1.David Glick Now Rests In Power; 2. Bodycam/Docs Suggests JCRC Used Sausalito Police To Unlawfully Remove and Threaten Reporter; 3. CPRA Shows MJPAU, Sen. Becker Organizing Pro-Israel Candidates

As the US is drawn further into Israel’s illegal wars, local pro-Israel elected reps and the Jewish Community Relations Council Bay Area (aka SF JCRC) further retaliate against critics of Israel.

1. The above portrait of David Glick, a respected Marin County psychotherapist and self-described “proud, anti-Zionist Jew”, was captured by Marin County-based photographer Stefanie Atkinson Schwartz, and is used with her generous permission. But there’s a separate, Getty-owned image of the same David Glick that I hope you will consider: a September 1999 photograph showing his arrest when he was about a decade younger, at 55, with a full head of dark, wavy hair and a trim mustache. Dressed in a navy windbreaker and jeans, Glick held his arms aloft as he was frisked by police at a protest outside the Indonesian Consulate in San Francisco. He is unsmiling and serious.

The low angle and the raised arms give the photograph some of the momentum of a Goya painting. This occurred a few months after the East Timorese crisis began, an anti-democratic crackdown which would last for many years and result in over 1,000 deaths. Which is to say: when David Glick saw an injustice, he rushed to speak up on behalf of the victims, despite risk of arrest.

It is this heroic image of David that I keep in mind as I relate the sad news of his passing on October 2, 2024, from a reported heart attack. For those of us who knew David even briefly, it is a blow – and not only because we will miss his deep intelligence, humor and moral compass. There is also the cruel irony that David suffered so much grief and anxiety beginning in October 2023, as Israel initiated its vastly disproportionate retaliatory attacks on Palestinians they had trapped in Gaza.

This mass slaughter of Palestinians was something David had, for so many decades, warned was entirely possible at the hands of the Israeli state.

I wrote at length about David and his illustrious and brave Jewish family earlier this summer. Many of my articles, and much of my protest, have been informed by his insights, even as we often disagreed on how issues should be approached. There is too much to write about David in this short space.

David and I spoke frequently over the summer, often several times a day. He was in a rush after we met to impart as much information as he could about Israel, Palestine, and what it felt like when he refused to be inducted for service during American’s war on Vietnam. David told me about the longest and greatest love of his life, which was now his loss, his fondness for animals, his political activism and organizing – all of it, the works.

David’s desire to share all this information was not only due to the urgency he felt in addressing Israel’s genocide of Palestinians. David’s close friend and fellow peace advocate Rabbi Michael Lerner was dying, and by his own account David himself was not his usual vigorous self in the last year.

“My friends are dying,” he told me. David was caught between his great grief for the people of Palestine, his patients’ needs, and the loss of so many close friends.

“You need to meet more people. You have to know how many people want to meet you in Marin,” I told him. “Everyone adores you.” I wasn’t exaggerating; everyone I knew personally adored David, especially younger people.

It was David Glick who brought Daniel Ellsberg in to Fairfax Town Council to talk about the Patriot Act. He never took any credit for that, barely anyone knew.

“How did you even know where to find Ellsberg?” I had asked.

“I just reached out through my network,” he told me. “Someone put me in touch.”

It’s sobering to consider how much more conservative and bellicose Marin County has become since the night when Ellsberg spoke at Fairfax Town Council on David Glick’s invitation.

David had a great love for his neighbors, and spoke with true fondness of both fellow peacenik Frank Egger and ceasefire petition organizer Joe McGarry. He often related his great concern for his patients, and once berated himself for having forgotten a detail a patient had mentioned. He demanded so much of himself. And who now will look after David’s patients? These are the kinds of questions, it seems to me, that David would ask after another loved one’s death. What of those who are remain? How do we care for them?

And as David often did ask, always, whenever he had a legitimate complaint about his health, “think of what the people in Gaza are experiencing right now. It’s killing me to think about it.”

