The wanton murder of 22-year old Sean Monterrosa in June by a Vallejo cop is a disgusting outrage.

Coming close on the heels of George Floyd’s murder in May by a Minneapolis cop it’s further proof that cops in America have license to kill at will.

The family of Sean Monterrosa is seeking judicial relief for their son’s murder. It will not bring him back. The American judiciary system is flawed. But, at least the family has a forum in which to express its grief and anger.

In addition to this civil action the cop who shot Sean Monterrosa needs to be charged with murder. Sadly and predictably prosecutorial authorities are treading water and have nearly two months after the crime failed to charge the cop.

San Francisco Chronicle 8.6.2020

The family of Sean Monterrosa sued the city of Vallejo and police Officer Jarrett Tonn on Thursday, accusing Tonn of panicking and fatally shooting the 22-year-old San Franciscan from an unmarked police vehicle with no provocation on a night of racial justice demonstrations in June.

“We have no moment to grieve. All we can do is turn this tragedy to power,” Monterrosa’s older sister, Michelle Monterrosa, said at a news conference announcing the lawsuit in front of Vallejo City Hall. “It’s hard — we lost our only brother. This is not the end. We will do everything we can to make sure my brother gets justice.”

Oakland civil rights attorney John Burris, who filed the wrongful death suit in federal court for the family, called Tonn “a trigger-happy officer and potentially a homicidal officer” who is “clearly not a person who should be in a Black and brown community” doing police work.

“This officer in my view was a panicky guy … scared to death of any little thing,” Burris said. “That is unconscionable to me.” He called the shooting “flat-out murder.”

It describes the killing of Monterrosa as “brutal, malicious,” and done while he was kneeling outside a Walgreens store on the 1000 block of Redwood Street in Vallejo at 12:37 a.m. on June 2.

Monterrosa had a hammer in his sweatshirt pocket that Tonn said he thought was a firearm, but he held nothing in his hands.

It was Tonn’s fourth shooting in five years, according to the suit. Burris said Tonn’s history “raises real questions about his suitability or fitness to possess weapons.”

Efforts to reach Tonn were unsuccessful.

Burris criticized Tonn’s colleagues for reassuring and even “coddling” Tonn as Monterrosa lay dying in the store parking lot. Digging through police records, Burris was unable to find reports of discipline or counseling after Tonn’s other shootings, the suit says.

Burris also contended Thursday that the Vallejo Police Officers’ Association tried to cover up for Tonn by saying Monterrosa was crouching and reaching for his waist, as if preparing to attack, contrasting Police Chief Shawny Williams’ initial description of Monterrosa being on his knees and raising his arms. Williams later changed his description to match the union’s, and he told The Chronicle he was merely clarifying the “narrative.”

“We have a problem here in Vallejo,” Burris said. “We can’t trust what they (police union leaders) have to say.”

A lawyer for the union declined to comment Thursday. The union issued a statement defending Tonn, saying: “Fearing that Mr. Monterrosa was about to open fire on the officers in the vehicle, the officer was forced to fire multiple rounds through his windshield. The officer used deadly force as a last resort because he had no other reasonable option to prevent getting shot.”

A spokeswoman for the Vallejo Police Department, Brittany K. Jackson, did not address the specifics of the lawsuit but expressed sympathy for the Monterrosa family.

The Vallejo police have drawn community condemnation in recent years for a string of deaths at the hands of officers. Those include Willie McCoy, a 21-year-old man who was shot to death by officers last year after he fell asleep with a gun in his lap in his car in a Taco Bell drive-through, Ronell Foster, a bicyclist who was shot to death in 2018 after an officer chased him into a dark alleyway; and Angel Ramos, who was killed by police at his home in 2017 after a report of a fight.

And last week, Chief Williams said he was looking into allegations by a former police captain that officers had bent their badges to mark on-duty killings.

