About Me

I've come to realize that I end up repeating myself a lot when engaging with other people in my work. The hard part is that the topic that most frequently rears itself repeatedly is about my background. How dare I. Who am I. What do I know. What gives me the right. At this point, I'm just tired and bored of having to bare my soul every single time someone with a chip on their shoulder wants to try throwing it at my face.

Like with most things in my life, I've chosen to write it down somewhere that people can read at their leisure and convenience. And, also, where I can finally get a little leisure and convenience. So, if you have questions about me then here are some answers. I do mean some. Not all. There will always be things I refuse to share except with my loved ones. Now... prepare for a Very Long Post!

***

As a legal advocate, community organizer, civil servant, and experienced public administrator, I believe I possess a unique combination of education, experience, and empathy. I rely on experts, witnesses, research, facts, evidence, peer review, journalists, colleagues, victims, survivors, studies, practice, historical materials, as well as moral and ethical codes. My background lends itself to the transformational changes that we must seek as part of police reform that will rebuild community trust and enhance public safety, because I believe we can hold the police in high regard and hold them to equally high standards.

To elaborate further, I grew up as a skinny little Jewish kid in Orange County, California from 1986 to 2007. I was imparted with a healthy respect for rules, and order, the way things are supposed to be done. I was taught, as a child, that if you followed the law, if you had nothing to hide, if you did what they told you to do, then you would be fine. I was raised to be responsible, independent, to take pride in my heritage but also embrace diversity, and to treat everyone as I wished to be treated myself. I was told that life is fair, that while we have many problems, you ultimately get what you give.

It was only as an adult that I finally reckoned with the lessons life imparted, some that protected me and others that left an indelible scar. An off-duty cop and his wife saved me from being abducted by a known pedophile in a public park when I was around 9 or 10. Police officers helped clean and repair my childhood synagogue multiple times after it had been vandalized and desecrated by antisemites.

My uncle in LA used to be known as the graffiti guerrilla because he would go into gang neighborhoods and paint over their tags. Naturally, this caused a lot of violent confusion as rival gangs started gunfights over whose territory was whose. My cousin and I were dragged along for a few months to haul the paint cans when we were 8 and 9 at the time. We thankfully never caught a bullet, but I still remember the whizzing and whooshing noises they made when they passed by our heads as we ran back to my uncle’s van. Sometimes, LAPD would escort and protect us. Other times, they told my uncle he was crazy and threatened to call CPS.

As a teenager, I got my fair share of speeding tickets and warnings for stupid behavior. I also saw that my White friends got away with everything from underage drinking and smoking to reckless driving. Meanwhile, my Black and Brown friends got thrown into a patrol car and processed for things as trivial as not having photo identification or just walking around the local mall to do some window shopping.

I started going on ride-alongs in college and continued up through 2016 with law enforcement departments from Costa Mesa to Billings to Scranton to Vegas to the Ozarks. I've even been on ride-alongs with Border Patrol in Imperial County during a summer I spent embedded with a squatter community by the Salton Sea to do my first ethnography assignment. As a frontline observer, I saw acts of incredible heroism that nobody but the people who were there will ever remember, as well as even more acts of petty cruelty and outright brutality that will never face justice. I will be going on my first ride-along with SLPD this Friday, May 6, 2022, now that COVID-19 restrictions are loosening.

When I was working as a disability advocate, dozens of my clients were former police officers – beat cops, sergeants, lieutenants, captains, and yes, even a couple of police chiefs. I heard their stories, from the hard-fought successes they cherished decades later to the overwhelming nightmares they were tortured by, and I advocated for them to get the help they needed. Whether I agreed with their actions or not. Whether it was due to PTSD, broken backs, old bullet wounds, or some combination.

I also had clients who'd suffered repeated domestic violence from their law enforcement partners – pistol-whipping, punches, choking, abuse towards their children, and death threats/suicide threats if they ever dared leave. I had a five-year-old client who had been thrown across a classroom by an SRO for "talking back." The incident broke their back and worsened their mental health issues, even to this day. I had clients who'd been through the prison system, busting their butts to get off paper, only to be beaten down over a fix-it ticket by a cop having a bad day. Another was repeatedly targeted for harassment because they happened to have another relative that they didn't speak to who was an active criminal.

About 80% of the time, those cop clients were White and those victims of police violence were Black, Brown, or Indigenous. Their stories just go on and on because I handled 575 cases personally, did the appeals for another 386, and worked in a support role for a couple of thousand.

