MoGo in the News
Thanks to the tireless effort of 30+ community organizations, including MoGo, spanning the course of 3 years, the San Diego City Council unanimously gave final approval to a new privacy and technology ordinance that will place the City’s surveillance technology under its oversight.
The passage of the TRUST SD Coalition’s ordinance is a big Community win for all of San Diego, as it and calls for transparency through community member input, and means the creation of a community-led Privacy Advisory Board.
In addition, community members can also offer their input at district meetings or at Privacy Advisory Board meetings. The ordinance also requires the City to hold public meetings in City Council districts where the technologies will be deployed early in the process.
Read the full press release at bit.ly/TRUST_PR
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On April 21, 2022 the La Jolla Town Council voted to oppose the PrOTECT Act (Preventing Overpolicing Through Equitable Community Treatment Act) despite community members asking for the vote to be postponed. Jared Wilson, president of the San Diego Police Officers Association, is quoted in opposition of the PrOTECT Act, stating that it is “radical”, and is meant to “stop police officers from doing their jobs”. Geneviéve Jones-Wright, MoGo’s Executive Director, counters these claims, stating that ProTECT is a trailblazing act, that’s only goal is to prevent unconstitutional racial biases in policing.
Read the full article here.
Read more about PrOTECT here.
A 16 year old white boy, who was accompanied by several adults, is accused of stabbing a young Black girl. While the boy is being charged with a hate crime, the “bystanders”, who are believed to have ties to a white supremacist gang , were initially left unscathed by the District Attorney Summer Stephan. Following the outcry from the community to prosecute adults complicit in the stabbing of a young girl, District Attorney Summer Stephan announced that her office will move forward with an investigation and will hold everyone responsible accountable.
Read the full article here.
A new report that was commissioned by the Citizens’ Law Enforcement Review Board and conducted by Analytica Consulting, found that the San Diego County jails have the highest unexpected death rate of the twelve major county jail systems in California. The rates tracked deaths among populations who were not believed to be in danger of death when they were taken into custody. A very disturbing finding was that deaths in county jails happen primarily among people who have yet to be sentenced. MoGo’s Staff Attorney, Branden Sigua expressed “It shows that something needs to be done and something needs to be done immediately.”
Read the full article here.
Advocates are fighting to get a ranked choice voting initiative this issue placed on ballots for the November general election. If passed by voters, ranked choice voting would mean that San Diego, similar to other large cities (including New York City, San Francisco, and Santa Fe), would advance five candidates rather than two. Voters would then rank their choices for elected officials, and the majority wins. MoGo’s ED Geneviéve Jones-Wright expressed, “Giving voters more choice in November elections is good for our democracy because it gives voters a more meaningful vote, it gives candidates a more civil pathway to elected office, it gives elected officials more flexibility to represent more people, and it gives everyone a stronger, healthier democracy,”
Read the full article here.
Read about MoGo’s Ranked Choice Voting Campaign here.
As of May 1, 2022, local law enforcement agencies will be enacting a new protocol that shifts the responsibility of investigating their own police shootings or in-custody deaths to another law enforcement agency.
Under the new protocol, the San Diego Police Department will investigate incidents that involve sheriff’s deputies or officers from any other local law enforcement agency in the county. The Sheriff’s Department will investigate incidents involving San Diego officers. If San Diego police officers and sheriff’s deputies are both involved, then the Chula Vista Police Department will take the lead.
As our Executive Director Geneviéve Jones-Wright stated “Our law enforcement agencies don’t have the public’s trust. That doesn’t go away when you trade one police department for another.”
San Diego’s independent Redistricting Commission has been working to form new districts based on data from the 2020 Census. The City Council President Jen Campbell’s senior policy advisor, Seamus Kennedy, is now being questioned for wrongdoings in relation to the boundaries crafted from their office. Campbell denied directing her staff to influence the Redistricting Commission, which is prohibited by the City Charter. However, Kennedy did propose and advocate for a redistricting map that benefitted Campbell’s reelection. There must be an investigation into the redistricting process to ensure that there was no improper influence favoring Campbell. A new map proposal is coming from Stephen Groce, a resident of Clairmont, that would unite a neighborhood currently split between two districts. The redistricting commission is now due to approve a map.
Read the article here.
For over a decade under the tenure of Sheriff Bill Gore, San Diego county prisons have been responsible for at least 159 deaths. The majority of these deaths involved community members being held pre-trial. Elisa Serna is one of several community members who have lost their lives under the care of the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department. Her death, like many others, was preventable. It is the DA’s responsibility to serve justice, even if that means prosecuting sheriff’s deputies.
Read the article here.
As an impact litigation organization, we cannot bring lawsuits that will effect societal change without people being willing to speak out and stand up. Our clients are amazing and brave! We thank them along with our fellow litigators at the ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties and Brody McBride Firm for taking on the San Diego’s Sheriff Department in order to stop the constitutional and human rights violations incarcerated people suffer in our local jails.
Read the article here.
