The campaign on behalf of recalling Soros DA Pamela Price, who “represents” Alameda County in the San Francisco Bay Area, including Oakland and Berkeley, is off to an unsurprisingly raucous start. A June 8 rally in front of the Alameda County Courthouse in Oakland featured heated jawing by Price detractors and supporters, including at least one physical confrontation and a member of Price’s staff attempting to make a crude pun out of a recall organizer’s name.
A group of Price supporters stood across the street to counter-protest. A man who claimed to be a Price supporter walked in front of Price opponents and taunted families that lost loved ones to gun violence by screaming, "Raise your children, raise your children."
A short time later, a man who said he lost a son and a brother in recent years slapped the Price supporter. People quickly stepped in between the two to deescalate the confrontation.
This is an interesting logic from the Price supporter. If one follows the thinking to a rational conclusion, the parents of murder victims are responsible for their child’s premature demise due to insufficient rearing. Meanwhile, the person who pulled the trigger, thrust the knife, or used other available methods to end the murder victim’s life bears no responsibility for the ensuing death as obviously they, to a one, are the product of proper parenting with correlating quiet lives devoted to Bible study and prayer. Or am I missing something?
As to the rally, it didn’t get better.
"I'm really upset right now. I just had a Price supporter telling me to raise my child. I wish I could. I wish he was here, so I could raise him," said Angel Santos, mother of homicide victim John Creech Jr.
The man who was slapped later got into a shouting match with another family that also lost loved ones. People had to break up the confrontation.
One of the recall supporters suffered the unspeakable horror of her five-year-old daughter’s murder in 2023. The little girl, Eliyanah Crisostomo, was riding in a car when three gang members, mistaking the car and its occupants for members of a rival gang, opened fire on the vehicle. I know kids grow up fast these days, but to the best of my knowledge, the sum total of a five-year-old’s street knowledge begins and ends with Sesame. As to the improper parenting, clearly, Eliyanah’s parents were utterly derelict in their duty by not buying a bulletproof car.
Prop 47 Repeal Makes the California Ballot, but Dictator Newsom Hates the Will of the People
To be fair, Price has her supporters.
"The grief is from the heart. And we need to make decisions about things more from the head. We need to think clearly about what's right. And we can't allow victims to determine what the sentences are. We need to have the whole society come together, the whole community come together and decide what they want. And we wanted more lenient sentences, which is why we elected Pamela Price," said Jennifer Zilliac, a Price supporter and volunteer.
Unfortunately for Zilliac, the society and community have come together and decided they’re not all that crazy over criminals running rampant. Imagine that.
Naturally, race comes into the picture.
"I know that Pamela Price is fair. And you have to be fair not only to the victim and their family, but also to the person who's (accused of committing) the crime," said Price supporter Cheryl Davila, a former Berkeley councilmember. "I know from being black in America that black people are put in jail much more than other people."
I’m quite sure “fair” means the application of colorblind justice, the right to counsel, a jury of the accused’s peers, and all that other legal stuff the law requires. But what do I know?
Back to the rally, which featured this lovely vignette.
Cell phone video recorded by one of her employees showed the individual taunting leaders of the recall campaign. Price said she sees it as an employee simply asserting his First Amendment rights to attend the rally since he wasn't on the clock at the time it happened.
"This is the gang mentality that's coming from Brenda Gruesome or Grisham," said Desmond Jeffries in a Facebook video posted from the rally. Jeffries is an employee in the Alameda County District Attorney's office. In the video he called SAFE co-founder Brenda Grisham, "Brenda Gruesome" at least half a dozen times. Jeffries also said crime victims' families were like a gang.
An obvious reference to the nefarious Sesame Street gang Eliyanah Crisostomo ran with. As to Brenda Grisham, her son was murdered in Oakland in 2010. Obviously, it was all her fault. For the record, Grisham is black.
Price, unsurprisingly, fully supports her staffer.
Jeffries is listed on the DA's website as the Director of Retention and Recruitment. Price said he is not bound by a code of ethics or conduct.
"We have a code of ethics for lawyers, but not for all employees," said Price at a press conference on Tuesday. She said what Jeffries does on his own time is his own business.
"Mr. Jeffries, to my understanding has not violated any county rules or procedures by what he did on Saturday," Price explained.
Your Alameda County (California) District Attorney’s office, ladies and gentlemen, where class and decorum reign supreme.
November cannot come soon enough.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member