By Rebecca Washington-Lindsey
We all agree that maintaining public safety, taking care of criminal activity, securing safety in our community, and enforcing the laws of Laguna Beach, are all expected.
Community members expect the Laguna Beach police to endeavor for trust, protect its citizens, and uphold the Law Enforcement Oath of Honor, affirming their allegiance of integrity, honor, and bravery to the community. Additionally, they are responsible to the highest degree for building trust, enforcing justice, respect and building positive community relationships.
But who is policing the police to ensure that this happens?
In recent months many communities have seen a rash of incidents involving police use of extreme force, unlawful arrests, police harassment, police brutality, and racial profiling. This has led to demonstrations, riots, and protests. When this conduct becomes contrary to the oath taken the community acts. What happened to me by a police officer on a casual walk in January 2020, should not happen to anyone.
My friend was so excited about taking me on a walk up Nyes Place. so that I could see Laguna and beyond from the scenic overlook. So, I laced my tennis shoes and put my hair in a ponytail, and we were off. I noticed that the winding two-lane road was not busy with walkers; two white women and a white man with his dog. The pinnacle of the mountain was finally in sight. Gasping I stated “how beautiful. Simply breath-taking.” But, in the distance my friend caught sight of a police car; fear suddenly gripped me clouding a delightful walk. Passing the two white women and the white man he headed towards us. “Police don’t come up here, this is a quiet area of town” my friend balked. The police officer pulled his vehicle alongside me, stopped-blocking me from moving forward, rolling down his window he questioned “What are you…?” Not completing his sentence. “Someone called” again an incomplete sentence. Removing his sunglasses, he shouted “Oh, no, you’re the doctor I met on the beach that talks about cultures.” I resounded with “Yes, I am.” With that he said, “You have a good day.” Now, let’s reverse that narrative. Suppose the police commanded me to place my hands against his car lean forward asking “Do you live up here?” “I need to see you ID.” “What is your business up here?” Finally, he would radio the office to check my legitimacy.
Evidently someone in the neighborhood was just as fearful as I and reported me being in their neighborhood. A policeman took out time from patrolling PCH for speeding drivers and drivers violating the “No loud noise in Laguna Beach” to chase me down. Perhaps research on why white people call the police on Black people would tell us why there is hate crime, why there is police profiling.
Laguna Beach has seen its share of racial disparity in the last year all of which have been racially motivated three hate crimes: An Asian American student, an African American student, and the story of a bi-racial couple. So, who is policing the Chief of Police? The Chief of Police has yet to respond to any of these incidents. None of these incidents is acceptable in our town. Those who have suffered at the hands of prejudiced individuals will live with the scars of unjust treatment, prejudice, biases, racial profiling, racial discrimination for years. Our tears still run.
Policing our police falls on the shoulders of our community. Here are my suggestions for building positive relationships in Laguna Beach.
- Acknowledge there are ethnic problems in our community. These problems should go before our elected officials to include the Superintendent of Education. Hold them accountable.
- Develop a public forum or focus group as a means of identifying solutions. Oct. 19, 2020, I agreed to participate in a focus group under an Ad Hoc Committee, Capt. Rachel Johnson. She cancelled the event and said it would be rescheduled. It still isn’t on her calendar.
- Our Chief of Police needs to actively assertively promote, seek and hire people from minority groups. The same should ensure that annual professional growth opportunities are done and that those meeting include something along the line of being ethnic sensitive or building ethnic awareness.
- Maintain accurate records of criminal behavior especially those involving hate crimes. Such events should go public. In other words, the Chief of Police or another police agent must address those situations and come with solutions. None of the racial or ethnic issues were bought before the public and, thus, there was never solutions. This will help break down the wall of racial disparity and build positive community relationships, where people of all ethnic backgrounds are respected, celebrated, valued, and appreciated.
- Review current police policies and remove policies which build a wall or would prevent positive relationships especially those targeting diverse ethnic groups.
- Be visible in our community.
Rebecca is a Laguna Beach resident and former adjunct professor at University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
I hope the LBPD officer who let Rebecca sit on the motorcycle (apparently at Main Beach) didn’t start it up—–like this column, it might have been driven pell-mell, wandered all over the place, lashing out at innocent people.
She’s submitted a happy face photo moment between her and law enforcement, then proceeds to chastise and severely undermine both the department + Captain Johnson + Chief Calvert.
Hire minorities? Our last Chief of 5 years was Linda Farinella, an openly gay woman.
I’m not sure of Johnson’s sexual orientation, and it’s really no one’s business, but she is (a) A Captain, one rank below the Chief, and (b) A black woman, (c) Like me, an honorably discharged Marine veteran.
So how does diminishing, attacking her performance and character assist your cause, Rebecca?
Should one irate resident with an agenda expect special treatment, snap their fingers and get automatic audiences with the highest echelon personnel, pout and write a disparaging column like this?
Our City Manager is a woman and I think Iranian?
So what exactly is broken and desperately in need of Rebecca’s laundry list of “fixes?”
Regardless, shouldn’t Chief Calvert be hiring the BEST personnel, not be forced into, be required to have a quota system, have it imposed upon him?
Shouldn’t EVERY department leader be hiring the best?
The patrol officer who questioned her was doing his duty, was responding to dispatching instructions per regs, protocols and procedures. IOW, his flipping job!
Rebecca assumed that because she saw white people that someone white “dropped a dime on her,” and that the responder was a bigot.
“Suppose the police…” is a straw man argument, a reasoning fallacy, a false narrative. That worst case scenario never took place anywhere else than in her head.
Starting out with “J’accuse,” a la Emile Zola (re French anti-semitism), via use of accusatory, inflammatory racist-baiting rhetoric blaming the entire chain of LBPD organizational structure and command for any community bigotry does sustain what I concluded after reading this piece 3 times: She’ll fit right into a community rife with entitled people, she believes herself worthy of ruling.
How do a few isolated incidents==Totally Racist Laguna?
There is a famous Latin phrase found in the works of Juvenal over 1700 years ago: “Qui custodiet ipsos custodes,” i.e., “Who will guard the guards themselves?”
If this is the nature of her diatribe, then let me ask her: Who will guard us, the community, from self-appointed oversight individuals who presume THEY should be Pope, who propose that THEIR moral and decision-making judgment is infallible, is superior to our thin blue line?
The LBPD isn’t the bad guy here: The person(s) who called in might be, or perhaps they DID think they saw odd behavior. Creating a list of scapegoats doesn’t resolve anything, it just foments more divisiveness.
Metaphorically shooting the messenger, the LBPD, demanding that they initiate her wish list is ridiculous.
From our eclectic night clubs, to our gay community, to our hippie roots, to our beach tribe culture, we’ve been a beacon and safe harbor for diversity and a “laissez-faire” (live and let live) life style.
And Rebecca?
I think that you’re the black, early bird lady that I’ve stopped and chatted with several times down on PCH near Nyes Place? Do I (a 50 year resident) seem racist to you, do you think my friendliness and smile are bogus?
I grew up in the LA Harbor area, was by far THE minority. And ask any Marine like Captain Johnson, we don’t care about another Marine’s skin color, we want to know if he/she has our 6’s and 9’s when the poop hits the fan, when the gunfire begins or bombs drop.
A few bad apples in Laguna’s residents IMO don’t constitute a systemic, rotten racist barrel needing radical reform and your overhaul.
That’s a an exaggeration and borderline gaslighting.