Now, as an analyst for the state at the Judicial Council of California, I work regularly with and around law enforcement – CHP, county sheriffs, municipal police departments, district attorneys, public defenders, the AG’s office – on everything from jury service to public records laws to legal self-help. At my job, I have seen some of the best police work, the kind of officers who not only advocate for victims and offenders but actually repair the harm done to the communities they live or work in. I have also seen institutional corruption rot a department until it has reached the point of needing federal receivership, all because of what just a few bad cops started.

Additionally, as an EMPA candidate at Golden Gate University, I work collaboratively with a diverse group of current, former, and prospective law enforcement individuals in my cohort. My coursework continues to sharpen my skill set, including ethics, organizational leadership, public policy, government-business partnership, budgeting and financial management, personnel management and labor relations. This advanced educational foundation has helped me improve the success of my work on accountability and governance in public service, policymaking and intergovernmental relations, leadership and organizational reform, partnerships with government, business, and civil society organizations, fiscal and economic planning, law and justice in public service, law enforcement and security, public personnel and labor relations, succession planning, as well as policy research, analysis, and presentation. As a result, I am able to provide the leadership and organizational skills necessary to effectively and efficiently manage change, productivity, and diversity in public service and nonprofit organizations. I am regularly called upon to critically, but constructively, analyze and evaluate public policies and programs within dynamic political, economic, environmental, and social contexts at municipal, state, national, and international levels of governance. I am also tasked with developing collaborative professional relationships and partnerships with consideration for the legal, ethical, and moral influences that affect governmental, non-governmental, and business organizations. Overall, I am capable of synthesizing and applying knowledge from the scholarships on public affairs, policy, and administration to form a solid intellectual basis for professional practice and action.

Notably, I am a committed community organizer and local leader, with multiple positions in citywide coalitions, such as San Leandro for Black Lives, Unity in the Community, the San Leandro White Antiracism Initiative (which I co-founded), Justice for Steven Taylor, SLATE, April Showers, and Temple Beth Sholom’s Tikkun Olam Committee. I work regularly with allied organizations such as San Leandro Social Justice Academy, the San Leandro Clergy Alliance, PJ Library San Leandro, 100k Tress for Humanity, and our local Buy Nothing group on everything from improving education to interfaith solidarity events to urban reforestation to helping settle and provision refugees from Afghanistan and Ukraine.

I have successfully advocated in coalition campaigns on ending the same of menthol tobacco products as a racial justice and public health imperative, developing a navigation center to support unhoused neighbors, especially those suffering from mental illness and/or substance addiction, commissioning a community advisory budget task force as well as a race and equity task force, building a park to honor Steven Taylor and all victims of violence, recognizing Jewish American Heritage Month for the first time in San Leandro history (the inaugural proclamation of which I wrote), as well as this very Community Police Review Board.

I have met with the past 3 SLPD Chiefs, as well as the incumbent, Chief Pridgen, multiple times. I have taken several meetings with SLPD command staff and attended repeated community conversations with our law enforcement staff as well as city management to raise awareness on the problems facing San Leandro and how we can move forward to address them, sometimes through previously unconsidered innovative solutions. I have submitted public records requests that have substantially increased transparency and accountability on the use of public resources, particularly regarding red-light traffic cameras and the city’s insurance policy liability claims.

I have organized rallies, protests, public comments at public meetings, community forums, city-sponsored roundtables and workshops, social and climate action events, as well as multiple published letters to the editor in the San Leandro Times. I volunteered as a neighborhood lead on Nextdoor and currently serve as a moderator for SLUSD Families Helping Families on Facebook. I participate in community cleanups, even bringing my children, and donate blood. I have served as a poll worker in San Leandro in the past 4 elections since November 2020. 

I completed the Leadership San Leandro program, Class of 2021, where I advocated for and completed a civic outreach project to help our homeless, unhoused, and unsheltered neighbors. We raised donations for 50 fully stocked care packages, 10 bags of clothes, 8 boxes of hygiene and healthcare products, 6 sleeping bags, 5 boxes of children's activity materials, 5 boxes of food, 3 bags of blankets, 2 boxes of miscellaneous items, 1 box of informational pamphlets. We rallied 8 local stakeholders over the course of 11 weeks, including the Alameda County Health Care for the Homeless, the San Leandro Department of Human Services, April Showers, Building Futures, the Interfaith Homeless Network, KTVU 2 News, Holy Names University, and Torani. Together my cohort and I volunteered over 70 hours. We secured haircuts, healthcare, vaccines, social workers, media coverage, website upgrades, and thousands of dollars of pledged donations. Now I serve on the Leadership program’s Steering Committee to help continue developing the next generation of local leaders in our city.

