Why is the Sacramento Bee covering a Eureka issue?

So many questions raised and not answered in the hit piece by Sacramento Bee gleefully shared by the Lost Coast Outpost. 

I don't think LOCO should call anyone out about conflict of advertising when they have a Sacramento Bee ad on their site and just happened to run this article today. LOCO cannot be upfront who the funders are behind Lost Coast Communications and what stake, if any, Blue Lake Casino still has in Lost Coast Communications. 

The anonymous trolls and anti police commenters will ignore that not all the facts or sides have been presented and just go off on the headlines. LOCO's biased reporting on a previous incident about Officer Drake Goodale and the brouhaha that followed is just one example. Just like that incident, the rest of the media, EPD and others have to waste time following up on the shitstorm created.

LOCO, of course, frothed at the mouth with the Sacramento Bee article because lashing out at EPD is convenient. LOCO ignores what is inconvenient. 

They and certain other local media are too busy sucking up to Public Health to cover local issues that impact lives of people in Humboldt because they are cowards. I have yet to see any real reporting on investigation and lawsuits involving Judge Gregory Elvine -Kreis. Certain local media ignore news like Rick Littlefield's five DUIS, the J.D. Grow and the Kailan Meserve cases and these are only a few examples of selective local "reporting." The reporting on a juror who tested COVID 19 positive in the Tsarnas case which will affect the community ignored by most local media. LOCO ran the HACHR story yesterday after others reported it first. That happens often with other local media including Times Standard and North Coast Journal Some people pay attention and know where to go for breaking and original news; most people know this but they chose to ignore it for various petty and selfish reasons.

Most of the work posted on LOCO is a regurgitation of press releases, CAL Matters, linking to someone else. They as well as a few other local media outlets posted the Sacramento Bee article without asking or answering any questions a real journalist would at least attempt to find out. Why did the Sacramento Bee do this story?

Why did whoever "leaked" or "snitched" go to the Sacramento Bee instead of any local media? Why didn't this "source" go to the local media outlets that are not anti police and would ask questions to present a complete picture. If there isn't an agenda, that is what the "source" should have done.

The Sacramento Bee provides selected text messages and opinions in this article. Why? Not only are there a few messages in this article but this vague reference to "months." There is a lot of information and context missing. None of it excuses the content presented but it seems the Sacramento Bee is making claims and assertions about a local police force and police officers they don't personally know and allegations based on screenshots of only texts sent by someone. What they shared is a few select lines and two screenshots from "months" of group chat.

The Sacramento Bee, LOCO and all the others ranting about EPD could not do EPD's job for 5 minutes. The pandemic and criminal enabling laws and attitudes towards law enforcement has not made their jobs easier.

Cowards sitting behind their desks instead of taking on the local and state systems that have created this environment of crime, mental illness, drugs and poverty. 

Unlike LOCO and the Sacramento Bee, EPD officers and others are out on the streets watching and being impacted by the mess created by apathetic and oblivious business leaders and politicians in Humboldt and California. There are people actually speaking up, working and trying to make a difference and get beat down every day. 

When will the Sacramento Bee take photo op Gavin Newsom to task for the billions of fraud distributed by the CA EDD, for his failure and system debacle to distribute COVID 19 vaccines , for his failed criminal justice reform and billions wasted on a train instead of mental health services and funds to keep people housed and small businesses open, for his and Public Health's stupid mismanagement that has created the mess in the courts and the economy in this state during this pandemic? 

You care about women, children and all these issues in this Sacramento Bee article, then speak up about the corruption and control emanating from Sacramento. Put $ to fix problems or your opinion and woke outrage is just an act.

You think such comments in these screenshots are limited to a few officers in Eureka and Humboldt? 

I will wait to see a statement released by EPD; I will wait for an independent investigation; not whatever Sacramento Bee decides to share. Why is the Sacramento Bee covering a Eureka issue? Why didn't they investigate the same concerns in their own backyard?

This is the link to entire Sacramento Bee article.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.sacbee.com/news/california/article249789678.html 

I have posted the text below since they have a paywall. 

Text of Sacramento Bee article:

The vulgar, explicit text messages between a squad at the Eureka Police Department took a violent turn on April 20, 2020, after a suspect posted bail and walked out of jail.

The man had been arrested with an arsenal of loaded guns, a silencer and other equipment, including body armor that had belonged to the group’s supervisor, Sgt. Rodrigo Reyna-Sanchez. The sergeant exploded in the group chat.

“He also had one of my tac vests that I had loaned to code enforcement!! Face shoot the f-----!!!” the sergeant wrote. “He was one of my first arrests!!! Sent him to prison for a minute!!”

Reyna-Sanchez’s comments that day were part of a pattern of violent, sexually explicit and demeaning messages sent between officers in Eureka, a coastal town in far Northern California.

The messages within the group chat include obscene comments about people experiencing homelessness and mental illness, all written only months after a damning Humboldt County grand jury report that criticized the department’s treatment of the homeless.

Officers openly advocated for violence and made degrading comments about women’s breasts, ridiculed a female colleague, and imagined homeless people and others in sexual situations, according to a Sacramento Bee review of the messages.

Reyna-Sanchez said about his coffee order: “Black and bitter...like my fantasy wife!!!”

Ten years before texting his squad to “face shoot” a suspect, Reyna-Sanchez himself shot a 25-year-old man in the head. Officers were struggling with David Sequoia in a carport, and the man reportedly pointed a gun within inches of an officer’s face. That officer shot Sequoia in the chest.

