California lawmakers poised to pass new gun ban through budget maneuver

California lawmakers this week are poised to use a budget maneuver to ban a new type of gun in a move that drew bipartisan criticism in a legislative committee hearing Wednesday evening.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration describes the firearm as an assault-style weapon that’s a cross between a rifle and a pistol. It doesn’t neatly fit into either category, however, because it lacks a shoulder stock needed to be a rifle and has a barrel too long to be a pistol.

Representatives for Newsom argued at a Senate Budget Committee hearing that the gun was designed to circumvent California gun control laws and that the policy change would close the loophole.

Jay Jacobson, president of the company that manufactures the firearm, disputed the administration’s characterization of the gun. He said the gun his company Franklin Armory manufactures, called a Title 1, is in a separate category from rifles and pistols and that the company has worked for years to ensure the weapon would be legal to sell in California.

Several lawmakers raised concerns about the move at the Wednesday hearing, arguing the ban should have been considered in a standalone bill, not as part of the sprawling budget deal that encompasses 19 pieces of complicated legislation.

“It should be a policy bill — banning of a new class of firearm,” said Republican Sen. Melissa Melendez from Lake Elsinore. “This isn’t a budget matter.”

Aaron Edwards, a representative from the governor’s Department of Finance, said that the administration had pushed to include the provision because the budget includes funding to regulate the weapons. Under questioning from lawmakers, Edwards said he wasn’t prepared to describe the type of firearm the administration wants to ban.

“I’d like someone to explain to me exactly what these weapons are, and referring to them as similar to assault weapons frankly doesn’t cut it for me,” said Sen. Richard Roth, a Democrat from Riverside. “I want to know what I’m voting on.”

Later in the hearing, Edwards and other administration officials provided more information on the weapons, which are not currently for sale in California.

Edwards pointed to the Franklin Armory Title 1, saying it “would fall under any reasonable person’s definition of an assault weapon” but does not fall under the state’s assault weapons bans because it does not meet the definition of either a pistol or a rifle.

“The longer we wait, the more people may be able to obtain these weapons,” Edwards said. “We think that they’re a public safety threat and we feel there’s an urgency to act now.”

Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, said she views the policy as trying to ensure California’s ban on assault weapons is up-to-date and encompasses all appropriate firearms.

‘They’re using dirty tricks,’ manufacturer says

Jacobson says the gun is not an assault weapon and that he anticipates people who buy it would use it for “defense or hunting or target shooting or plinking.”

“Franklin Armory Title 1 was created for our friends behind enemy lines where the modern sporting rifle is neutered beyond comprehension,” the company’s website says. “Title 1 provides a FULL FEATURE option to the consumer in restrictive jurisdictions.”

Jacobson said it wasn’t appropriate for California to craft a law targeting his business, specifically, and that using a budget bill to pass the legislation allows California to pass the law quickly without a two-thirds majority.

Most bills signed into law in California take effect on Jan. 1 of the following year, unless they have an “urgency” clause, which requires a two-thirds majority to pass. Budget bills, however, require only a majority vote and take effect July 1.

“They’re using dirty tricks,” Jacobson said.

Franklin Armory is already suing the California Department of Justice in an attempt to begin selling the gun in California. Jacobson said it will also challenge the proposed law if it passes the Legislature.

The Legislature is scheduled to pass the bill that contains the new gun policy this week as part of the budget deal legislation. Newsom must sign the bills into law before the end of the month so they can take effect on the July 1 start of the next fiscal year.

https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article243803037.htm

Former Sheriff Reichert: Elected officials have ‘failed to protect law abiding citizens’

Seattle’s occupied zone in Capitol Hill has received national attention, with people all over weighing in on what needs to happen at the CHOP. Many have criticized Seattle and the state for a lack of leadership.

Former King County Sheriff and Congressman Dave Reichert joined KIRO Radio’s Gee & Ursula Show to share his opinion. In a recent op-ed piece, Reichert said Seattle today is unlike anything he’s seen in decades, and “elected officials have abandoned the rule of law.”

