing that all student newspapers have the right to publish freely.[1]. These states include Arkansas, California, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts and Oregon. The Hazelwood standard does not apply to student newspapers in these states; with limited exceptions, student editors control the content.”
“in light of what happened here (no articles that would put students in harms way for covering stories involving criminal activity that could put the students in the position of being questioned by police to identify their sources).”
How has the author put herself in harms way by writing this story and its subsequent publication? Because she was questioned about the subjects and refused to divulge their identities, which is her right?
I agree transparency of our public agencies is abominable. Even the Freedom of Information Act accessibility to public documents is a mountain to climb. And if after navigating successfully through the maze if you have a proven claim, many times very little is done. Let’s just look at many cases that are reversed on appeal that cite police or DA misconduct and those people are not held accountable. This is a major problem that needs attention and correction.
re: “Rather than censoring the article on what is a very timely and relevant article, it could have been suggested to the author that she restructure her article to a different format in which it was not clear that she had personally interviewed specific individuals for the piece. while I feel even this is more restrictive than necessary, it would have protected her from this kind of interrogation.”
You’re assuming that the interrogation was appropriate. The ACLU’s position is that this article should NOT have led to an interrogation and the journalist was not obligated to disclose her sources to police. Given the fact that California has some of the strongest shield laws in the nation, protecting journalists from disclosing their sources, I don’t see how the student was violating either law or ethics in declining to name her sources.
California state law protects journalists’ use of anonymous sources because the feeling is, it’s for a greater good…bringing important stories to the public.
The problem is that, according to the stories in the press, the student reporter was called into a school office, was not informed of her rights, and may have even be lied to by the police (“you’re not a journalist,” “you could be arrested for obstruction of justice”…all not true in this case).
In my opinion, there’s a reason the police go to the school instead of a house to question a student…no pesky parents around to call for a time-out to consult a lawyer. Is this appropriate? Even if district employees are not obligated to consult parents and/or let students know what their rights are, CAN they? And if they can, shouldn’t they?
To be fair, I have been told that some school board members have long been concerned about police interrogations on campus. Perhaps this incident will move the district to act.
[quote]How has the author put herself in harms way by writing this story and its subsequent publication? Because she was questioned about the subjects and refused to divulge their identities, which is her right? [/quote]
The author did not put herself in harm’s way – the school, in failing to supervise an article to be published that interviewed kids engaged in criminal activity, put the student in harm’s way.
kaws
“you are assuming that the interrogation was appropriate”.
I am making no such assumption. If you read my earlier posts you will see that I have stated repeatedly just how inappropriate I thought it was. The comment that you quoted was specifically in response to ERM and was meant to address the multiple points in this entire process in which a better outcome would have been available. In light of David’s post this am asserting that Ms. deHinojosa had been counseled not to accompany the taggers on an expedition which is clearly sound advice, I think there is much that is instructive for the students in this case.
1) That different authority figures may interpret the same set of facts differently. Clearly,her staff editorial support thought that the article was appropriate, while the police viewed it as a means to extract information.
2) This will doubtless impress upon the students the power that police hold even if they have not committed a crime. Unfortunately, I think they learned it in a way that is likely to foster distrust and resentment rather than build trust and respect.
3) A lesson may have been learned by many that there are multiple resources available for help within our community. I feel that the first lines of defense, the police and school officials failed the students badly. I feel that Ms. deJHnojosa’s call to the ACLU while it may have been a bit premature, since she might have considered a parent or personal lawyer first, I think it does show a degree of maturity and resourcefulness that will serve her well in the future.