Seconds later, Reyna-Sanchez shot the man in the head because, investigators said, Sequoia was still pointing the gun at officers. Sequoia died, and the shooting was deemed justified.

A source who asked to remain anonymous provided The Bee with a series of photographs of the group messages sent among the squad over cell phones, offering only a snapshot of ongoing conversations spanning months. It was unclear if any of them were using city-owned cell phones.

Although Eureka, with a population of 27,000, has about 50 sworn officers, the messages reviewed by The Bee were confined to six officers in a single squad, primarily from Reyna-Sanchez, the leader of the group, and another officer, Mark Meftah.

In one exchange early in the pandemic, on April 4, Reyna-Sanchez told his officers that public health officials had asked them to check on a resident believed to have contracted COVID-19.

Officer Meftah responded:

“My plan if I had to go there was to knock as lightly as humanly possible on the door, give him an eighth of a second to answer, and then leave.”

Reyna-Sanchez then wrote: “The public health dr suggested we go there, knock loud and step back when he came to the door!!! Nice plan bitch!!! I’ll be right behind u!!!”

Reyna-Sanchez later updated his team.

“So the outbreak monkey on L st has been contacted by eoc and is code 4… evidently they just called him until he answered and they’re good with that.”

Reyna-Sanchez, who was hired in 1999 and promoted to sergeant in 2007, did not respond to phone messages seeking comment.

He did receive them, however. Meftah mistakenly sent a text message intended for the sergeant to a Sacramento Bee reporter who had contacted him earlier in the day.

“Dude left a voice mail, too,” Meftah wrote. He questioned what someone was “trying to do (to) us/you???”

“Well, that’s awkward…” he wrote to The Bee reporter seconds later.

When The Bee described three of the messages to him, Meftah replied: “Ah, well, I’ve no comment on that. None of that sounds familiar.” He then said the date of one exchange was from more than a year ago.

“I’m going to terminate our conversation as I’m preparing to drive,” he said. He did not reply to additional questions.

Eureka Police Department Chief Steve Watson said he was unaware of the messages until The Bee requested a comment from him Tuesday. Watson said he has launched a formal investigation into the texts.

“It does deeply concern me,” he said in a phone interview Tuesday evening, adding that it jeopardized the progress the department has made in the community since he took over in 2017. “The public’s trust is our lifeblood. It’s not something, genuinely, that we take lightly.”

He said the texts were “disappointing and discouraging and inappropriate.”

There’s no excuse if these comments were made,” Watson said. “We need to investigate it, look into it and take appropriate action just to make sure that the values of this department to our community are projected in everything that we do.”

Experts and former law enforcement officials who reviewed the messages said their demeaning nature and encouragement of violence are signs of deeper cultural problems in the small North Coast department — especially because they’re coming from a supervisor.

“These officers are doing their own organization a terrific disservice,” said Kevin Robinson, a retired assistant chief from the Phoenix Police Department who teaches criminal justice at Arizona State University. He called the banter “reckless” and a signal of a “pervasive attitude.”

“Chalk it off to whatever you want to chalk it off to,” Robinson said, “but the bottom line is they’re disrespecting people that depend on them, that they are sworn to protect and to represent."

The messages reviewed by The Bee include several obscene references to women, including one officer who wrote to another, “I’ll find you a prime hooker once per week.”

When one officer-in-training was added to their squad, Reyna-Sanchez was displeased.

“Seems the powers that be feel E Watch is too green to correct any issues that she has, and she had a lot of issues… so they’re putting her on days so that all u veteran officers can unf--- her…” Reyna-Sanchez wrote.

He then responded to another officer’s comment about the assignment: “Clearly they don’t see what I see… bitch be twice as big as u!!”

The officers also showed disdain for local protesters. In one of the group chats The Bee reviewed from January 2020, officers discussed a response to a planned demonstration.

“There’s supposed to be a protest at the courthouse from 1700 to 1900 for the ‘war in Iran’ … confirm u all have ur riot gear?? Gas mask, helmet, and dude handle,” Reyna-Sanchez wrote.

“I’ll beat those f------ hippies down,” Officer Meftah wrote to the group.

“Why don’t I have a side handle??” Reyna-Sanchez wrote, referring to a police baton.

In another conversation, they discussed a woman who was known to shoplift and who also had a history of mental illness. She was walking in a section of town.

“Get pics of her rack!!” Reyna-Sanchez wrote.

“Saggy ol udders,” Meftah replied.

“Have her stand on her head!!” Reyna-Sanchez said.

“I’d still look, obviously,” Meftah replied.

 Humboldt County grand jury issued a damaging report in 2019 that was critical of the department’s enforcement against people experiencing homelessness, nearly half of whom had been homeless for more than three years and 70% of whom had a history of drug or alcohol abuse.

“This does not paint a portrait of a population that would respond well to citations, arrests, and constantly being moved from place to place,” jurors wrote. “From our interviews with the homeless and people who work with the homeless, law enforcement efforts only create more exhaustion, mental anguish, and the need for drugs to mask those states.”

The city denied that its officers could do anything differently. Chief Watson said in an official response to jurors that “together we must find innovative and humane approaches leading to real, lasting solutions.”

Six months after that report was published, his officers continued their series of cruel jokes, many of them involving people with mental illness.