I do all of this because I love San Leandro. So much so that my wife and I bought our first home here, where we plan to stay, send our kids to school, and eventually retire. I believe that San Leandro has a community unlike any other with the potential to be a leader not just regionally or nationally but internationally. It is precisely because of my vast service to the people of this city that I would make an effective member of the CPRB, where I can continue to help build a better San Leandro for everyone.

***

[Former version of this post available below.]

***

As an advocate, an analyst, an ethnographer, an organizer, a public servant, a wordsmith, and, (among my favorites) a bureaumancer, I rely on experts, witnesses, research, facts, evidence, peer review, journalists, colleagues, victims, survivors, studies, practice, historical materials, and more besides. (I've always thought of myself as a social justice wizard more than a social justice warrior.) But don't be fooled. I also draw from my real-life experiences too. Every time someone raises the terrible things they've lived through to justify the terrible things they support now, they often forget that they're not the only ones. But I get it – people don't remember what you said or what you did. They only really remember how you made them feel.

So, once again, here's part of my story. I grew up as a skinny little Jewish kid in Orange County, California from 1986 to 2007. I was imparted with a healthy respect for rules, and order, the way things are supposed to be done. I was taught, as a child, that if you followed the law, if you had nothing to hide, if you did what they told you to do, then you would be fine. I was raised to be self-reliant, independent, assimilated, and to take pride in my heritage, but never let it show. I was told that life is fair, that all of our problems are in the past, and that you get what you give.

It was only as an adult that I finally reckoned with the reoccurring realization of how we were all caught up in a broken caste system where injustice, inequity, hegemony, and exclusion for the sake of power in one form or another, still holds sway.

An off-duty cop and his wife saved me from being abducted by a known pedophile in a public park when I was around 9 or 10. Police officers helped clean and repair my childhood synagogue multiple times after it had been vandalized and desecrated by antisemites. Growing up, I was regularly targeted by local KKK and neo-Nazis. Antisemitic slurs, death threats, prejudice, discrimination, cruel jokes, and so much more followed my family around because, at the time, we were literally the only Jewish family around.

I've been jumped. I've been stabbed. I've drowned. I was nearly mauled to death by a brown bear during a Boy Scouts camping trip because my bunkmate was an ignorant slob who hated Jewish people because of the nonsense he read in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. I've broken the bones in my arms and legs several times over from fighting back when attacked for my identity, my people, my life. I've been expelled for standing up against bullying while those same bigots cried crocodile tears with a slap on the wrist. I've had childhood friends ripped away by parents who said I was going to hell. I've had multiple attempts to forcibly coerce me into converting, letting Jesus “save me,” since I was in grade school.

At one point, things got so bad my parents pulled me out of the district entirely and sent me to a private school for 6th through 7th grade, where on the very first day a group of my classmates threw rocks at my head. During my time there, our so-called “physical” counselors who were ex-cop and ex-military seemed to really enjoy choking me and calling me the k-word if I dared talk back. They enjoyed it even more to tie me to a chair and leave me alone in a dark gymnasium for hours if I “resisted” the choking.

My crazy POS uncle in LA used to be really into his own brand of policing, called himself the graffiti gorilla because he would go into gang neighborhoods and paint over their tags. Naturally, this caused a lot of violent confusion as rival gangs started gunfights over whose territory was whose. My cousin and I were dragged along for a few months to haul the paint cans when were 8 and 9 at the time. We thankfully never caught a bullet, but I still remember the whizzing and whooshing noises they made when they passed by our heads as we ran back to my uncle’s van.

During high school, I had a girlfriend in junior year whose family literally forbid her from dating me because Jews killed Jesus Christ. They said I was a demon. Our campus SRO conveniently ignored all the times I mysteriously turned up black, blue, and bloody between class periods, even when I literally pleaded for help. Eventually, I just stopped going. Missed half my senior year, skipping school to read fantasy novels on a park bench, intercepting calls and letters from truant officers. Even then, I still made up all the work to graduate on time and near the top of my class.

(Not for nothing, but during the whole time this was happening, my mother was dealing with breast cancer that started when I was 2, reoccurring four times until she died when I was 16 years old. Meanwhile, my dad was mostly out of the picture. And there were worse things that I refuse to talk about here.)

***

As a kid, as a teenager, and even a twenty-something, I got my fair share of speeding tickets and warnings for stupid behavior or reckless stunts that I pulled. I also saw more than my fair share of White friends get away with everything from underage drinking and smoking, to driving around like they were auditioning for Fast and Furious. Meanwhile, my Black and Brown friends got thrown into a patrol car and processed for things as trivial as not having ID as a passenger in a car, or just walking around the mall to go window shopping.

