Why SFPD Will Not Arrest 11-year-old Involved in Violent Assault of Asian Elder

Why this confirms Chronicle’s “Signature Pieces” are Factually False

On July 31, 2022, Mrs. Ren was viciously assaulted by juveniles from Oakland at her Francisco Street address.  The video of the Oakland juveniles’ violence was released by ABC’s Dion Lim and has been viewed by millions.  By law, one of the juvenile attackers of Mrs. Ren cannot be arrested. 

Sources also tell me that prior to the beating of Mrs. Ren, this crew attempted a robbery at Pier 39, and robbed a person of their purse on Market Street. Mrs. Ren’s case was also a robbery of her cellphone. The purpose of the juveniles reentering Mrs. Ren’s building, was to test the fob key they stole from her.

In September 2018, Governor Jerry Brown signed into law California Senate Bill 439, which removed juveniles under 12 years of age, from the juvenile court system.[i]  The rationale behind the legislation was that early interactions with the justice system potentially harms a child’s development and increases the likelihood the child will become a chronic offender.[ii]  The only exception to this law is when a juvenile has been accused of murder or a sexual crime that involves force or violence.

Thus, per my sources, one of the juveniles that assaulted Mrs. Ren will not turn 12 years of age until October and is ineligible for prosecution in the juvenile justice system.

The inability to prosecute the 11-year-old juvenile, refutes two of the Chronicle’s “signature” analytical pieces.

1)     Per the Chronicle the 11-year-old juvenile’s assault was not even a crime

To promote the San Francisco Board of Supervisor’s vote to close Juvenile Hall, in March of 2019, the Chronicle published a preemptive article, Vanishing Violence, analyzing that juvenile crime had declined in California.  The Chronicle based their study on the number of juveniles arrested rather than the volume of crimes juveniles had committed.   “Arrest” and “crime” are not synonymous.  A juvenile can commit a crime and not get caught.

I conducted a public records request to SFPD and learned that during the same period the Chronicle was asserting juvenile crimes were declining, juvenile crimes in San Francisco had actually increased.   

In the violent assault on Mrs. Ren, we have an 11-year-old that cannot be arrested by law, and thus by the Chronicle’s unique interpretation of crime: no arrest translates to no juvenile crime was committed. 

2)    Hey Chronicle, why are California law enforcement officers arresting so many preteens if the law does not allow them to?

To promote the San Francisco Police Commission’s upcoming vote to Prop 47-ize SFPD’s traffic stops, Chronicle writers, Susie Neilson and Dustin Gardiner published a recent piece claiming California law enforcement officers make traffic stops based on race.  The writers’ conclusions were based on a study by the Racial & Identity Profiling Advisory Board (RIPA).  In my recent article, I raised issues with the unlikeliness of RIPA finding so many elementary school children were stopped by police for driving.

If we factor in Senate Bill 439 that precludes law enforcement’s ability to arrest an 11-year-old, readers should question how Neilson and Gardiner accepted the RIPA graph (below) that shows such an unusual amount of under 12-year-old California drivers getting arrested on traffic stops.

This is not an issue of differing interpretations.  Either California law enforcement officers are illegally arresting children under 12 years of age, in violation of Senate Bill 439, or the RIPA study and the Neilson/Gardiner article is drastically inaccurate.

Progressive Modus Operandi: Skewed data fed to subjective media to be quoted by believers, then voted into law

The significance of RIPA’s erroneous data is that the Chronicle propagandized the falsehood, and then progressives further perpetuate the myth to promote legislation. 

On July 26, 2022, Lara Bazelon, who served on Chesa Boudin’s 2019 election committee and stood in for him as a debater, tweeted the Chronicle article accusing SFPD of profiling as factual.

Through Twitter, I asked Bazelon, a U.S.F. law professor and the granddaughter of a US Appellate Court judge, if she didn’t think the number of under 10-year-olds driving appeared to be a statistical error. 

Dustin Gardiner, one of the coauthors of the Chronicle profiling article jumped to Bazelon’s defense (below). 

Bazelon then “liked” Gardiner’s response (below), which means she read my Twitter message, but as a law school instructor and advocate, failed to defend her position.

Gardiner is wrong for two reasons:

1)    RIPA footnote 77 limited the “unexpected reported traffic violations for people too young to hold a provisional permit or driver’s license” to a) errors, b) counting other occupants in the car, or c) bicycle or scooter violations.  Nowhere did RIPA claim these were “pedestrian stops” as Gardiner contends.”

2)    RIPA Figure 13 documents that these elementary school children drivers were “ordered out of their vehicle”— not pedestrians!  Again, a preposterous indication that the school children were either driving, or that RIPA inflated their numbers by including other occupants in stopped vehicles. Of course, this means the RIPA study is skewed and drastically incorrect.

Believers like Gardiner and Bazelon shouldn’t let their beliefs override facts

A recent study found that Chicago traffic cameras also issued tickets to Black and Brown drivers in a disproportionate manner.  Because of the racial disparities in traffic stops--issued by computers-- some cities have eliminated red light cameras. 

Similarly, for the San Francisco Police Commission to implement a Prop 47 strategy to allow people to drive without two headlights, two brake lights, or two license plates will not change uneven arrest rates.  As the Chicago study analyzed, differences of urban terrain and socioeconomic conditions affect driving habits and the resulting citations.  Thus, traffic stops and arrests can never neatly correlate to demographics until we formally institute a quota system. 

To Gardiner and Bazelon, their blind belief in racism justifies quoting an absurd RIPA study.  Sure, injustice exists, but not to the level Gardiner and Bazelon want it to be.  Of greater significance is that U.S.F. relies on Bazelon’s integrity to educate its students.  Yet she quotes obvious falsehoods, and then refuses to answer for the RIPA study’s anomalies.  My God, does she really believe that many elementary school children are driving, getting pulled over by police officers, and then consenting to searches?  Is that what U.S.F. Law School is about?  Propagandizing false data and then hiding?

Many of my previous articles can be found here at GBTB.

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[i] California Welfare & Institutions Code Section 602

[ii] https://www.shouselaw.com/ca/blog/laws/does-californias-juvenile-court-have-jurisdiction-over-children-of-all-ages/