The Advocate

(Addie Kitchen, grandmother of Steven Taylor, says she wants the case to go to trial. Credit: Emilie Raguso/The Berkeley Scanner) Alameda County District Attorney Ursula Jones Dickson is moving to dismiss the charges against former San Leandro Police Department officer Jason Fletcher for the murder of Steven Taylor. The decision follows years of delay and negligence around this case as members of local and state law enforcement rallied to prevent Fletcher from facing trial by a jury of his peers. Even as judges repeatedly   rejected  attempts to toss the case. Notably, there's also evidence of illegal collusion between current and former members of the DA's office to help Fletcher's defense, headed up by infamous attorney Michael Rains, who regularly defends police officers found to have engaged in misconduct and brutality . Whether there will ever be justice for Steven Taylor and the Taylor family is now deeply uncertain. But we do know that it's likely Fletcher wi...

(Art by Jonathan Horowitz) "I get along best with people I don't need to explain things to. Unfortunately for me, I tend to work almost exclusively with people who need some explaining." — paraphrase of Kat Blaque Take note and take care.

Last year, the Alameda County District Attorney's office released its report on the officer-involved shooting and death of Anthony Robert Gomez on June 11, 2019. You can read a copy of it here . Additionally, you can read the original arrest report as well as the internal investigation report . Mr. Gomez had not been charged with a crime. He was unarmed. The pretext for this encounter with Mr. Gomez was a domestic disturbance between himself, his mother, their neighbors, and the neighbors’ children. One of the neighbors called 911 with inflated allegations of a machete-wielding man exposing himself to children. The DA’s report reads like a classic case of an end looking for an excuse for its means, a facade to place around a paper tiger. Here are some of the highlights from this transparent incompetence: 1. No warning before the officer shoots Mr. Gomez in the neck. 2. No deescalation or crisis resolution attempts are captured on bodycam footage or listed in the reports, and oddly...