Nice Time
Denver Tried NOT Sending Cops To Shoot Everybody Who Called 911. And Then The Murders ... Did Not Begin!
This is what 'defund the police' could look like.
September 10, 2020 01:49 PM
You probably need a reminder that not everything in 2020 is horrible, so please read this Denver Post story about Denver's new program that sends a paramedic and a mental health professional to answer 911 calls involving people who are having really shitty days but don't seem to be endangering anyone. The members of the Support Team Assistance Response (STAR) program don't carry guns, and they don't show up with screaming sirens and flashing lights. Instead, they're there to help people in crisis and if possible, to get them connected to services that can help them afterwards.
Like for instance an unhoused woman who was sitting on a curb and sobbing because she was lost in an unfamiliar part of town and scared and hot and just completely unable to handle any of it. Social worker Carleigh Sailon
gave the woman a snack and some water and asked how she could help. Could she drive her somewhere? The woman was pleasantly surprised.
"She was like, 'Who are you guys? And what is this?'" Sailon said, recounting the call.
And nobody got shot or handcuffed or ended up with a knee on their neck. Nobody went to Emergency, nobody went to jail.
<p>
As it happens, the STAR program was rolled out on June 1, after years of planning, and just after the Minneapolis Police Department murdered George Floyd. Good timing, since people all over the country are starting to ask what it would look like if we completely reimagined policing, or even moved funding from militarized police departments into providing social services that could actually help people. Since then the STAR van (it has stripes, but no other markings that might frighten away people who may already be freaked out) has responded to more than 350 calls, and while the program is run under the auspices of the Denver PD, Sailon said the teams haven't had to call police for backup.
</p><blockquote>
"We're really trying to create true alternatives to us using police and jails," said Vinnie Cervantes with Denver Alliance for Street Health Response, one of the organizations that helped start the program. [...]<br>
<br>
"It really kind of proves that we've been working for the right thing, and that these ideas are getting the recognition they should," Cervantes said.
</blockquote><p>
The other mental health professional who works in the program, Chris Richardson, said STAR is able to fill a real gap in emergency response, since not everything is a law enforcement matter:
</p><blockquote>
It's amazing how much stuff comes across 911 as the general, "I don't know what to do, I guess I'll call 911." [...] Someone sets up a tent? 911. I can't find someone? 911.
</blockquote><p>
The STAR van has responded to cases like an "indecent exposure" call that turned out to be an unhoused woman changing clothes in an alley because she didn't have anywhere more private. A lot of the calls involve people experiencing homelessness, or folks having mental health crises.
</p><p>
The STAR program is a six-month pilot, and it grew out of an existing "co-responder" program that sends mental health professionals along with police officers. That program has been around since 2016, and has 17 mental health professionals; in 2019, they responded to 2,223 calls. That program is being expanded to 25 mental health folks, and the groups that have funded STAR hope to spin it off as a city-funded service that's separate from the police department.</p><p>Sailon also pointed out that one of the advantages of not sending cops to a non-law enforcement call is that when she needs to take time to work with someone who needs service, she can. And the team is able to follow up to see how people are doing.<br></p><p>
Denver's police chief, Paul Pazen, calls STAR "the future of law enforcement, taking a public health view on public safety," which is a refreshing perspective from the busting heads warrior cop attitude. Pazen says the goal is to "meet people where they are and address those needs and address those needs outside of the criminal justice system."</p><p>But before Donald Trump targets Denver for invasion by unidentifiable federal soldiercops, let's note that Pazen doesn't think alternatives like STAR mean his police department should be reduced in size, just that cops can instead focus their attention on dealing with violent crime and car crashes. (Whew, gotta keep that budget line safe!) But for reals, the idea that policing should be approached from a public health perspective is catching on, <a href="https://brandondelpozo.com/" target="_blank">even among some police.</a> For more on that, <a href="https://art19.com/shows/why-is-this-happening-with-chris-hayes/episodes/a019bf67-2d21-4ccf-a759-900cf06309e6" target="_blank">check out this podcast,</a> nerds. You do not need to listen to it in a pod.