The Santa Clara Police Department (SCPD) and Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety (DPS) are among the local law enforcement agencies “standing united against hate.”
SCPD Chief Pat Nikolai and Sunnyvale DPS Chief Phan Ngo are two of more than a dozen local leaders who signed a letter written by the President of the Santa Clara Police Chiefs’ Association Gary Berg. The letter calls out recent antisemitic flyers posted in several South Bay communities.
“Over the last week, several jurisdictions in our county had antisemitic flyers distributed in their communities. These flyers, amongst other things, placed blame on the Jewish community for the COVID-19 pandemic,” wrote Berg. “While these hate incidents are currently being investigated and may not ultimately be criminal in nature, the Santa Clara County Police Chiefs’ Association wants to make it clear we stand united with the Jewish communities throughout Santa Clara County in the face of abhorrent antisemitism.
“As law enforcement leaders in Santa Clara County, we are committed to protecting our communities. While the role of each of our departments is to uphold the law, including free speech, we do not support hate speech and have zero tolerance for hateful rhetoric or prejudice within our communities. We are acutely aware of what happens when hate is allowed to thrive unfettered and unchallenged and are committed to keeping our communities safe,” Berg continued. “In the fight against antisemitism, we all have to stand up and combat hatred. No one should feel vulnerable or at-risk simply due to their religious affiliation. Hate speech, as well as the hatred and bigotry that drives other antisemitic acts, is an attack that is inexcusable in any context.”
The heads of the California Highway Patrol, Palo Alto Police Department, Campbell Police Department, San Jose Police Department, Gilroy Police Department, San Jose State University Police Department, Los Altos Police Department, Los-Gatos Monte Sereno Police Department, Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office, Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office, Milpitas Police Department, Morgan Hill Police Department and Mountain View Police Department also signed the letter.
While this united front against anti-Semitism is laudable, let’s not forget in 2017 students at Monte Vista High School (Cupertino) created a “****** Kill-List” naming all African-American students at the school but there was no unified letter from Santa Clara County Police Chief’s condemning those actions and more recently, two ex-captains from Santa Clara Police Department devised a plan to frame illegal harassment of journalists on persons of Samoan descent. No public letter form Santa Clara’s police chief, Patrick Nikolai, that he or other county chief’s of police were standing against that hate either. There are a couple glaring reasons that might point to this “anti-hate letter” being more a political façade than a sincere unified front: 1) In fear of being seen as speaking out against corrupt cops, no Police Chief in Santa Clara County has ever signed a letter speaking out and condemning Patrick Nikolai’s buddies, retired Captains Phil Cooke and Brian Gilbert, for their framing of minority persons of Samoan descent and 2) it’s election season in just three months, all police POA’s are trying to gain compassion for their personal/POA political agendas. If local Chief’s of Police and POA’s want to counter those two postulations, there’s no better way to do it than openly condemning Cooke, Gilbert, and 2017’s targeting of African American high school students. Here’s the SCCPC’s Twitter page, https://twitter.com/countychiefs, someone let us know when they drop those letters!