2. Incident In Sausalito Sheds Light On JCRC/BANJO’s Utilization of Police To Further Shut Down First Amendment Rights

On Thursday, September 26, 2024, I was unlawfully and violently dragged out by Sausalito Police from the Marin League of Women Voters’ tightly-scripted “Sausalito Candidate Forum” at the Spinnaker Restaurant. This occurred because I peacefully and civilly exercised my First Amendment rights at the conclusion of the forum, and when the crowd of mostly senior attendees was rising stiffly out of their seats.

The wealthy white homeowners who run the Marin LWV had conducted a 90-minute forum for Sausalito City Council candidates, including budget questions, that made no mention of the inevitable impact on local and state budgets from our government’s funding of Israel’s expanding war.

This was a startling omission if you consider that one of the candidates on the panel was incumbent Melissa Blaustein, a JCRC/BANJO member who has still “declined” to answer questions about her largely undisclosed JCRC-paid junket to Israel and promotion of Israel’s retaliatory attacks, among other entanglements with JCRC.

Noteworthy that both my GoPro video and the police bodyworn camera (BWC) recordings indicate that I was complying with the unlawful police order to leave – but the police then made a willful decision to seize my arms and then hold them behind my back in a pain position only after I mentioned Israel’s “pager attacks”, which former CIA Director Leon Panetta had described as an act of terror.

Who Is The Tall Undercover? Sausalito Police Accounts Differ on Whether He Was “One of Ours”

I was conscious of being tailed throughout the event by a large, black-clad, intimidating white man, whom I (and later Sgt. Veveiros), thought might be a JCRC-hired security detail, but whom Chief Gregory has since maintained is a Sausalito Police Sergeant working undercover at the event. He is pictured in the baseball cap three paragraphs above.

Chief Gregory identified this undercover officer as Sergeant Nick White, whose record of abuses is significant. But Sgt. Veveiros had stated that this undercover was not Sausalito Police, and that there was no Sausalito police detail, undercover or otherwise, stationed at the event.

After reviewing additional video footage, I can accept Chief Gregory’s identification of the man as Sgt. Nick White, and I note that (undercover) Sgt. White is seen in both my GoPro video and SPD BWC recordings unlawfully summoning Sausalito Police Officers Beck and Royer to remove me for “trespassing.”

But at the time I did not know the man tailing me was Sgt. White, or how likely he was to tackle me if, God forbid, I dared to ask Blaustein a question at the end of the event. Thus, I had to opt to make a brief, civil statement to the crowd as they left, because my civil questions for candidates had been jettisoned by the Marin LWV moderators in the tightly scripted event, just as all of my prior questions for Blaustein have been ignored.

But my being forced to make that decision indicates yet another aspect of the Sausalito Police Department’s chilling of First Amendment rights: Even though I had come to ask Blaustein questions, I was afraid to do so because I feared repercussions from the large security goon whom Chief Gregory later identified as SPD Sgt. Nick White, who tailed me throughout the event.

What Prompted Sausalito Police Officers’ Unlawful Demand:

There was no valid reason to ask me to leave the event, let alone to violently eject me. All that preceded Nick White’s unlawful instruction to Officers Royer and Beck was me, a 56-year-old asthmatic, speaking as audibly as I could, to the crowd of mostly seniors who were rising stiffly from their seats when the event had already concluded, in the following manner:

“Excuse me, excuse me, I’m sorry to have to interrupt, but none of the discussions that were held about finances today took into account the war that we are about to engage in–“ and this is the point at which I became aware that the large man (Sgt. Nick White) who had been tailing me was at my side, and it became a little harder to finish the statement.

And within seconds the police moved through the crowd in the aisle, and were demanding that I leave, a demand that I felt I had little choice but to comply with. The audio on Axon BWC below does not start until 30 seconds after the officer turns on the bodycam. That indicates that the officer did not have their bodycam on when they entered the building. And that appears to be in violation of Lexipro guidelines, but that’s the least of what police did wrong here:

Why Did Sausalito Police Violently Grab Someone Who Was Complying?

Since I was clearly in the process of complying with the police officers’ unlawful demand that I leave, the question remains: Why did the police subsequently feel the need to violently seize me, twist my arms behind my back, and hold me in a manner that resulted in pain and bruising?