“As I also say in the piece, I was on the street during WTO with men and women, from law enforcement agencies all across the state practically, and we did deal with some anarchists then, as you may remember,” Reichert said. “That started out as a peaceful protest too.”

He says law enforcement officers learned a lot from WTO in 1999.

“As you watch the progression of how SPD handled protests and demonstrations from that period forward, they were very, very well trained, have been, and still are, very well organized, and very constrained, in my opinion,” he said.

During WTO, Reichert said he watched people strike police officers, push them, spit at them, while they stood there and took it.

“What we did do that they didn’t do this time, it seems, as police weren’t allowed to do that by city officials, was to arrest people, to hold those accountable and responsible who were tromping and stomping on the rights of law abiding citizens,” Reichert said. “Businesses were destroyed, property was destroyed, people were hurt.”

In the case of the CHOP, there has now been one person killed, three people shot, and multiple other crimes, including rape and assault, he said.

“The elected officials of the city, of the county, and of the state, and of our federal agencies, all have a responsibility to protect and defend our constitutional rights,” Reichert said. “That means the rights of all people, not just a few people, a small segment of people, but all people.”

“So as this progressed, the leadership, I should say elected officials — titles don’t make you a leader, it’s your actions that do — failed to protect those law abiding citizens,” he added. “And they allowed this to get out of hand.”

The original intent of the protests, Reichert says, were pure and good, to call attention to the wrongful death of George Floyd and demand change.

“That mission, that message, by a community that lives under fear … with the threat of violence every day, not just from police officers, but in their community, got lost,” Reichert said. “It got … hijacked by the anarchists and those that want to take our country down.”

Reichert did not put the blame for what he says is now out-of-hand on Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best.

“I have seen the chief be the really the only one with some courage here,” he said. “I have a great deal of respect for Chief Best. … When she stepped out and said, ‘Look, I didn’t order the evacuation of the precinct,’ she put her job on the line. How many people would do that?”

Best, Reichert says, has to influence the city council and a mayor who have not been supportive.

“Now what they’ve decided to do is to take away all the tools from the police officers that are less lethal weapons and leave them on the street with a night stick and a gun. That’s back to 1972. That’s what I had when I was on the street,” he said.

Reichert says police need to be supported with new technology and updated training.

“I know as the sheriff, I had a budget of $85,000 to train 1,200 employees. That’s ridiculous,” he said. “And I’m going to guess today that the training budget for the police department is minuscule.”

“If you want a professional, highly trained, effective, compassionate police department, you’ve got to support them,” he added.

The majority of cops, Reichert said, do recognize there needs to be change.

“There has to be some new way of looking at how we get rid of bad cops. Because, as I said in my piece, good cops working out there don’t want bad cops next to them. We don’t want to have them represent our police department because they taint the badge,” Reichert said. “And we don’t want to have them protecting the citizens that we love.”

https://mynorthwest.com/1979502/reichert-elected-officials-seattle/

Black Collective Voice forms in Seattle to educate and empower the people

Seattle Black Collective Voice is a new group of organizers and protesters formed out of the Capitol Hill Organized Protest (CHOP). The group intends to reclaim the narrative of the movement, focusing on education and empowerment.

Naudia Miller (Nas) introduced the Black Collective Voice at a press conference Thursday. Nas was joined by her mother, Jesse Miller, who together are the co-founders of the Harriet Tubman Foundation for Safe Passage, and Marcus Henderson, the leader of Black Star Farmers in the CHOP.

A recent survey of protesters in the CHOP, Nas said, showed that people overwhelmingly wanted to know about ways to volunteer their time and resources to end systemic racism, starting by ending police brutality. Respondents also indicated that they wanted to follow Black voices and were looking for Black leadership. From this, the Black Collective Voice was formed.

“We are the people of Seattle,” Nas said about the collective.

The group is made up of students, educators, bartenders, parents, business owners, and residents. While it is Black led, Nas said they recognize the importance of their allies and fight for the rights of all people.

