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President Biden, You Must Do More to Protect Voting Rights

I was proud to work hard for the election of President Joe Biden. And I was proud to protest outside the Biden White House on Aug. 24. 

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Joe Biden and Kamala Harris/ Featured Web

I was proud to work hard for the election of President Joe Biden. And I was proud to protest outside the Biden White House on Aug. 24. 

Along with other voting rights activists, including our co-organizers at the League of Women Voters, I called on President Biden to do more to protect voting rights under attack from Republican state legislators all across the country.

President Biden knows what the problem is. He needs to do more to solve it.

We all know how Republicans have responded to President Biden beating former President Donald Trump: by trying to rig future elections in Republicans’ favor. 

In state after state, they have used Trump’s false claims of voter fraud to justify new laws that make it harder for some people to vote. President Biden has correctly called this a threat to our democracy.

President Biden has called on Congress to pass the For the People Act, which would overturn many of the new restrictions and keep billionaires from buying our elections. 

And he has called on Congress to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would give the Justice Department the power to prevent future discriminatory voting changes from taking effect.

President Biden now needs to back up those words with stronger actions. Senate Republicans have already used filibuster rules to block the For the People Act. Now Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is getting ready to use the filibuster to block the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act as well.

Senators using filibusters to protect state voter suppression laws takes us back 60 years. In fact, I just saw a guy who works for a big right-wing think tank complain that these federal voting rights bills are “an invasion of state sovereignty.”

Well.

Early in my career, I worked for a crusading Black community newspaper in Mississippi. A paper that survived multiple fire bombings. I think about that ugly history when I hear the phrase “state sovereignty” used to defend restrictions on voting.

As I told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow after the White House protest, I fear that President Biden believes he is called to be an FDR for this moment, when he is actually called to be the LBJ of this moment. 

When President Johnson was faced with intense opposition to federal civil rights and voting rights laws, he used every bit of his persuasive power and knowledge of the Senate to overcome those obstacles.

Like President Johnson, President Biden is a master of the Senate. We have seen him build support for an infrastructure bill. Rebuilding roads and bridges is important. But not as important as saving our democracy.

When they had the power, Senate Republicans changed filibuster rules so that Trump could pack the Supreme Court. 

Those rules are not sacred. They are not in the Constitution. They can be changed, and they must be changed to prevent Republicans from doing Trump’s bidding once more and blocking voting rights protections. Senate leaders have not yet built the support to make that change happen.

President Biden must publicly call on Senate Democrats to do what they need to do—remove the filibuster as an obstacle to voting rights protections. That is why I stood at the White House fence with League of Women Voters CEO Virginia Kase-Solomon and all of the organization heads, faith leaders and young elected officials demand that Biden do his job.

At the White House we were blessed by the presence of prophetic religious voices who reminded us that we are part of an honorable history and sacred struggle for voting rights.

Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner of the Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism invoked the names of murdered civil rights activists Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner, “two young white Jewish men and a young Black Christian man who gave their lives for the right to vote.”

Rev. Timothy McDonald, co-chair of People For the American Way’s board, also grounded our protest in the history of voting rights struggles. “This fight is not a new fight,” he said. Rev. McDonald promised, “We will come back again and again and again, until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”

Amen.

We and our allies across the country are building a broad direct-action campaign with a profoundly moral purpose. Mr. President, it is time to show faith with the voters who put you in office. It is time to lead.

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Activism

Officer Fired for Shooting and Killing Sean Monterrosa Has Termination Overturned

Michael Rains, attorney for the Vallejo Police Officers’ Association, said that “several credible sources” have told him that Detective Jarrett Tonn’s termination has been overturned in arbitration. 

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A billboard near Vallejo Police Department with a sketch of Sean Monterrosa and a message “Justice for Sean Monterrosa” unveiled on Sept. 27, 2020, in Solano County, Calif. (Harika Maddala/ Bay City News)
A billboard near Vallejo Police Department with a sketch of Sean Monterrosa and a message “Justice for Sean Monterrosa” unveiled on Sept. 27, 2020, in Solano County, Calif. (Harika Maddala/ Bay City News)

By Katy St. Clair
Bay City News

The officer who was fired for shooting and killing a man during George Floyd protests in Vallejo in 2020 could be getting his job back after prevailing in arbitration.

Michael Rains, attorney for the Vallejo Police Officers’ Association, said that “several credible sources” have told him that Detective Jarrett Tonn’s termination has been overturned in arbitration.