It seems possible that the actions of the Sausalito Police officers were meant to intimidate and punish me for exercising my First Amendment rights, but also to try to provoke anger and fear in me.

And as a younger Asian American physician rightly pointed out a few days later, “the police succeeded, they got you off your point.” I went from making a calm statement to sounding “like an angry activist”.

Sgt. Veveiros Claims Blaustein Had Requested Police Presence For Entire Event

In a 23-minute phone call on Friday, September 27, 2024, Sausalito Police Sergeant Veveiros indicated that Councilmember Blaustein had requested police presence for the entire event, but that he had told her he only had two officers on that night, and wasn’t giving them up for a candidate forum.

But why was Blaustein demanding police presence for a candidate forum at an event made up entirely of senior citizens? Did the demand ever have anything to do with security, or was JCRC BANJO member Blaustein demanding police at the behest of the JCRC as an intimidation tactic against either civil protest of her complicity in Israel’s genocide, or a reporter’s questions about her undisclosed junket to Israel?

Who Is Made Liable By Sausalito Police Misconduct? Who Demanded The Police Action?

The actions of Sgt. Nick White, and Officers Roger and Beck, were not only unnecessary, but unlawful, and potentially created liability for the City of Sausalito, the Spinnaker restaurant owner, its manager, and the League of Women Voters itself.

Chief Gregory and Sgt. Veveiros both claimed that the restaurant manager, Jeff Scharosch, demanded that I be removed. But they have so far offered no proof of this, and Scharosch himself never approached me that evening to complain of my presence at any time before during or after the event.

I reached out to Scharosch the following morning by email, and he has yet to reply. (To be fair, it can’t be easy contradicting the Sausalito Police or Councilmember Blaustein when you have business with the City of Sausalito.)

But even if Scharosch had demanded my removal, why had the police chosen to violate the law? A public event on private property does not deprive the public of the right to free speech. And as was pointed out to me by multiple attorneys post-incident, should those rights be restricted or violated while on that property, the speaker can seek redress through federal law (42 U.S. Code Sec. 1983.)

The Role of The Jewish Community Relations Council At The Event:

One explanation for my violent removal might be found in the pro-genocide/anti-ceasefire JCRC/BANJO members/Directors in attendance. The candidate forum itself featured Jewish Community Relations Council/BANJO member and current Sausalito Councilmember Melissa Blaustein. And there on the edges of the room were JCRC Directors Tyler Gregory and Jonathan Mintzer. It does seem possible, given their presence and the unusually warm reception Blaustein received, that JCRC had helped to pack the room with Blaustein supporters.

Both Tyler Gregory and Jonathan Mintzer have earned a reputation in cities across the Bay Area for targeting pro-Palestinian advocates and ceasefire proponents, smearing them unfairly as antisemitic, even when the peace activists are Jewish.

Had Blaustein enlisted her bullying JCRC friends, rather than answer previously submitted questions about:

1. her failure to disclose her JCRC-funded junket to Israel?

or

2. her undisclosed co-hosting of a private event for Damon Connolly to discuss his JCRC-funded junket to Israel last February in the middle of Israel’s genocidal bombing of Gaza?

The Connolly post-junket discussion was by private invitation only, and took place at the Mill Valley home of former JCRC President Jennifer Wolfe, who also isn’t answering questions. For the record, Connolly has yet to make any public announcement of the JCRC-funded trip to Israel. His only other known disclosure was to an audience at Kol Shofar, which is not exactly a safe place to ask questions about Israel’s latest round of war crimes in Gaza (and now Lebanon.)

Did Sausalito Police Further Violate First Amendment Rights And Incur Liabilities At JCRC’s Behest?

Dragging me by force out of the public event for zero cause whatsoever was not the only unlawful conduct by Sausalito Police. Officer Beck communicated on camera that if I tried to folllow Blaustein, I would be “arrested for stalking and harassing.”