</p><p>Between the police, the co-responder program, and STAR, says Richardson, dispatchers have a "continuum of response" to choose from when a 911 call comes in. So far, STAR has mostly responded to trespassing calls and requests for mental health checks, but the police department is also tracking calls to determine how many a potentially expanded STAR team could take. </p><p>Denver isn't the only city working on alternatives to policing like this. Albuquerque, New Mexico, which had such a bad record of cops abusing minority and homeless populations that the Justice Department intervened (back when the DOJ sometimes did justice), will be <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/albuquerque-to-establish-community-safety-department-to-handle-non-violent-911-calls" target="_blank">launching a new "Community Safety Department"</a> next year, to handle calls that don't require cops. And other municipalities in Colorado are already consulting with Denver on starting their own STAR programs.</p><p>Since the City of Rochester, New York, <a href="https://www.wonkette.com/rochester-police-chief-retires" target="_blank">just had most of its police leadership leave</a> in the wake of March's police killing of Daniel Prude during a mental health crisis, maybe the mayor should be making some calls to New Mexico and Colorado. <br></p><p>[<a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2020/09/06/denver-star-program-mental-health-police/" target="_blank">Denver Post</a> / <a href="https://art19.com/shows/why-is-this-happening-with-chris-hayes/episodes/a019bf67-2d21-4ccf-a759-900cf06309e6" target="_blank">Why is This Happening?</a> / <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/albuquerque-to-establish-community-safety-department-to-handle-non-violent-911-calls" target="_blank">Daily Beast</a> / <a href="http://dashrco.org/" target="_blank">Denver Alliance for Street Health Response</a> / Photo: <a href="https://mhcd.org/donate-star-9news/" target="_blank">Mental Health Center of Denver</a>]</p><p><strong>Yr Wonkette is supported entirely by reader donations. Help us keep you up to date, and to even remind you that not everything is terrible. Just mostly terrible. Let's change that!</strong></p><p></p><p><a href="https://amzn.to/33mKzZe" target="_blank">Do your Amazon shopping through this link, because reasons</a>.</p><p></p><p></p><form name="donation" method="post" class="donation-form"><p class="subheadline">How often would you like to donate?</p><div class="form-row row--plan"><label class="plan-type__label"><input type="radio" name="plan_type" value="once" class="plan-type" required="" checked> Just once
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Judge Tells Anti-Trans School Board To Do Anatomically Impossible Things To Itself
Congratulations, Gavin Grimm!
August 28, 2020 01:50 PM
Gavin Grimm has, once again, won his case!
The now-20-year-old man first filed his case against the Gloucester County School Board when, as a teen, he was denied access to the boys bathroom at Gloucester County High School in Virginia.
The reason? Gavin Grimm is transgender. And it has become important to Republicans and bigots everywhere that trans and nonbinary people don't feel comfortable using public toilets.
On Wednesday, a three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit ruled in Grimm's favor, finding the school had violated Title IX of of the Education Amendments of 1972 when it banned him from using the boys room.
<p>As the Fourth Circuit noted, Grimm use the boys room for the first few weeks of his sophomore year of school with no problems. Gloucester County High School only banned him from being able to pee after the superintendent and school board "began receiving numerous complaints" from transphobes "not only [...] within that school district but also from adults in neighboring communities and even other states."</p><p>Eventually, the school decided that it should discriminate against trans students by forcing them to use the bathroom of the sex they were assigned at birth. It also decided to create a separate but equal single stall for trans students to use, because apparently that is still something we do to accommodate bigots.</p><p>The Fourth Circuit saw through all of the school board's bullshit. The transphobes actually argued that their "separate but equal" bathrooms for trans students were fine, because other students could choose to use the segregated single stall bathrooms if they wanted to (even though trans students were the only ones required to use them).</p><blockquote>[T]hat is like saying that racially segregated bathrooms treated everyone equally, because everyone was prohibited from using the bathroom of a different race. No one would suppose that also providing a "race neutral" bathroom option would have solved the deeply stigmatizing and discriminatory nature of racial segregation; so too here.</blockquote><p>The school board had even argued that Gavin's "choice of gender identity did not cause biological changes in his body, and Grimm remain[ed] biologically female."</p><p>Fucking yikes. </p><p>Luckily, the opinion called out this fuckery, noting that,</p><blockquote>embedded in the Board's framing is its own bias: it believes that Grimm's gender identity is a choice, and it privileges sex-assigned-at-birth over Grimm's medically confirmed, persistent and consistent gender identity. The policy itself "recognizes that some students question their gender identities," and states that such students have "gender identity issues." Grimm, however, did not question his gender identity at all; he knew he was a boy. The overwhelming thrust of everything in the record—from Grimm's declaration, to his treatment letter, to the amicus briefs—is that Grimm was similarly situated to other boys, but was excluded from using the boys restroom facilities based on his sex-assigned-at-birth. Adopting the Board's framing of Grimm's equal protection claim here would only vindicate the Board's own misconceptions, which themselves reflect stereotypic notions. (quotation marks omitted)<span class="redactor-invisible-space"></span></blockquote><p>Judges Henry Floyd and James Wynn, both Obama appointees, were in the majority. Judge Paul Niemeyer, a daddy Bush appointee, dissented and said a whole bunch of bigoted shit that we aren't going to reprint here.