In wake of SCPD cyclist arrest, speakers voice frustrations, push for public safety reforms in community forum

More than 30 community members gathered Sunday in front of Santa Cruz City Hall for a community safety forum to connect with activists, social justice groups and advocates for criminal justice reform in the wake of a controversial arrest of a Black cyclist by a group of police officers earlier this month.

Community activist Thairie Ritchie organized the event as a response to the Santa Cruz Police Department’s arrest of 29-year-old Teran Whitley.

On April 10, Santa Cruz police officers stopped Whitley on his electric bike near the intersection of Bay Street and West Cliff Drive for a traffic infraction. He was arrested and charged with three misdemeanors: resisting arrest, possession of marijuana over 1 ounce, and giving a false identification to police.

Some bystanders took video of the incident and alleged that the officers responded disproportionately in both numbers and force; some of those bystanders also filed community complaints that the officers used excessive force when arresting Whitley, who is Black. 

The Santa Cruz Police Department is still investigating the incident, but Chief Bernie Escalante previously said that an initial review of body camera footage showed “no clear violations of the law or policy” in how police officers acted during the incident.

Ritchie said that Sunday’s event sought to connect organizers and advocacy groups with members of the public looking to get involved in social justice causes and criminal justice reform.

“I wanted to encourage community members, organizers and activists to come together and collectively come up with community-led solutions and initiatives,” he told Lookout. “Before we go to city council meetings or elected officials in the future to discuss what should be changed, I think it’s up to us to come up with those solutions.”

A number of local activist and advocacy groups were tabling in front of city hall, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the public defender’s office, Showing Up For Racial Justice, cannabis justice advocates from Treehouse Dispensary, and a Palestinian liberation group.

Speakers expressed their disappointment and frustration with Whitley’s arrest. Cannabis justice activist and UC Law student Lo Nuñez Gonzalez, who is a Santa Cruz native, said that the community lacks awareness of the town’s “well-hidden racism,” and pointed to the misdemeanor marijuana possession charge handed to Whitley as a prime example.

“I’m humiliated that this incident happened in my hometown, a city that claims to be progressive, but always seems to fall a little short when it comes to legislation,” she said. “When are we going to call out the ever-persistent war on drugs that continues to penetrate our cities’ culture?”

Caitlin Becker, director of holistic defense with the Santa Cruz County Office of the Public Defender, shared County Public Defender Heather Rogers’ statement, in which she said that Santa Cruz County has the eighth-highest arrest rate of Black people among California’s 58 counties.

“The uncomfortable truth is in Santa Cruz County, like elsewhere in the nation, people from historically marginalized communities continue to confront implicit and explicit biases in their daily lives, including in our criminal legal system,” Rogers said in her statement.

Cheryl Williams and Chris Davis of Santa Cruz Black shared the organization’s statement condemning police violence and “the normalization of deployment of police force and its infiltration into all aspects of social life for marginalized and otherwise oppressed people, particularly members of the Black community.”

“The purpose of writing this statement is to get everyone to think critically of what is the purpose of excessive force, and what does it serve and protect,” said Williams, who is the organization’s executive director.

Local community activist and prison abolitionist Jasmeen Miah, who started the Instagram page Abolition Santa Cruz, advocated for building new ways of enforcing laws and handling crime for every community. As an abolitionist, Miah pushes for the reduction and elimination of the prison system as a vital piece of criminal justice reform.

“Abolition is, I think, the solution. It is all about creating a world based on community care where our needs get met,” she said. “It’s about rehabilitation rather than punishment and carceral solutions.”

At the end, Ritchie gathered all the speakers in front of the crowd for a sendoff: “This is what community power looks like to me.”

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