Tonn was dismissed from the Vallejo force after he shot Sean Monterrosa, 22, of San Francisco, outside of a Walgreens store on Redwood Street during the early morning hours of June 2, 2020.

The Vallejo Police Department has not commented on whether Tonn will return.

Tonn and two other officers were responding to alleged reports of looting at the store in an unmarked pickup truck. Body camera footage shows Tonn, who is seated in the backseat of the vehicle, stick an AR-15-style assault rifle in between the two officers and fire five times through the windshield at Monterrosa as the police vehicle approached the store.

Monterrosa died a short time later.

Vallejo police have alleged that Tonn fired at Monterrosa because he mistook a hammer in Monterrosa’s sweatshirt pocket for the butt of a gun.

The office of California Attorney General Rob Bonta in May 2021 opened an investigation into the shooting, but there have been no updates in that case and Bonta’s office will not comment on open cases.

Tonn was at first placed on administrative leave for the shooting death, but was fired in 2021 by then-Chief Shawny Williams, who determined that Monterrosa was on his knees with his hands raised when he was shot.

Rains, who has represented two other officers fired by Williams — and prevailed — said the reinstatement of Tonn was the right decision. Rains said Sunday that Tonn applied a reasonable and lawful use of force in the Monterrosa case, and that Williams was wrong to terminate him.

“This is just three for three now with Williams,” he said, referring to the now three officers that have gotten their jobs back. “It demonstrates what a colossal failure he was as a chief in every respect. I’m delighted for Tonn, it’s deserved.”

Rains did not represent Tonn in this case.

But others see Monterrosa’s shooting death as a dark stain on a department known for years of shootings by officers.

The law office of John Burris filed a civil rights suit against the city of Vallejo and its Police Department for Monterrosa’s death, citing alleged tampering with evidence and acting negligently by not reprimanding or re-training Tonn previously despite a “shocking history of shooting his gun at civilians.”

Burris’ office is no longer representing the case and the family is now represented by new counsel, John Coyle, with a jury trial scheduled for January 2025, according to court records.

Nevertheless, Burris commented Sunday on Tonn’s reinstatement, saying he was disappointed but not surprised at the move, because arbitrators in these cases are “biased” toward the police.

“Even though police may have committed in this case an outrageous act, it’s not surprising that that has happened, and it happens more times than not,” he said.

When asked if he was confident that Bonta would file charges against Tonn, Burris chuckled and said that he would wait and see.

“I would not hold my breath,” he said.

Tonn had previously shot three people over five years in Vallejo while on duty, none of which were found to have had firearms, a tenth of the 32 total shootings by the department in one decade, according to attorney Ben Nisenbaum.

Vallejo civil rights attorney Melissa Nold, who represents families of people killed by Vallejo police, said the decision to bring back Tonn had been in the works the minute he was terminated by Williams.

“Unfortunately, I am not surprised at this troubling turn of events because a whistleblower notified me last year via email that Tonn was working a deal to get his job back once they threatened and ran off Chief Williams,” Nold said.

Williams resigned abruptly last November. Williams was repeatedly criticized by the Vallejo Police Officers’ Association, the offices’ union, which had previously voted “no confidence” in him and blamed him for everything from attrition to high crime in the city. But advocates for the families of those killed by police said Williams had been making progress in cleaning up a department that had gained international attention for being violent. During Williams’ tenure, there were no police shootings after the Monterrosa death.

Nold places part of the blame on Tonn’s return on the city, which she said “made no effort” to support his termination. Nold said they are still expecting Bonta to file criminal charges against Tonn and there will be a push to get him decertified as an officer as well.

“He cannot ever go back out onto the streets of Vallejo,” she said. “The liability he would create by being here is astronomical, but sadly no one in the city attorney’s office is smart enough to understand and/or are too corrupt and rotten to care.”

In May, a Solano County judge found that the Vallejo City Attorney’s Office broke the law by deliberately destroying evidence in cases related to police shootings.

The city of Vallejo did not respond to a request for comment.

Members of the family of Monterrosa and their advocates are planning on showing up to the Vallejo City Council meeting on Sept. 12 to protest the return of Tonn, Nold said.

The family will also be holding a “Justice 4 Sean Monterrosa” press conference on Thursday at 11 a.m. at Vallejo City Hall, 555 Santa Clara St., Vallejo.

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Oakland Post: Week of September 20 – 26, 2023

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of September 20 – 26, 2023

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The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of September 20 -26, 2023

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Oakland Post: Week of September 13 – 19, 2023

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of September 13 – 19, 2023

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The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of September 13 - 19, 2023

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