<br></p><p>This win was a long time coming. Grimm first <a href="https://www.aclu.org/cases/grimm-v-gloucester-county-school-board" target="_blank">filed suit</a> in 2015, when he was 15 years old and still a student at Gloucester County High School. The Fourth Circuit ruled in his favor and the case went up to the Supreme Court in 2017. However, by that time, Trump had rescinded Obama's Title IX protections for transgender students, so the Supreme Court punted and sent the case back to the lower courts.</p><p>Unfortunately for Gavin, this legal war probably still isn't over yet. The hateful bigots at the Gloucester County School Board can either ask the full Fourth Circuit to rehear the case en banc or just try to go straight to the Supreme Court. <br></p><p>Thankfully, Grimm's chances at the Supreme Court don't look too bad this time around! Trans rights had their biggest SCOTUS win ever last term, when Justice Gorsuch decided to do the right thing in <em><a href="https://www.wonkette.com/breaking-down-the-lgbt-decision-its-a-conservative-on-conservative-cage-match-2646174497" target="_blank">Bostock v. Clayton County</a></em>, Georgia, and acknowledge that Title VII, a different section of the Civil Rights Act, protects transgender people from employment discrimination.</p><p>The Fourth Circuit relied heavily on <em></em><em>Bostock</em> in this opinion, quoting Justice Gorsuch at length. (These judges know their audience — Gorsuch would probably the deciding vote if this case ever got up to the Court.) Like Gorsuch wrote there,<br></p><blockquote>An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what [the CIvil Rights Act] forbids.</blockquote><p>And that's not all. Last year, the Supreme Court denied cert (decided not to hear the case) in <em></em><a href="https://www.aclu.org/cases/doe-v-boyertown-area-school-district" target="_blank">Doe v. Boyertown Area School District</a>, which raised the same legal issues. This usually — though not always! — indicates that the justices either (1) think the case was rightly decided below; or (2) don't feel like dealing with that issue right now, thank you.<br></p><p>This is a huge win, not just for Gavin Grimm and the ACLU, but for trans kids everywhere — and especially students in Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, and South Carolina — the region the Fourth Circuit covers.<br></p><p>After the ruling, Grimm released a <a href="https://www.courthousenews.com/trans-student-fighting-school-bathroom-policy-prevails-at-4th-circuit/" target="_blank">statement</a> reminding us of how important his fight is:<br></p><blockquote>All transgender students should have what I was denied: the opportunity to be seen for who we are by our schools and our government. Today's decision is an incredible affirmation for not just me, but for trans youth around the country.</blockquote><p>Look, good things DO still happen occasionally! </p><p>Congratulations to Gavin and his lawyers at the ACLU and ACLU of Virginia on their huge win!<br></p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image" style="margin-left: 20px;">
<a href="https://media2.giphy.com/media/3ohzdMs9Jel51S1JdK/giphy.gif?cid=2fb0ca76x236e9k2nkvbyb4w8oa982qod1k108dg9j2ry4vb&rid=giphy.gif" target="_blank"><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzU5NDc4MS9vcmlnaW4uZ2lmIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMDY1OTE3OX0.dWZsswSgUzHiRF6U251xRmI2PvNpJ5iL_O0Nb2eG144/img.gif?width=980" id="e5d75" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="5d31ef9df4fbc710707164259c3e556a" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image"></a>
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</p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p>Here's the opinion!<br></p><iframe class="scribd_iframe_embed" data-aspect-ratio="null" data-auto-height="true" data-rm-shortcode-id="60952b62b12c39686bdb79411f32875f" frameborder="0" height="600" scrolling="no" src="https://www.scribd.com/embeds/473963042/content?start_page=1&show_recommendations=true" width="100%"></iframe><p><br></p><p>Follow Jamie on <a href="https://twitter.com/jamielynncrofts" target="_blank">Twitter</a>!<br></p><p></p><p><a href="https://amzn.to/33mKzZe" target="_blank">Do your Amazon shopping through this link, because reasons</a>.</p><p></p><p></p><form name="donation" method="post" class="donation-form"><p class="subheadline">How often would you like to donate?</p><div class="form-row row--plan"><label class="plan-type__label"><input type="radio" name="plan_type" value="once" class="plan-type" required="" checked> Just once
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Ayanna Pressley, The Gals Make A Fine Pie Out Of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy
Hop in Obama's time machine, we're headed back to Monday!