Solano County District Attorney Krishna Abrams recused herself from investigating the McCoy and Monterrosa cases, saying that Becerra should investigate them instead. But his office has declined to review either case, saying Abrams had no conflict of interest that would prevent her from deciding whether to file charges against officers in the case.

“This is a moment where (Attorney General) Becerra steps up like a real man and takes on this case,” Nora Monterrosa, the victim’s mother, (pictured below left) said in Spanish at the news conference.

Separately, Becerra plans to investigate the Police Department’s disposal of key evidence in the incident: the windshield through which Tonn allegedly fired his weapon. The windshield was destroyed after the shooting, and Thursday’s lawsuit contends that in disposing of the glass, the city deprived the family of valuable evidence and “ratified and condoned” Tonn’s actions.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Family-of-Sean-Monterrosa-files-wrongful-death-15464165.php#photo-19504782

The political assassination in June 2019 by a neo-Nazi is receiving scant attention in America.

The cold blooded murder of Walter Lübcke shocked Germany. Now his accused assassin has confessed to the crime.  The trial of Stephan E. is expected to last until October.

German criminal trials do not have a jury. Trials are held before a panel of Judges as shown above.

Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 8.5.2020

The main suspect in the killing of regional German politician Walter Lübcke has confessed and apologized in court. 

A far-right extremist who is suspected of murdering regional politician Walter Lübcke confessed in court on Wednesday.

“I shot him,” the defendant said in his hourlong statement, which was read out by his lawyer at the start of the proceedings in Frankfurt.

Stephan E., 46, is on trial for the shooting of Lübcke, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Lübcke was shot in the head on his porch on June 1, 2019 and died later that night.

Read more: Germany and right-wing extremism — The new dimension of terrorism

Stephan E.’s statement went on to describe his own act as cowardly and cruel. “I am sorry, I am sorry, I am sorry,” were the words directed at Lübcke’s relatives. “No one should have to die because of his religion or his opinions or his origin and background.”

This apology failed to impress Lübcke’s widow and two sons, who are participating in the trial as co-plaintiffs.

Prosecutors said Stephan E.’s motivations were based on his “right-wing extremist hatred of refugees.”

Lübcke became a target for militant far-right extremists in 2015. At the time, Germany saw a major increase in the number of migrants coming into the country, and the 65-year-old politician attracted attention as an advocate of efforts to welcome and integrate them.

The statement read by the defense attorney on Wednesday was the defendant’s third confession. Previously, Stephan E. had confessed twice  — each time with a different version of last year’s crime.

This time, even though the defendant’s words were short and clear, they were somewhat surprising. They included a mixture of his first statement to the police, in which no mention is made of his co-defendant Markus H, and a later, modified version in which he blamed H. for the shooting.

In Wednesday’s statement, Stephan E. still heavily incriminated his former friend and co-defendant Markus H., but he now admitted to having fired the shots himself. 

Stephan E. described what led up to that fateful night last June when Lübcke was shot on the terrace of his house in Wolfhagen-Istha, near Kassel, a city he represented as district president.

Walter Lubcke’s funeral – 2019

His words made the listeners shiver, describing as they did the quiet but rapid radicalization of a young man. The driving force behind this, according to Stephan E., was Markus H.

“He radicalized, manipulated and incited me,” E. said in his statement. “And I let it happen to me.”

According to the statement, H. procured weapons and joined E. in shooting practice in a forest. “He always spoke of civil war-like conditions that would soon prevail in Germany … how Western life in Germany must be defended against Islamization,” E. said of his former friend.

Stephan E., who describes himself as a prepper and was preparing for a “civil war,” said he still does not see himself as a neo-Nazi. He said he became caught up in the narrative put forward by H., who had spoken “over and over again” of the way that the “Merkel government” wanted to take away the freedom of its citizens and wipe them out.

The statement alleged that at some point during the shooting exercises in the forest, H. stuck a portrait of Angela Merkel on the target, as well as a picture of Lübcke. H. is said to have portrayed the district president as a “traitor to the people” and a “stooge of Jewish interests.”