The response to the survey was 90% white, which Jesse Miller says reflects the population of the CHOP.

“This is … pretty much a 90% white place,” she said. “But we are very happy to be here sharing the space because we need you, you need us.”

Nas also clarified that taking the East Precinct was, and is, not the end goal in this movement.

“Today we want to be clear: The East Precinct was never the goal of the Black Collective or our allies on the ground at the CHOP,” she said. “We did not choose the East Precinct or Cal Anderson Park as the epicenter of our work.”

Rather, Nas says the location was chosen by police when they stood in front of protesters on Pine Street.

There are gardens, food, medical aid, and security at the CHOP, and it provided a space for the Black Collective Voice to meet, organize, and grow in the movement, Nas said.

However, the group rejects the false narrative that protesting caused the crime as violence, homeless issues, and drug use have always been a problem in the area and the city.

“Governing bodies have continued to fail at resolving these issues,” Nas said, despite clear communication from Black, POC, and community leaders who are among those impacted the most by these issues.

There have been attempts to dismantle, threaten, and undermine the CHOP, Nas said, and the actions of protesters and organizers have been mischaracterized in order to justify excessive force.

“We will not be bought off,” she said. “We will not attend meetings where the goal is to buy us off. We are here to dismantle systemic racism.”

The shared experiences of police brutality and misrepresentation has brought the community closer over the past few days and weeks, Nas added.

Even if officials or police force activists out of the CHOP, Nas assured that the movement will not stop.

“We now prepare to mobilize,” she said.

The Black Collective Voice plans to take action through education and collaboration in public spaces everywhere. The group also wants the demands of the people to be met, including to defund SPD by at least 50%, use that money to fund restorative justice, housing, and health care, and to release all protesters.

Until the demands are met, Nas said, they will continue to organize and strategize, and will keep strategizing even after the demands are met. The group plans to continue exercising their first amendment rights.

Nas said as long as the people of Seattle hold the space at the CHOP and want to be there, Black Collective Voice will be there as well to educate and empower.

“Our movement to liberate black lives is not limited to one space,” Nas said.

Henderson and Nas both said collaboration with other people and organizations is essential to the group’s mission moving forward.

“We are a collective, we are representing the Black voices and the ally voices in this space,” Henderson said. “We are looking to collaborate and bring all voices into the collective.”

https://mynorthwest.com/1979225/black-collective-voice-educate-empower/

https://blackcollectivevoice.org/

As COVID-19 spreads in Spokane, Inslee visits and meets unmasked resistance

The rate of people being hospitalized for COVID-19 in Spokane has doubled in the past week, and the state’s second-largest city is “on the edge of a cliff,” Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said Thursday.

“Something has to change to rescue people and the economy,” Inslee said after visiting with civic leaders on Washington State University’s Spokane campus.

Inslee’s visit drew a few dozen protesters against his administration’s proclamation earlier this week requiring people to wear masks when in public. Inslee, who wore a mask during his press conference, said the way to battle the spread of the coronavirus is simple.

“You’ve just got to wear a little cloth on your face,” he said.

Demonstrators outside the building carryied signs that said “Inslee Must Go,” and “Freedom is the cure.” Some waved flags bearing the name of President Donald Trump.

Janice Tollett of Airway Heights said she won’t wear a mask and thinks the governor should just “open everything up and let the chips fall where they may.”

However, Inslee said he expects most Washington residents to wear masks, especially when shopping. Wearing a mask protects other people if the wearer has the virus without knowing it.

In announcing the rule Tuesday, Inslee noted that workers such as grocery cashiers deserve to be safe when interacting with customers.

“It is fair to protect the people who are serving you,” Inslee reiterated Thursday in Spokane.

The order takes effect Friday. A violation is a misdemeanor punishable by up to 90 days in jail or a maximum fine of $1,000.

Some law enforcement officers have said they will not write tickets for failure to wear a mask. Inslee said he doubted tickets would be widely issued anyway.