August 26, 2020 04:40 PM
We know it's Apocalypse Day again, and with the world ending several times each week, it's easy to miss some of the high points. But we'd like to take a moment to point you back to Monday (by our calculations, somewhere during the late Cretaceous) and the House Oversight Committee's hearing on Postal Service Fuckery. Some of the best moments came in the last hour, in which Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Massachusetts) and other first-term women on the committee pinned down Donald Trump's pet Postmaster General Louis DeJoy on what sure as hell looks like a deliberate campaign of slowing down the mail in advance of the election.
As Kathleen Walsh explains in a terrific article, Pressley, along with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and Katie Porter, built a pretty good case for DeJoy to resign, not that the slippery bastard is likely to go anywhere. Even if you haven't been following the USPS story closely (what the hell is wrong with you?), go read Walsh's analysis, which is just a very smart, fun read.
And wow, what a terrific five minutes of questions from Pressley:
<p>Pressley started out with a direct condemnation of the Republicans on the committee and their attempts to carry water for Trump and DeJoy, as if nothing weird at all has been going on at the USPS, then got straight to the issue that prompted the hearing: </p><blockquote>While some of our colleagues might use this hearing to continue to gaslight and mislead our constituents, I am here to get to the truth. The American people deserve that.<br><br>To direct the systemic slowdown of mail delivery during a pandemic within months of a national election is incomprehensible. At best, these actions represent irresponsible leadership from a novice who has absolutely no business leading a government agency. At worst, they are cruel, unethical, and anti-democratic.</blockquote><p>Indeed, they are. But while some of her male colleagues, even some very senior House Democrats, used their entire five minutes to rage at DeJoy, Pressley quickly moved to very specific yes-or-no-questions that did the work of advancing her case that DeJoy is presiding over a disaster: Did DeJoy impose a hiring freeze for management? (Yes.) Is he pushing for postal workers to take early retirement? (Yes.) Isn't it true that "40,000 postal workers have had to quarantine, over 6,000 have tested positive, and over 60 have died from COVID-19"? Well, yes, that's true too, but it's 83 who have died now. Says Walsh, </p><blockquote>Her interrogation eventually built to the very obvious conclusion:<br><br>"A few days ago before the Senate, you said the delays in delivery are attributable to, quote unquote, 'employee availability in many, many parts of the country.' So isn't it true that pursuing a hiring freeze and early retirement when your workforce is already stretched thin by coronavirus would exacerbate delays in the mail? Yes or no?"<br><br>I believe it is at this moment DeJoy began silently praying for the rapture.</blockquote><p>DeJoy denied that the hiring freeze had anything to do with the service slowdown (not just one "no" but five of 'em), but Pressley had made her point pretty effectively, and efficiently, the logic plain to follow. </p><p>As Walsh notes, Pressley's most damaging questions weren't even aimed at DeJoy, but instead went to Robert Duncan, the Trump-appointed chair of the USPS Board of Governors, who had to admit he hadn't been aware of multiple ethical complaints about how DeJoy ran his previous company, including four women who said they'd had miscarriages after the company turned down their requests for lighter duties during pregnancy. </p><p>After several such examples, Pressley asked Duncan, "Did you make any attempt to investigate these labor and employment practices before making him the head of one of the largest and most diverse federal workforces?" Duncan tried to escape with an answer about the extensive background checks run on DeJoy, but again, the excuse rang hollow, leaving viewers wondering how anyone could hire this jerk (haha, trick question: He is a well-off white guy who gave Donald Trump's campaign lots of money!)</p><p>The play-by-play is fun, but for my Doktor of Rhetoric money (not enough to even get an appointment to the sewer commission) the best part of Walsh's piece is her look at just how Pressley and her end-of-the-hearing colleagues <i>use language </i>in these things. All of 'em have a difficult task: interrogating witnesses who may not want to say anything at all, so they can extract useful information, or at least make plain that the witness isn't being helpful. It's a fraught communication situation for women, especially young women legislators like Pressley or Ocasio-Cortez: </p><blockquote>Their voices are soft and so are their smiles. They ask simple, reasonable, fact-based questions. They remain firm but do not attack directly. They are consistently better prepared than the person they're tasked with questioning, and so evade counterattack. They do not allow room for spin or equivocation. They are not looking for excuses or context. They demand the unvarnished truth.