MVFREE in the NEWS

Pacific Sun, Sept. 20, 2023 – Marin County sheriff says lawmakers need to make changes to prevent profiling

MVFREE’s analysis of 4,500 stops by the Marin County Sheriff’s Office found that Black people were stopped almost nine times more often than whites and Latinx people more than twice the rate of white people, despite the fact that Black, Latinx and white people are released without arrest or citation at the same rate. 

Sheriff Jamie Scardina claims the data, which came from his office, is flawed, and that the responsibility for change must come from legislators, not law enforcement. 

Here’s Nikki Silverstein’s Pacific Sun story — Marin County sheriff says lawmakers need to make changes to prevent profiling — and the MVFREE analysis of the racial profiling data.

Local News Matters, May 11, 2023 - Citizen's group seeks input on Marin sheriff oversight proposal prior to supervisors' vote

The idea for a citizens oversight board stems from a June 2022 Civil Grand Jury report titled “Sheriff Oversight: The Time is Now,” which outlined a “strained” and distrustful relationship between law enforcement and residents in unincorporated Marin City. The report and its recommendations were compiled in the wake of Assembly Bill 1185, passed in the fall of 2020, which allows counties to create citizens’ oversight boards. Following the grand jury report, the Marin County Board of Supervisors made a commitment to establish an independent community oversight structure for the Sheriff’s Office.

Last September, a community outreach working group (COWG) of 15 people was formed to conduct outreach to the community and stakeholders and to research effective community oversight models. The COWG came up with various options that the Board of Supervisors can consider when implementing their recommendations. Principally, they recommend developing a civilian oversight commission (COC) and appointing an Inspector General to perform functions such as coordinating complaint investigations, monitoring jail facilities, making policy recommendations and carrying out audits.

The residents group urging the community to provide supervisors with feedback about the proposal, Mill Valley Force for Racial Equity and Empowerment, or MVFREE, would like to see clarifications and revisions to the proposal that will go before the Board of Supervisors.

Read the MVFREE Police Team’s May 1, 2023 letter to the Board of Supervisors

Read the full Local News Matters Article

Marin Independent Journal, March 7, 2023

On March 7, 2023, the Marin IJ featured a front page article that credited MVFREE for its role in establishing and launching Mill Valley's Bias by Proxy program, which is part of a larger effort to improve diversity, inclusion and equity in the city following a report, drawn from police data, that indicated that Mill Valley community members call the police about Black people at nearly 20 times the rate they do white people.  Celimine Pastor, a member of MCFREE, said that in most of the cases of calls against people of color, the police find no cause for citation or arrest. "The data was heart-breaking, but it's something that was eye-opening. We really do have a problem. We really do need something to do about it." Linn Walsh, a city management analyst noted that "This is a long-term campaign.  We want to get it out in front of people. We have to have conversations about it." Mill Valley police Chief Rick Navarrro said that the police department is continuing work to train officers on implicit bias and that "We are really encouraged by the response we have received so far on the bias by proxy campaign."

Read the article by Giuseppe Ricapito, "City to address racial bias with mail campaign." 

In Vicki Larson's March 7, 2023 "So It Goes," bi-weekly opinion piece, "Taking on a 'Karen ' problem,"  she invites readers to think about what it means to be white, rather than how it would be if they were Black. Larson cites a 1997 interview with cultural critic and humorist Fran Lebowitz, in which Lebowitz says, "That's something White people almost never think about. And what it is like to be White is not to say, 'We have to level the playing field,' but to acknowledge that not only do White people own the playing field, but they have so designated this plot of land as a playing field to begin with.  White people are the playing field," she said. "The advantage of being White is so extreme, so overwhelming, so immense, that to use the word advantage at all is misleading since it implies a kind of parity that simply does not exist." Larson notes that this is something MVFREE has been thinking about. Noting data from the Bias by Proxy campaign, Larson wonders whether white women may be making the calls. Referencing Bay Area attorney Megan Armstrong's article in the Hastings Women's Law Journal, "From Lynching to Central Park Karen: How White Women Weaponize White Womanhood" and sociology professor Jessie Daniels’ book, "Nice White Ladies: The Truth About White Supremacy, Our Role in It, and How We Can Help Dismantle It," Larson gives her readers a lot to think about.

Read the full opinion piece,  "Taking on a 'Karen ' problem" 

A community is using a flyer to reduce racial bias. It’s not as silly as it sounds, SF Gate February 26, 2023

Racial Disparities in Policing in Mill Valley 2022 (See full report )

• Data shows racial inequities in Mill Valley policing - Pacific Sun, September 28, 2022

• Fault for biased policing also lies in who calls the cops - SF Chronicle, October 8, 2022

• Mill Valley, activists disagree on police stop data - Marin Independent Journal, October 12, 2022

All Eyes Should Be on Marin: A Racial Reckoning in the Bay’s Whitest County, March 3, 2021

• Listen to the podcast.

• Read the transcript.