He is also said to have described Lübcke as someone “who, unlike Merkel, could be approached,” which, according to E., made him an easy target for the two accused.

On the evening of the crime, the statement said,  Stephan E. met H. around 9.30 p.m., carrying a weapon in his pocket that H. had given him previously. The plan was to wait for Lübcke and confront him. At about 10:30 p.m. they allegedly arrived at the Lübcke family’s house, where the two of them saw a person on the terrace and the glowing light of a smartphone.

Read more: Killing of Kassel politicians leaves locals aghast

E. described what followed in short sentences in his statement: “You threaten him with a gun; I’ll beat him up, and tell him something about leaving the country,” H. allegedly told him.

The use of a gun “was definitely an option,” the statement said, which claimed that H. had also told E. that he should shoot if Lübcke moved. On the terrace, E. pointed his gun at the seated Lübcke “from close range,” telling him “Don’t move” as the district president was getting up.  He said he had pushed Lübcke back into his chair.

E. said that when the politician moved again, he pulled the trigger and told H. he believed Lübcke had been hit in the head, before the two fled the scene.

https://www.dw.com/en/walter-l%C3%BCbcke-murder-germany/a-54450245

It mattered not that Ralph Barbieri was a fixture in San Francisco sports talk radio.

When Ralph told his corporate owners that he had Parkinson’s Disease he was fired several months later. It’s small consolation that Ralph did the American thing.  He sued corporate management and prevailed.

The psychological damage caused by having to engage the American legal system is daunting, time consuming and depressing.

There are no victors in the legal system. Ralph may have won the battle but ultimately lost the war. It was a pyrrhic victory.

Rest in peace Ralph. I loved your show.

San Francisco Chronicle 8.4.2020

Longtime San Francisco radio personality Ralph Barbieri died at his home in Novato on Monday after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease. He was 74.

He spent 28 years at KNBR (680 AM). Over the final 15, he teamed with Tom Tolbert on a popular afternoon show called “The Razor and Mr. T.”

Barbieri was dubbed “Razor Voice” many years ago by the late Chronicle columnist Herb Caen because of his raspy, high-pitched delivery.

“Even though we knew it was coming, it was still a mule kick,” Tolbert said Monday.

“I loved the guy. I loved working with the guy. I don’t think anyone will ever have the magic that we had.”

He signed off each show with a quote from British novelist and poet G.K. Chesterton: “Angels fly because they take themselves lightly.”

In 2005, Barbieri was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system. He didn’t disclose his illness to KNBR management and his listeners until 2011.

Six months after his announcement, he was fired in April 2012. He sued KNBR’s parent company, Cumulus Media, alleging discrimination based on his age (then 66) and his illnesses.

At the time, Cumulus vice president Bill Bungeroth called the charges “baseless,” pointing out that the company knew about his illness when it renewed his contract the previous fall. He said Barbieri was let go because he refused to honor the terms of his contract. In 2013, the suit was settled for an undisclosed amount, believed to be more than $1 million.

For more than a decade, Barbieri said, he became almost obsessed with becoming a father, even though he never wanted to be married. Through in vitro fertilization with a surrogate mother, his son, Tayte Ali, was born in 2000, and Barbieri embraced his new role as a father.

He told an interviewer in 1992, “I spent the better part of 25 years carousing and leading the single life.” After three drunken-driving charges in a 12-month period, he had entered a 120-day treatment program in 1995. He later said he swore off alcohol and drugs when he became a father.

Raised in Millbrae, he attended the University of San Francisco on an academic scholarship — he was a member of the cheerleading squad — and earned a degree in political science with a minor in philosophy. He received an MBA at Penn and worked in advertising in New York for a year and a half.