The governor said the most important metrics he looks at regularly are the rate at which infected people are infecting others, known as the “R-naught” or “R0,” and the rate of new hospitalizations in a county.

Dr. Dan Getz, an emergency room doctor at Spokane’s Sacred Heart Medical Center, the state’s second-largest hospital, said the facility tripled its number of COVID-19 patients in the past week, and continues to admit people.

“It could quickly overrun our hospital system,” Getz said. “… Wear the mask.”

Spokane County is currently in Phase 2 of the state’s four-phase reopening plan, meaning many businesses are open. As of 11:59 p.m. Wednesday, 1,098 people in the county have been infected and 38 of those have died, according to the state Department of Health.

That’s far lower than the infection rates in Yakima, Benton and Franklin counties, which are still in Phase 1, but Inslee said the trend in Spokane was disturbing.

Statewide, more than 30,000 people have tested positive for the virus and at least 1,300 have died.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/as-covid-19-spreads-in-spokane-inslee-visits-and-meets-unmasked-resistance/

Proud Boy member arrested on probation violation after visiting Seattle’s CHOP

Tusitala “Tiny” Toese, a member of the far right-wing group the Proud Boys, has been jailed in Portland for violating his parole, a TV station reported Thursday.

Court records show Toese was spotted in Seattle earlier this month in an area that’s been taken over by protesters that’s called the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP), according to KOIN-TV.

Toese was allegedly involved in an assault in the area and didn’t get permission from his probation officers to travel to Seattle, the station reported.

He gained attention in the past for fighting in Portland during political protests and fled the Pacific Northwest after being indicted on felony assault charges.

In January, Toese pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge stemming from a 2018 incident that left a protester with “stitches and a concussion.” Prosecutors dismissed a felony assault charge as part of Toese’s plea deal.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/proud-boy-member-arrested-on-probation-violation-after-visiting-seattles-chop/

Thought Newsom was the only one who did this. same chinese company, seeing a pattern here. the corruption runs deep…

In $37 million push to buy Chinese-made masks for COVID-19, Washington state runs into delays, poor quality and fit problems

In the early stage of the coronavirus pandemic, Washington state was desperate for protective gear for front-line workers. Government employees scoured the world for masks capable of filtering tiny airborne particles.

Unable to find a reliable stockpile of U.S. government-approved N95 respirator masks, state officials settled on an alternative, ordering about 13.5 million Chinese-made KN95 models for more than $37 million.

As it turned out, the alternative left much to be desired.

By early May, state officials had canceled more than half of the KN95s it ordered after they failed to pass quality checks. Weeks later, the state canceled another order after persistent delays by manufacturer BYD Co.

Many hospitals and first responders now don’t want KN95 masks, largely because they don’t consistently fit well enough to seal around their faces.

Washington has since stopped placing new orders for the masks. With previously ordered KN95s still arriving, state officials say they might give the masks to workers with less critical needs.

Despite disappointing results, Washington is still committed to spending $13.8 million on KN95s, which cost about five times as much as surgical masks.

The canceled orders and lack of demand are the latest troubles for Washington’s effort to procure protective equipment. As the state’s supplies lagged, medical workers turned to homemade masks and reused N95s, hoping the stopgaps would protect them from COVID-19.

State officials stressed that the masks won’t be wasted. The Department of Enterprise Services (DES), the state’s buying arm, says the KN95s are still in demand from some health care facilities with confirmed COVID-19 cases as well as others lower down its priority list for protective gear, such as jails and homeless shelters.

Linda Kent, a DES spokeswoman, said that when other types of masks aren’t available, the KN95s could be used as “general face coverings.” Cloth masks, which don’t filter as well as KN95s, can be had for far less.

Washington state, like others during the pandemic, has struggled to compete in a topsy-turvy international medical supply marketplace. Normal supply chains ran bare, especially for the N95 respirator, and the state’s expectation that the Strategic National Stockpile would fill the gaps has proven to be misplaced.

This led the state government to suspend procurement rules and sign no-bid contracts for more than $400 million of personal protective equipment (PPE). Now, three months into the pandemic, the supplies are still trickling in.