Starting in college, I've been on ride-alongs with law enforcement departments from Costa Mesa to Billings to Scranton to Vegas to the Ozarks. I've even been on ride-alongs with Border Patrol in Imperial County during a summer I spent embedded with a squatter community by the Salton Sea to do my first ethnography. During those times, I saw acts of incredible heroism that nobody but the people who were there will ever remember... as well as even more acts of petty cruelty and outright brutality that will never face justice.

When I was working as a disability advocate, dozens of my clients were former police officers – beat cops, sergeants, lieutenants, captains, and, yes, even a couple of police chiefs. I heard their stories, from the hard-fought successes they cherished decades later to the overwhelming nightmares they were tortured by, and I advocated for them to get the help they needed. Whether I agreed with their actions or not. Whether it was due to PTSD, broken backs, old bullet wounds, or some combination.

I also had clients who'd suffered repeated domestic violence from their law enforcement partners – pistol-whipping, punches, choking, abuse towards their children, and death threats/suicide threats if they ever dared leave. I had a five-year-old client who had been thrown across a classroom by a school SRO for "talking back." The incident broke their back and worsened their mental health issues, even to this day. I had clients who'd been through the prison system, busting their butts to get off paper, only to be beaten down over a fix-it ticket by a cop having a bad day. Another was repeatedly targeted for harassment because they happened to have another relative that they didn't speak to who was an active criminal.

About 80% of the time, those cop clients were White and those victims of police violence were Black, Brown, or Indigenous. Their stories just go on and on because I handled 575 cases personally, did the appeals for another 383, and worked in a support role for a couple thousand.

Now, as an analyst for the state at the Judicial Council of California, I work regularly with and around law enforcement – CHP, county sheriffs, municipal police departments, district attorneys, public defenders, the AG’s office – on everything from jury service to public records laws to legal self-help. At my job, I've seen some of the best police work, the kind of officers who not only advocate for victims and offenders but actually repair the harm done to the communities they live or work in. I've also seen institutional corruption rot a department until, just like Vallejo, it's reached the point of needing state or federal oversight, all because of what just a few bad cops started.

***

As I’ve said before, I don't want that to happen here, because I'm intending to stay here a long time. My wife is Black. My two daughters are Black. When we first moved to San Leandro, we thought it was the perfect place for our family. (We still do, warts and all.) We had heard such good things about SLPD from former neighbors, colleagues, and acquaintances. Even now, I still have a hard time reconciling the good I know SLPD tries to do with all of the bad that's happened as well. But I want this city to be a safe place for my family, other families like mine, and all our neighbors too. A place where, even if they're having a bad day, they're not at risk for being killed like Steven Taylor or assaulted by a police officer like Emerald Black.

Since I got here almost 6 years ago, do you know what I’ve been up to besides wasting time arguing with people on Nextdoor? I co-founded two community-based organizations for antiracism education and reimagining public safety, while serving as a principal member in three more. I organized rallies, protests, petitions, and public comments.

Last year, I was part of the planning, development, and participation team for a citywide social justice summit between dozens of groups spanning from the San Leandro Social Justice Academy to the San Leandro Clergy Alliance to Unity in the Community that resulted in the creation of an entire coalition comprising over a dozen different groups.

I’ve donated blood as often as I’m legally allowed to. I’ve donated pro bono legal services to low-income or at-risk residents. I write letters to the editor at the San Leandro Times regularly about critical issues happening here and now, most of which have since been published. I regularly attend council meetings where I speak on agenda items and hold local officials accountable. I’ve met with three different SLPD Chiefs, as well as multiple meetings with SLPD command staff, and several conversations with city management to raise awareness on the problems facing San Leandro and how we can move forward to address them. I’ve submitted public records requests that have revealed thousands of pages of damning information about city business, from litigation and insurance costs, to evidence of police misconduct and murder.

I’ve taken my kids on neighborhood clean-ups, campaigns for local candidates, and community building events, where we picked up trash, helped overturn an incumbent, and participated in the commemoration of Black Lives Matter in our city.

I serve as a volunteer lead on Nextdoor to provide my neighbors with news and help, especially during the pandemic.