After returning to San Francisco, he decided to write an article about Bill Walton, the iconoclastic center of the Portland Trail Blazers. They met in a hotel in Oakland, where the Blazers were playing the Warriors. Barbieri accepted an invitation from Walton to spend a week at his home in Oregon to let him see how he lived. Barbieri eventually sold the long story to Sport magazine.

After he wrote a cover story for Sport on decathlete Bruce Jenner — who would win gold at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal — he made a guest appearance on Scotty Stirling’s radio show on KNBR. Barbieri decided that talk radio was what he wanted to do.

Following the sale of KNBR by NBC to Susquehanna Radio Corp. in 1989, general manager Tony Salvadore gave Barbieri the “SportsPhone 68” nighttime sports-talk show after hearing him sub for Dave Newhouse. Salvadore wanted somebody more controversial. Eventually, Barbieri was shifted to the prized afternoon-drive slot as the station moved to a 24-hour all-sports format.

Barbieri is survived by his son, Tayte, and his sister, Annette Dell Osso of Novato.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/sports/article/Ralph-Barbieri-KNBR-s-Razor-dies-at-74-15455433.php

San Francisco has consistently been in the front lines  fighting for tenant rights.

Now that Dean Preston, long time tenant attorney, is a member of San Francisco’s legislative body the City is taking firm, substantive action to protect tenants.

Preston’s legislation has been affirmed by an Order signed by Judge Charles Haines.

It firmly places San Francisco on the correct side of decency and human rights for tenants.

San Francisco Chronicle 8.3.2020

A San Francisco Superior Court Judge upheld a city ordinance on Monday that prevents landlords from evicting tenants unable to pay rent or penalties during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A coalition of real estate industry and landlord groups — including the San Francisco Apartment Association, the San Francisco Association of Realtors and the Small Property Owners of San Francisco Institute — sued the city in June, claiming that the law was an unconstitutional overreach.

Judge Charles Haines flatly disagreed, ruling that the ordinance, authored by Supervisor Dean Preston, “is a permissible exercise” of the city’s power to regulate evictions “to promote public welfare.” He also ruled that the law did not conflict with state emergency orders, as the landlord and real estate groups contended.

“I  have said from the start, we will not stand by and watch thousands of San Franciscans become homeless because of a pandemic they cannot control, and I’m proud that our legislation has been upheld and vindicated in court,” he said.

Preston’s ordinance also prohibits landlords from charging late fees, penalties and interest related to delayed rent. It does not, however, prevent rent payments from accruing.

The organizations that sued the city argued in their suit that Preston’s legislation foisted an undue burden on housing providers, particularly landlords of smaller properties, who’ve also been hurt financially by the pandemic’s economic fallout.

“Small property owners who have not been able to collect rent since April are struggling with their own mortgages and expenses,” the statement read. “We are reviewing our options moving forward. In the meantime we remain hopeful that Congress will pass a relief package which includes meaningful financial support for renters and out-of-work individuals.”

Lawmakers are scrambling in Sacramento to stave off what many are forecasting to be an unprecedented wave of evictions brought on by the pandemic, and several bills are moving through the Legislature to prevent that from happening. An emergency judicial order that largely halted eviction proceedings for the past four months could end as soon as Aug. 14, heightening the sense of urgency in Sacramento.

One in 7 tenants in California did not pay rent on time last month, according a survey by the U.S. Census Bureau, and nearly 1 in 6 doesn’t expect to pay on time in August either.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/San-Francisco-judge-upholds-city-s-ban-on-15455754.php#photo-19763074

Liz Heidhues is an astute chronicler of Art in the Pandemic era.

Shown here is her latest creation, “A Hungry Bug Catcher.”

Pictured below is an earlier Pandemic creation, “A silly bug,” Created March 18, 2020.

Posted one day after San Francisco began its Shelter in Place.

I read the following brief piece in the current issue of The New Yorker and was struck by question, “Can you pledge patriotic allegiance to a void?’

In the Dystopian era of a Pandemic, America in dissaray and Trump in mental free fall it’s a good question.

