The Advocate

(Image credit: APTP) This past Tuesday, spectators to the ongoing trial of former SLPD Officer Jason Fletcher were met with harassment, aggression, and corruption of technology to prevent the people from effectively exercising their First Amendment Rights. As you may be aware, many social media platforms and streaming sites include automatic algorithms to delete copyrighted content. Well, law enforcement across California are using that to disrupt legal filming of their activities by playing pop music that will prevent the public from posting those videos to social media and/or streaming sites like YouTube. It also just makes it harder for people to hear what’s happening when cops are attempting to intimidate residents and civilians. In this case, an Alameda County Sheriff’s Deputy explicitly admitted to this on video and the story has been picked up by multiple media outlets. You can read more about it at Gizmodo and The Verge . Here’s a particularly illuminating quote: “You can reco...

The Oaklandside published a new story on the recently released report by the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division on the mental health resources (or lack thereof) provided by Alameda County. You can read the story here  and the DOJ report here . Of particular interest to my fellow neighbors would be the conditions and practices at John George Psychiatric Pavilion in San Leandro: "An average of 1,111 people experiencing a mental health emergency enter John George Psychiatric Pavilion each month and remain there for up to 72 hours. The San Leandro hospital, which is operated by the county, provides care for people suffering nearly all of the acute psychiatric emergencies in the county. Nearly 240 people a month are admitted to inpatient services at the 80-bed public hospital, where they stay an average of 9 days. Some stay for months while they’re treated. Hundreds lasted for more than 30 days in a two-year period in 2017-2019. The hospital’s inpatient unit is used...