I completed the Leadership San Leandro program where I advocated for and completed a civic outreach project to help our homeless, unhoused, and unsheltered neighbors. We raised donations for 50 fully stocked care packages, 10 bags of clothes, 8 boxes of hygiene and healthcare products, 6 sleeping bags, 5 boxes of children's activity materials, 5 boxes of food, 3 bags of blankets, 2 boxes of miscellaneous items, 1 box of informational pamphlets. We rallied 8 local stakeholders over the course of 11 weeks, including the Alameda County Health Care for the Homeless, the San Leandro Department of Human Services, April Showers, Building Futures, the Interfaith Homeless Network, KTVU 2 News, Holy Names University, and Torani. Together my cohort and I volunteered over 70 hours. We secured haircuts, healthcare, vaccines, social workers, media coverage, website upgrades, and thousands of dollars of pledged donations.

I pushed for and drafted the very first proclamation for Jewish American Heritage Month ever in San Leandro in coordination with a local rabbi, San Leandro Temple Beth Sholom, and Councilmember Lopez. I serve on my synagogue’s Tikkun Olam Committee where I’m organizing support to Afghan refugees, volunteers for the SLCFP, interfaith community-building events, and ending the sale of menthol cigarettes.

In fact, I even served as one of the members of a public roundtable discussion hosted by the city on ending the sale of menthol cigarettes across from Big Tobacco lobbyists and opponents to public health initiatives.

I’m also now serving on the steering committee for Leadership San Leandro to continue cultivating local residents who want to make a positive impact on their careers and our city.

I write like I’m running out of time and there’s a million things I’m forgetting to include or that I haven’t done yet, but just you wait! I do all that on top of my job as a public servant, as well as my life as a husband and a father to two girls under the age of 5 in the middle of a global pandemic.

***

Why? Because I want to live here in a place where we care about community, about justice, about equity, about diversity, about inclusion, about compassion, about understanding, about the kinds of beautiful things I’ve seen that we’re capable of if we just have the courage to listen, learn, reflect, and then get to work. I’m here to build a better San Leandro for everyone. I’m here to plant seeds for trees whose shade I may never sit in, but I hope my kids will get to do so in peace and happiness.

That’s me, more or less, and those are my two shekels. So you spend ‘em how you will, but let me remind you (again) of what I've endured here since just last year: threats of physical violence against myself, my wife, my daughters, attempts to get me fired from my job, attempts to get my wife fired from her job, doxxing of my home and personal information, doxxing of my children's daycare provider, virulent antisemitism, misogynoir directed at my wife, false police reports, complaints, and calls verbal harassment, abusive reporting, as well as lie after lie about everything from police brutality to racism to how local government works. In each instance, my neighbors were actually the ones leading it, directing it, engaging in it, contributing to it, supporting it, enabling it, or cheering it on.

It was as an adult, with children of my own, that I was able to fully understand this star-shaped echo chamber people have shaped to convince themselves that everyone hates the same people they do. It's a strange world where every fault is projected onto others and every failure is somebody else's responsibility. Every unearned privilege taken for granted was because of hard work, while any redress for the horrors inflicted on others else is unfair and lazy. If they have success, they built it. If they failed, the government and whatever scapegoat of the week ruined it for them. If they get a break, they deserve it. If someone else who's struggling gets a break, it's suddenly a handout and an entitlement. It's a baffling, willfully blind cognitive dissonance best summed up as deplorable.

They talk about arrogance, but all they offer is the arrogance of ignorance and bigotry. They talk about intelligence, but all they offer is a rejection of any knowledge, expertise, or wisdom rooted in the acceptance of our full history if it compromises their own personal prejudices and implicit biases. They talk about divisiveness, but all they offer is petty partisanship, attacking anyone committed to justice, equity diversity, and inclusion. They talk about personal responsibility, but all they offer is outrage at even the barest scintilla of consequences for their own toxic brand of gun-loving, god-fearing, fascist, faux-patriotism. They talk about safety, but all they offer is fearmongering characterized by paroxysmal bouts of rage and confusion fed by a steady diet of misinformation and willful ignorance. They talk about law and order, but all they offer is an endless cycle of crime and punishment where cruelty is the point in lieu of justice, let alone mercy, so long as the people being thrown away aren't their kind of people.

I have asked them to listen, learn, and reflect. I have asked them to make the choice to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. I have urged them, time and again, to help instead of hurt. Over and over, so many have chosen not to. Instead, they've doubled down on insults, mockery, and bullying. Still, I hope for them regardless, because that’s my nature, my praxis… because I believe every person has an inherent value and worth, and that no one is better than anyone else. I believe true wisdom is remembering how much we all have to learn if we want to bend the arc of time towards justice, where everyone receives life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I love our world more than any other and, exactly for this reason, I exercise my right to perpetually demand a better one. We are exactly the kind of person we choose to be. I hope to see all of you out there helping because that’s the kind of person who you choose to be.

Take note and take care.