</blockquote><p>And it works: By having a very clear plan for their five minutes, Pressley and the others get answers, or, barring that, expose prevaricating witnesses whose trousers are experiencing combustion. </p><blockquote>The trick of giving their subjects just enough rope to hang themselves by has the dually impressive effect of extracting actual answers and generating memorable sound bites that immediately go viral. They've become progressive icons because, well, they're good at their jobs. </blockquote><p>Go read the whole thing — it's good stuff! </p><p>Or stay here since it is your OPEN THREAD! </p><p>[<a href="https://www.instyle.com/politics-social-issues/women-politics/ayanna-pressley-is-hearing-boss-yes-or-no" target="_blank">InStyle</a>] </p><p>Yr Wonkette is entirely supported by reader donations. Please help out if you can, or we may have to sic AOC and her notecards on you.</p><p></p><p><a href="https://amzn.to/33mKzZe" target="_blank">Do your Amazon shopping through this link, because reasons</a>.</p><p></p><p></p><form name="donation" method="post" class="donation-form"><p class="subheadline">How often would you like to donate?</p><div class="form-row row--plan"><label class="plan-type__label"><input type="radio" name="plan_type" value="once" class="plan-type" required="" checked> Just once
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Hello Joe
Anybody else feeling just a teensy bit better this nice Friday afternoon?
August 21, 2020 04:43 PM
My darling terrible ones, haven't we had a time these four years! From a stunned Election Night — the Champagne sat undrunk in the fridge for years, until I decided some ultimately meaningless James Comey move was a ray of hope — to the hideous inauguration, where at least we could be among our people. From Bannon's shock and awe that very first weekend, shutting down the airports to legal residents, who lived here, to the babies taking care of babies in refrigerated cages. From the gutting of every agency that led directly to an actual pandemic that the rest of the world has managed to manage.
You were right: The rest of the world isn't laughing at us anymore, President Trump.
They pity us instead.
<p>Every time we thought it could not get worse, we looked on with amazement. Who would tell us not to wear masks and to send our children to school when we don't know what this virus will do to their organs over the long term, but someone who is actually trying to kill us? He isn't a narcissist. He's a psychopath. </p><p>I think very very bad things will happen between November 4 and January 19. And we will be both surprised and not. But this week ... well. If you are like me, and most of you are, Joe Biden was eighth, maybe tenth, on your list of choices in the primary. A nice old fella but not the <del>woman</del> person who was needed in the moment. And here we are, surprised again. </p><p>Joe Biden, Old Handsome Decent Weepy Joe, feels like <em>exactly</em> the person to lead us through. He's an Irishman who can call us to national shiva. He picked a smart, hard woman instead of making his veep choice about his ravening ego. First and foremost, with his guy who stopped ebola from coming here, he can stop the goddamn bleeding. </p><p>And that convention! Four years ago, Shy's dad was dying. I didn't watch the RNC, and I doubt I will this time. I have people you pay me to pay to do that. But didn't you love this week's convention? Didn't you love seeing the people watching from their living rooms, waving into their computer screens? Did you cry when Joe and Jill and Kamala and Doug watched the fireworks? No? I wish you weren't a liar. </p><p>Does Joe Biden line up with every one of my policy choices? Oh goodness no. But neither does my husband, or even my mom. Sometimes <em>I</em> don't line up with all of my policy choices! We're complicated creatures, us! </p><p>And yet I feel better. I can breathe a bit, this week. I can go off into my weekend, with Robyn in charge, and see an end in sight. Might terrible things continue to happen? No, dear ones: They <em>will. </em>They will continue to happen, perhaps into Joe's term. The other side is bad, and wants to hurt us, even if they have to hurt themselves to do so. They are not well people. </p><p>But there are more of us. We are legion. </p><p>Breathe, jump back, and kiss yourselves. </p><p>We love you. You may OPEN THREAD. </p><p></p><p><a href="https://amzn.to/33mKzZe" target="_blank">Do your Amazon shopping through this link, because reasons</a>.</p><p></p><p>Who funds Wonkette? YOU DO. Thank you dearlets.</p><p></p><form name="donation" method="post" class="donation-form"><p class="subheadline">How often would you like to donate?</p><div class="form-row row--plan"><label class="plan-type__label"><input type="radio" name="plan_type" value="once" class="plan-type" required="" checked> Just once
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