But the only reason I have ever had to follow Blaustein is to attempt to get answers to questions that she should long ago have answered. Blaustein is so afraid even to acknowledge her undisclosed JCRC/BANJO activity that she has never even bothered to send me “no comment” in response to civil voicemails and emails.

Further, as a reporter and even as a protester, I have always been incredibly respectful of Blaustein’s physical space. (For the record, Blaustein, a competitive swimmer who is two decades younger than me, can arguably be said to tower over all 5’5” of me.)

Is CM Blaustein, a JCRC/BANJO member, using the Sausalito Police to employ violence and threats to intimidate not just reporters – but anyone who questions her de facto lobbying for Israel, even as the US is dragged further into Israel’s illegal war?

Who’s Afraid of The JCRC? JCRC’s Mintzer Literally Functions As Blaustein’s Dog Walker.

It was a bit surreal to see JCRC’s Jonathan Mintzer walking what appeared to be Blaustein’s poodle during the candidate forum. There is apparently no duty too humble for the un-FARA’d Mintzer to perform on behalf of what is his de facto asset, Councilmember Blaustein.

But while JCRC Executive Director Tyler Gregory and JCRC Director Jonathan Mintzer declined to answer any questions at the event, Mintzer did make sure to videotape me, on top of poodle-sitting for Blaustein. (Priorities!) The less-than-dynamic duo of Ty Gregory and Jonathan Mintzer have recently started their own political action committee with a startlingly paranoid pledge to target any candidates who have “betrayed us”:

Here’s Ty Gregory’s statement about his new PAC from Jewish Insider:

“We’ll also be looking at a handful of races where there are candidates that have betrayed us or made conditions worse for Jews in their jurisdictions, and if they have a credible challenger that is supportive of our community and our values, that’s also a place where we’re going to get involved.” 

The fallacy of Ty Gregory’s claim is that Gregory himself continues to make conditions worse for Jews in all jurisdictions, not only by bringing his cohort to bully peacenik Jewish residents who speak up, which the JCRC did to David Glick in Fairfax, but by claiming any protest of Israel is antisemitic, which in turn confuses the issue of antisemitism with legitimate protest of Israel.

Still, it is reasonable to ask why a candidate forum in Sausalito required the attendance of two JCRC directors. David Glick had often accurately described JCRC as de facto lobbyists for the State of Israel that should be registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). But holding Israel to account for anything would be novel in these United States – this Columbia Spectator article states that getting AIPAC’s precursor registered under FARA was a pet project for US Attorney General Bobby Kennedy in November 1962.

The League of Women Voters Fail Their Mission Statement of “Protecting Democracy”:

I have no indication from either bodyworn camera recordings provided by Sausalito Police, or from my GoPro, that anyone from the League of Women Voters attempted to protest my removal. Multiple requests for comment from the near-lily-white homeowner Board of the Marin LWV remain unanswered.

The League of Women Voters does bear responsibility for the event, and unfortunately, their allowing the police to drag off someone who was in no way a threat, and wasn’t even interrupting the event, fails that responsibility. That shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise: the Marin LWV functions largely as a combination coffee klatsch/gatekeeping operation for Marin’s increasingly wealthy and out-of-touch status quo.

There is some overlap between the Marin LWV Board and the following entities: Jweekly (funded by SF JCF, which helped to funnel Diller Family money to the illegal spy outfit Canary Mission); Marin County’s corrupt “Sheriff Civilian Oversight Working Group” (which provided cover for the County to funnel an additional nearly $3 million to the Sheriff Department last year); and congregations Kol Shofar and Rodef Sholom.

Those relationships with pro-Israel, pro-law enforcement entities may explain why the event host was so averse to asking any questions about how local and state budgets will be impacted by Israel’s wider regional war – which the US is currently being dragged into. But consider this, too: Many of the wealthy LWV Board members are likely invested in the very companies that will reap considerable profits from this war.

Where Is The Police Report?

Sausalito has yet to produce a police report, even though Chief Gregory had promised that one would be ready by Friday, at the latest. On October 5, at 5:40 PM, after multiple calls, Chief Gregory emailed me that the police report had been “processed”, but that it wouldn’t be emailed to me until Monday morning.

