Page 5 - Sonoma County Gazette - October 2017

OPINION: What if Andy Lopez was my son?
By Jay Foxworthy
As a law enforcement officer, I always wince when I hear of an officer-
involved shooting. I hoped and prayed that this was some insane incident that would exonerate the officer involved. Not because of a blue code of silence, but because as a father of a brown thirteen-year-old son, this shooting hit way too close to home. Sadly, to say the more information that came out, the more I started to question the legality of the shooting and felt a deep sense of anger and betrayal by the picture being painted locally.
OPINION: Stop or Amend U.S. H.R. 2422
Proposed legislation would spend our tax dollars to pressure us about water fluoridation
By Stuart Cooper
Legislation is making its way to the oor of Congress that could waste
millions in tax dollars, by funding the attempts of dental lobbying organizations to force uoridation on communities across the country.
H.R. 2422, called the Action for Dental Health Act of 2017, amends existing legislation to reauthorize, and add to, existing oral health promotion programs through the year 2022. If it passes, it will cost us 160 million dollars over 5 years.
H.R. 2422 is the proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing. Who would not support innovative dental programs for the poor and underserved? But, technically, H.R. 2422 permits up to 100% of the authorized grant money to be spent on lobbying for water uoridation.
The American Dental Association (ADA) lobbied Congressional sponsors to develop this bill for its own bene t. Two purposely vague sections of the bill, which don’t mention water uoridation speci cally, are intended to provide federal funds to dental associations for fake grassroots campaigns pushing uoridation.
The ADA gets a substantial part of its income from uoride interests (just for example: Alcoa, Monsanto, DuPont, and Colgate). That income is a big part of the reason that support for water uoridation is ADA policy. E ectively,
by leaving controversial language out of the bill, and replacing it with vague authorization, the ADA has successfully tricked House committee members.
The ADA wants to grab our tax dollars for state dental associations, and other agencies advocating uoridation, to fund pro- uoridation lobbying campaigns, and put pressure on elected o cials and community members to uoridate water in communities that are not currently uoridated, or have recently rejected uoridation, or are considering an end to uoridation.
No town with a public water supply would be safe from uoridation lobbying pressure if HR2422 passes in its current form.
Similar bills were introduced and defeated during the past two sessions
of Congress, in spite of hundreds-of-thousands of dollars of combined contributions from the dental lobby. Just like before, with your help we can make sure this year’s bill is defeated too, or amended to speci cally prohibit using our tax dollars for grants to promote water uoridation.
Please send a essage to you member of Congress Reject H.R. 2422, or amend it to speci cally prohibit funding for the promotion of water uoridation. Thank you.
Call the Congressional Switchboard to connect with the Washington DC o ce of any member of Congress ( 202-224-3121), or contact local Congressmen Mike Thompson or Jared Hu man by email, or at their Sonoma County o ces:
1. The Hon. Mike Thompson - 5th Congressional District, California
Email: RepMikeThompsonCA05@mail.house.gov
Santa Rosa District O ce: 2300 County Center Drive, Suite A100, Santa Rosa, CA 95403 (phone: 707-542-7182).
2. The Hon. Jared Huffman - 2nd Congressional District, California
Email: RepJared Hu manCA02@mail.house.gov
Washington DC o ce: 202-225-5161
Petaluma District O ce: 206 G St., Unit 3. Petaluma, CA 94952 (707-981-8967). If there are any questions about H.R. 2422, please call Clean Water Sonoma-
Marin Director Dawna Gallagher-Stroeh at 707-547-7006..
My first indication of there being a local problem with shootings like Andy’s wasn’t because of the information being told about the actual shooting, but what was being said about Andy. It did not take long before the local press and Sheriff’s Department started releasing statements about Andy that shed doubt on his character. “Why wasn’t Andy in School? Andy was a drug addict...
and could have been an active gang member.” These statements released from the press after Andy’s death were a way to demonize the victim of a shooting long before the true facts of the case had been revealed. Demonizing the victim allows many in our community to mentally check out. Their thought process becomes, “Andy couldn’t have been like my kid, because my kid is a good kid.”
The actual shooting itself angered me, both as a human being and an officer. I naturally went into “Monday night quarterback” mode and questioned what I would have done if put in the same situation. Why did Deputy Gelhaus feel the need to respond so quickly to an unknown subject with a gun? Surely
this must have been an active shooter scenario where the officer had been dispatched to the scene on high alert? But the answer to that was no. If the calls were not coming in about Andy aiming his weapon at people and making terrorists threats then, obviously, Andy was a known threat to Gelhaus?...Also no.
I wanted to give Deputy Gelhaus the benefit of the doubt, but in no way could I put myself in his shoes on the day Andy Lopez was shot. We have been training officers for at least ten years to slow down and evaluate situations before using deadly force. Furthermore, Deputy Gelhaus was reported to be
a seasoned officer with 24 years on the force and a firearms instructor. There was nothing in the early accounts that warranted a seasoned officer such as Gelhaus to respond in the way he did. And as a father of a thirteen-year-old Latino boy, I was angry. This could have been my son.
Today we know a lot more about the actual details that led to Andy’s death. We have more than a simple narrative meant to blame the victim and exonerate the shooting officer. From these facts, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Sonoma County and Officer Gelhaus. If you have not read the ruling, I recommend that everyone take the time to educate themselves on the facts. The three-judge panel found that, “Gelhaus deployed deadly force while Andy was standing on the sidewalk holding a gun that was pointed down at the ground. Gelhaus also shot Andy without having warned Andy that such force would be used, and without observing any aggressive behavior. Pursuant to Graham V. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989), a reasonable jury could find that Gelhaus’s use of deadly force was not objectively reasonable”.
I agreed with the court’s decision and no matter what your opinions are of Law Enforcement or Andy Lopez, we need to understand those facts so that we are able to decide as a community, what it is we want from our public safety. Not because of the millions of dollars this case will cost our county, but because we want all of the people in our county to be safe. That includes Law Enforcement and people of color.
My son has smoked pot and has done some pretty stupid things as a teenager, that does not mean I want him to be another Andy. It’s time the County stops trying to defend itself, puts this case to bed, and allows us all to grieve for this tragedy.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals declares Erik
Gelhaus used excessive force: The panel held that viewing the facts in the light most favorable to plaintiffs, as the panel was required to do at this stage of the proceedings, Gelhaus deployed deadly force while Andy was standing on the sidewalk holding a gun that was pointed down at the ground. Gelhaus also shot Andy without having warned Andy that such force would be used, and without observing any aggressive behavior. Pursuant to Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989), a reasonable jury could find that Gelhaus’s use of deadly force was not objectively reasonable.
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