American forces in Germany are a staple of US-Russian geopolitical manuvering.

Trump’s unilateral withdrawal of troops from the geopolitical chess board is akin to surrendering your Queen in return for a Pawn.

It makes no sense. But then nothing the soon to be ex-President ever does. He probably thinks he’s irritating German Chancellor Angela Merkel.  Being far beyond him intellectually and politically, Merkels knows he’s an idiot prince and probably is saying, “Whatever,” to herself.

Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 7.29.2020

US Defense Secretary Mark Esper confirmed on Wednesday that troops would be pulled and relocated from Germany. The move is set to be the largest shake-up of troops in Germany since the Cold War.

Green party opposition politician Jürgen Trittin, who sits on the foreign affairs committee in parliament, told DW he believed the real motivation was not military or defense policy: “It’s more a part of the economic warfare Donald Trump is fighting against the European Union and especially the Germans,” Trittin alleged, calling for Germany to cancel plans to purchase new F-18 fighter jets from the US in response.

Earlier this month, the Pentagon said that President Donald Trump had approved a plan to withdraw in the region of 9,500 US troops from Germany. But in Wednesday’s announcement, the first time the US set out concrete proposals on its “European Strategic Force Posture Review,” Esper tentatively put the number at 11,800.

Under the plan, the US will send home some 6,400 forces and relocate 5,400 out of Germany and to other European countries in Europe, the US Defense Department said. Roughly 25,000 troops are set to remain in Germany.

Read more:  US troop withdrawal a cause for NATO concern, German defense minister says

The reassignment envisages troops moving to Italy and Belgium, but some could also go to Poland and the Baltic states, if Warsaw agrees to an accord that the two sides have been working on, Esper said. The defense chief added the troop redeployment would cost in the “single digit” billions of dollars.

In a major shift, US European Command and Special Operations Command Europe would be moved from Stuttgart in Germany to Mons, Belgium, General Tod Wolters of European Command said.

Esper said that the troop reassignments were part of a larger plan to update US strategy against Russia. “We are following the boundary east, where our newest allies are,” the Defense Secretary said.

Esper did not explicitly say whether the decision to move troops had to do with President Trump’s comments regarding Germany. Trump has often criticized the European ally for not investing enough in defense and being “delinquent” in its NATO payments.

But Esper did back the president’s premise. “To give President Trump credit, we have seen an increase in defense spending by NATO,” the Defense Secretary said of White House efforts to get more countries to invest in NATO.

Photo:  American GI Elvis Presley in Germany (cica late 1950’s)

Read more: US military in Germany: What you need to know

Earlier on Wednesday, Trump said the European ally “owes billions and billions of dollars to NATO.”

“Now Germany is saying it’s bad for their economy. Well, it’s good for our economy,” Trump said, referring to the consequences of the partial withdrawal. “They’ve been taking advantage of us for many years.”

“We don’t want to be the suckers any more,” the US president said, adding that he could “rethink” the plan “if they start paying their bills.”

The German government has said it expects to spend 1.37% of GDP on defense in 2020.  Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer recently questioned whether defense spending alone was a fair measure of NATO members’ contributions to the alliance.

Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder criticized the US withdrawal plan, adding that it served no clear military purpose and would even weaken the NATO alliance and the US itself.

“Unfortunately, this puts a burden on the German-American relationship,” Söder said.

“We are now waiting to see if the decision will last,” he added, in reference to the US presidential election in November.

https://www.dw.com/en/us-to-withdraw-or-relocate-more-troops-in-germany-than-previously-thought/a-54367804

In the dystopian Pandemic era here’s a nice change of pace story.

Deutsche Welle 7.27.2020

Residents in one Berlin neighborhood were bemused when their shoes began vanishing. The prolific shoe thief turned out to be a fashion-conscious fox with a passion for footwear.