To be fair to Chief Gregory, it’s probably difficult to finish a police report when even your own staff can’t agree on whether there was undercover police officer stationed at the event

Chief Gregory Says It’s Not Officer Beck’s Fault Because He’s Only A “Baby Cop”:

I asked Chief Gregory it was necessary to station an undercover officer (whose apparent only function that night was to harass a reporter), she had no response other than that there were “concerns” in the “community”.

And yet Chief Gregory repeatedly stated that it is her experience that I am not disruptive, which only further begs the question, why was it necessary to have an undercover officer at the event, and why did the undercover officer, as the GoPro video shows, flag me to Officers Beck and Royer to be violently removed?

When I asked Gregory about the obvious violations of the law by her officers, she stated that she had not seen the GoPro video and she then claimed that Beck was just “a baby cop” – the suggestion was that Beck’s lack of experience meant that he couldn’t be expected to understand right from wrong.

Let that sink in.

But even if it were the case that Beck was so ignorant, it begs the question of why (undercover) Sgt. Nick White didn’t then explain to Officer Beck that removing me from the public event was in violation of the law, or at least an invitation to seek redress under Sec. 1983. Instead, the GoPro and the BWC video shows SPD Sgt. Nick White instructing the officers remove me for “trespassing”.

Chief Gregory has yet to answer that question.

Sausalito City Attorney and Chief Gregory Both Claim There Is No Recording of 23-minute Call from Sgt Veveiros The Following Morning

A CPRA for the recording of Sgt. Veveiros’ 23-minute call to me the subsequent morning resulted in the City Attorney, Sergio Rudin of Best, Best and Krieger, informing me that there was no recording of the call, which I found difficult to believe since these calls are normally recorded.

I asked City Attorney Rudin and Chief Gregory if “no recording of the call” indicated that Veveiros had also turned off his BWC during the call. (Prior CPRA’s to San Rafael Police have produced BWC recordings of phone calls conducted from within the precinct.)

Rudin and Gregory have so far declined to confirm specifically that there is no BWC recording of the call.

I CPRA’d the officers’ bodyworn camera (BWC) from the event and it was immediately obvious that the officers had not complied with Lexipro guidelines for BWC.

But there is quite a bit of additional, intriguing detail on the bodycam that I think describes a lot more than I can in this article. This is a developing story, there will be more to report as CPRA’s are answered.

3. Scott Candell’s MJPAU Pals Work To Place Pro-Israel Candidates on School Board

The morning of the Sausalito incident, I received slightly over 400 pages of correspondence from the Larkspur City Clerk in response to a recent CPRA. There were a number of noteworthy finds, but I thought this particular piece of correspondence was easy enough to share as a preview, as it sheds some light on how pro-Israel cohort in Marin is working closely with Silicon Valley pro-Israel electeds, at least one of whom, California State Senator Josh Becker, has been involved in attacking ethnic studies programs. The email thread shows Kim Friedman, a founder of Marin Jewish Parents and Allies Union, trying to enjoin Larkspur Mayor Scot Candell in an effort to get Zionist/Pro-Israel candidates to run for local school board.

On Monday, July 22, 2024, Kim Friedman wrote to Mayor (and JCRC/BANJO member) Scot Candell, “Our goal is to heavily promote to (sic) pro-Israel/Zionist community members.”

Note who Friedman lists as participants: California Senator Josh Becker; Santa Clara District Attorney Jeff Rosen; JCRC/BANJO member and San Rafael Councilmember Rachel Kertz; and JCRC/BANJO member and Novato Mayor Mark Milberg.

Friedman wrote in the same email thread to Candell: “Hoping to strategize on how to target local potential Zionist/pro-Jew candidates to join our call!” Friedman makes clear she isn’t interested in the actual functioning of the school districts in Marin – just pro-Israel candidates. And this, amid Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Like David Glick said, “It’s killing me to think about it.”

MJPAU is also (unfortunately) a developing story. I hope to write more about it soon.

Thanks as always to readers for so many tips and advice.