“Something is better than nothing”

BYD, an automotive conglomerate that now bills one of its factories in Shenzhen, China, as the world’s largest plant for face masks, has contracted to provide virtually all of the KN95s Washington state has purchased. The state has also received donations of 1.2 million KN95s from groups such as the nonprofit Americares and Eddie Bauer, the clothing manufacturer.

In Washington, BYD’s deliveries have been consistently late, part of the wider delays that have plagued the state’s ability to secure equipment. The company accounts for more than half the value of all the state’s orders for COVID-19 supplies.

As of June 2, Washington had received 3.2 million KN95s it had purchased from BYD, plus the 1.2 million donated masks. To date, the state has distributed 2.6 million KN95s, with the remainder either in a warehouse or being processed for distribution. BYD has yet to deliver an additional million of these masks.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/times-watchdog/in-37-million-push-to-buy-chinese-made-masks-for-covid-19-state-runs-into-delays-poor-quality-and-fit-problems/

Black Lives Matter seeks restraining order to prevent LAPD use of batons, ‘rubber’ bullets on marchers

Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles and other protest groups are asking a federal judge to issue a temporary restraining order and injunction to forbid the Los Angeles Police Department from using baton strikes and “rubber” bullets to control crowds during future protests, arguing that such use violates demonstrators’ constitutional rights and has caused a plethora of injuries.

With protests over the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police bringing calls to end police brutality, lawyers for the protesters on Wednesday asked a federal judge to end LAPD practices that they say have fallen short of their constitutional duties.

“The LAPD has used so-called rubber bullets and batons indiscriminately to disrupt and disperse protesters with many serious injuries resulting,” attorney Paul Hoffman wrote on behalf of BLM-L.A. and more than a dozen protesters injured by police officers. “The images of baton-wielding LAPD officers and protesters’ injuries unacceptably increase the cost of public participation in these important exercises of First Amendment rights.”

The injunction effort comes as part of a class-action lawsuit filed earlier this month by the Los Angeles chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, Black Lives Matter and Los Angeles Community Action Network, which accuses the LAPD of repeatedly misapplying the law to clear the streets. The lawsuit says demonstrators’ constitutional rights were violated and many were left bloodied and bruised.

The filing by veteran civil rights attorneys on behalf of protesters echoes many of the findings of a Times review of dozens of instances of police force during the recent protests. That investigation found that demonstrators suffered a range of injuries at the hands of the LAPD, from minor bruising from baton strikes and falls as police skirmish lines advanced, to serious injuries to their genitals and heads from foam and sponge bullets and beanbags being fired into crowds, sometimes from close range.

In court documents filed Wednesday, recent UCLA graduate Tina Crnko described how shortly after LAPD Chief Michel Moore, clad in riot gear, used a weak bullhorn to address protesters at 3rd Street and Fairfax Avenue on May 30, advancing officers fired foam projectiles.

She said she was “struck in the left bicep and rib cage.” And without warning, she said, she was struck by a “rubber bullet on the forehead above my right eye,” causing temporary deafness, profuse bleeding from her forehead and likely sustained permanent nerve damage on the top of her skull.

Lawyers for BLM-L.A. and protesters also argue that the LAPD manipulated “ever-changing curfews and improper declarations of unlawful assemblies in order to suppress marchers’ constitutional rights.”

That resulted in thousands of arrests with arrestees packed into unventilated buses for as long as 12 hours with over-tight handcuffs. The lawyers are requesting that those cited at protests be released within 15 minutes and those booked for a misdemeanor spend no more than an hour in custody, given the availability of mobile booking technology.

They are also asking that protesters held on buses be in conditions that meet Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines to prevent the spread of coronavirus, with masks and adequate social distancing.

The lawyers argue “that anyone subject to such a warlike display of police weaponry would think twice about coming to engage in First Amendment activity.”

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-06-25/black-lives-matters-seek-restraining-order-to-prevent-lapds-use-of-batons-and-rubber-bullets-on-marchers