A fox has stolen around 100 shoes from people’s homes in Berlin’s southwestern Zehlendorf neighborhood, according to local media reports.

All types of footwear had started disappearing from outside homes in the district, including slippers and sandals as well as sneakers, before the unlikely thief was unmasked by local resident Christian Meyer.

Meyer initially noticed his running shoes had disappeared and posted an inquiry on Germany’s community noticeboard-sharing platform Nebenan.de, reported Berlin newspaper Tagesspiegel.

After posting, it became apparent that his were not the only shoes to have vanished in the area.

https://www.dw.com/en/berlin-fox-steals-shoes/a-54330292

The psychological effect of involvement in euthanasia is substantial.

Physicians, trained in the fundamentals of promoting human wholeness and carrying out euthanasia according to patients’ wishes, are shocked, have a sense of powerlessness, and feelings of isolation.

Lay people can experience the same emotions.

EUTHANASIA

Your departure leaves a hole in the sandy beach of my life.

The hole gapes and threatens,

It might swallow me when I step into it.

I look for holes when I run barefoot in the surf, to avoid them.

My ears sift through the musical roar of waves, eroding the sandy beach of my life.

I returned you to the opalescent fog,

To the backdrop where the brown pelicans soar, in formation, soundless.

There is no sound gushing between you and I any more.

The silent memory is all I have.

I hoard this memory like precious gold.

The memory cannot be shared. 

It too will erode, like the sandy beach of my life –  where you left me at.

Poem by Liz Heidhues 7.26.2020

Drawing – Carla Sonheim

Photo – Great Highway Ocean Beach, San Francisco – Lee Heidhues

Where is the outrage as Trump’s Police State takes hold?

Trump is totally laying waste to Democracy. 

If you doubt me this is exactly what Congressman James Clyburn said on a broadcast news program  yesterday.  He is the Majority Whip

The dispatch of federal troops to American cities smacks of the worst kind of totalitarian rule.  First it was Portland and now more cities are on Trump’s federal intervention list.

There is only one thing to stop this wannabe thug Dictator from pursuing his takeover of America.

Throw him out of office in 104 days.

Deutsche Welle 7.22.2020

The US president has made good on a threat to send more federal troops to combat unrest in major US cities. “Operation Legend” will see hundreds of agents deployed to Chicago and other urban centers.

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he will “surge” hundreds of federal law enforcement officers to quell violence in cities around the US, despite resistance from local politicians.

“We have no choice but to get involved,” Trump said in a press conference in Washington, D.C. He said the move would help communities “plagued by violent crime.”

Around 200 federal police officers are to be sent to Chicago and 30 more to Albuquerque, New Mexico as part of “Operation Legend,” US Attorney General Bill Barr said. Some 200 federal police are already in Kansas City in the state of Missouri.

‘Worse than Afghanistan’

Trump on Monday had threatened to send paramilitary-equipped federal police units to Chicago and other cities. He characterized the situation in Chicago as “worse than Afghanistan.”

Mayor of Chicago Lori Lightfoot condemned the idea, saying she would not allow federal forces on her city’s streets.

“Under no circumstances will I allow Donald Trump’s troops to come to Chicago and terrorize our citizens,” Lightfoot wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.

Chicago has noted a steep rise in homicides in 2020. Police data show some 414 murders so far this year, a rise of around 50% compared to the same time last year. Most recently, a shootout at a funeral on Tuesday left at least 14 people injured.

Accusations of excessive force in Oregon

In Portland, Oregon, sometimes-destructive protests against racial injustice prompted by the killing of George Floyd at the hands of the police have been met with brutal tactics from federal forces deployed there.

Top Oregon officials have decried what they characterize as an excessive use of force. Attorneys on Wednesday called for a restraining order against federal agents in Portland, who they have accused of arresting protesters without probable cause.

https://www.dw.com/en/donald-trump-deploys-more-federal-troops-to-us-cities-in-crackdown-on-unrest/a-54271477