This Wednesday (02/15) afternoon, the Public Safety Committee of the San Diego City Council will host a public meeting and allow members of the public to give comments in person and via zoom. I want to urge you to take this opportunity to speak up in opposition to the dangerous city ordinance “Preventing Overpolicing Through Equitable Community Treatment (PrOTECT).”

Also known as the Protect Act, this equity-centered reform policy aims at eliminating “racial or identity profiling” with byzantine restrictions on police actions and bureaucratic red tape. Police officers would not be empowered to make our communities safe when they are prohibited from investigating outstanding warrants, stopping dangerous vehicles, and questioning the person stopped.

Construed on a false premise of systemic bias and over-policing of “Black and Brown people” in the forms of “discretionary stops and searches,” the Protect Act is supported by far-left lobbying interests such as Community Advocates for Just and Moral Governance, the San Diego Black LGBTQ Coalition, and San Diego Showing Up for Racial Justice. The primary organized proponent, Coalition for Police Accountability & Transparency, propagates unverified and exaggerated data of police bias to manufacture racial animus, divisions and confusion.

Recently, CFER team conducted a research project into official data on crime and violent incidents at national and local levels. We found that within-group criminal incidents, oftentimes related to gang activities, drug trafficking and other criminal pursuits, are by far the single most salient threat to public safety in inner city communities. According to the FBI’s Crime Data Explorer database, violent crimes have been on the rise over the last three years across all races and ethnicities. African Americans have been particularly vulnerable to this latest crime wave. Between 2018 and 2021, violent incidents targeting Black victims increased by 117.7% (from 143,684 to 312,822), compared with 75% (from 262,448 to 459,457) for White victims.

The disproportional situation is similar in San Diego where violent crimes, measured by rates per 100,000 people, are overwhelmingly concentrated in certain minority communities. Proactive law enforcement activities tend to concentrate in these communities in efforts to suppress crime and enhance safety.

Police reforms, designed in an ideological fashion to pursue structural changes in the names of equity and restorative justice, will not alleviate police misconduct. Nor can they fight rising crime rates. On the contrary, misguided attempts to reform law enforcement have backfired by accentuating the false narrative attacking the police and by bringing down standards.

Please voice your strong opposition to the Protect Act tomorrow (2/15) at 2 pm and stand up for public safety.

-If you are in San Diego, you can attend the meeting in person at 202 C Street, San Diego, CA. Fill out a speaker slip for a non-agenda public comment at the entrance to the Council Chambers.
-Alternatively, you can also attend the meeting virtually via phone or zoom. This is the link to the zoom meeting and you can click "Raise Your Hand" button to speak when the Committee Chair indicates it is time to comment on non-agenda items.
*You can also dial 1-669-254 5252 to attend the meeting (when prompted, input Webinar ID: 161 413 8702#).

We are counting on you to defend equality and merit in pubic safety! I also encourage you to check out CFER's latest analysis on public safety and what's at stake with equitable law enforcement reforms.

Thank you in advance for taking action!

You can find below two sample speeches for your convenience:

Sample Speech 1: Council members, I urge you to reconsider the Protect Act ordinance. This dangerous proposal will weaken public safety, especially the safety of many minority communities, by hampering the ability of law enforcement to enforce the law. There is no solid evidence behind the false accusation that police officers harbor racial biases and racist intentions. In fact, growing evidence from official databases such as FBI’s crime data explorer provides the factual basis as for why law enforcement officers make more arrests in certain areas, not to perpetuate racism, but to protect the safety and property of law-abiding residents in these areas. Proactive policing worked to curb violence and high crimes in urban centers starting in the 1990s. When the anti-law-enforcement reforms captured public policies in the early 2010s, many cities including New York, Ferguson, Baltimore, Washington DC, Los Angeles saw a resurgence of high criminal activities. We are now seeing a comeback of increasing criminal violence. Between 2018 and 2021, the rate of violent incidents per 100,000 people in the U.S. increased from 383.4 to 398.5 and the rate of clearing violent crimes at the San Diego Police Department dropped almost ten percentage points! Please don’t sacrifice public safety at the altar of racial equity. Don’t let San Diego become the next Ferguson.

Sample Speech 2: To curb the capacity of police officers to protect and serve due to debunked theories of “racist police” or “police brutality” is playing with fire. Public policy making, concerning the safety and well-being of all community members, is not politicking. No matter how loud the minority of activists and ideologues are about their false convictions, it is simply not true that police officers are out there to get innocent people based on skin color. To insinuate that and urge for race-based police reforms, no matter how pleasant sounding the names of these policies are, is to attack public safety and attack the entire police profession. If you are serious about improving the ability of law enforcement to combat crimes, uphold high standards in hiring and training and allow qualified police officers the respect and dignity they deserve to do their jobs. The Protect Act will not protect any San Diegans. Stop the virtue-signaling, divisive, and wrongly headed nonsense.