OB Rag

By Judi Cury (written on June 4 )

As a mother of three, grandmother of 18 (including 5 “greats”) and as an opponent of people owning guns for reasons other than hunting, I am faced with something I never thought I would have to reckon with in my lifetime.

I can already hear people saying “what about the 2nd amendment?” and my answer is that that amendment was written a long time ago, when carrying a gun was a safety measure. I have never been able to fathom people carrying rifles, for example, for purposes other than hunting for food to put on the table. I am violently opposed to killing animals for trophies; I am opposed to people killing people as well. I am against most guns of all kinds.

Two things happened today that have caused me unrest – along with the Corona Virus, and the horrible murder of George Floyd. I received the following message this evening:

“Tomorrow is National Gun Violence Awareness Day, when people across the country will wear orange to show that they are part of the fight against gun violence in America.”

The people who do G.I. hot-line counseling across the country, veterans’ groups and G.I. rights organizations are condemning the use of the National Guard in the George Floyd protests occurring nationwide. Meanwhile, some G.I.s are telling these counselors they will refuse to comply with orders directing them to go to the cities where protests are happening.

Here is the statement by the the Military Law Task Force of the National Lawyers Guild:

Statement opposing use of National Guard against anti-racist protests

The Military Law Task Force of the National Lawyers Guild strongly condemns the use of National Guard and active duty troops to police anti-racist protesters. ,

On Sunday, June 7, there is a paddle out in Ocean Beach for Peace and Unity in solidarity with Black Lives Matter. It’s at 9 am at the OB Pier near the front of the Lifeguard Station.

It’s being hosted by a group called We Be OB and here is what their facebook says:

A skateboarder was found dead in the street on the 4500 block of Voltaire Street in OB around 10:30 pm Thursday evening. And as of the latest report from 10News, it may have been a hit and run.

Police and media initially reported the person was a “pedestrian” with “a crumpled skateboard nearby.”

San Diego police were called to the site after a call came in around 10:30 that there was a man lying in the street.

Check out these photos, taken around 7:15 pm tonight in North Park. Thousands marched from downtown near the SDPD station up to North Park and along University Avenue.

After six days of protest in San Diego and a week and half across the nation, the San Diego Sheriff’s Department and many local law enforcement agencies up and down San Diego County announced Wednesday they would immediately ban the use of the carotid restraint. Two days earlier the San Diego Police Department stated its officers would no longer use the chokehold or neck hold.
Those agencies are:

• Carlsbad Police Department
• Chula Vista Police Department
• Coronado Police Department
• El Cajon Police Department
• Escondido Police Department
• La Mesa Police Department
• National City Police Department
• Oceanside Police Department
• San Diego Community College Police Department
• San Diego County Sheriff’s Department
• San Diego Harbor Police Department
• San Diego Police Department
• San Diego State University Police Department
• San Diego Unified School District Police Department
• University of California San Diego Police Department

UPDATE: Tracy Spahr – Public & Media Relations Principal, Marketing & Communications for the Port, responded: “The Port reviewed a variety of sands and selected a sand of a quality, color and texture that closely matches the current sand at Kellogg Beach. The sand will be coming from East County Sand, LLC based in Lakeside, CA. The Port also received a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and a water quality certification from the Regional Water Quality Control Board for this project.

We just received a press statement from the Port of San Diego announcing the Port will begin to replenish the sand at Kellogg Beach beginning on or near June 8. They expect the project to be completed by July.

Okay. Well, the main question residents and environmentalists should be asking is “where is the sand coming from?”

The roving OB Rag reporter sent this brief pictorial in, with pics taken on Tuesday, June 2, the first day of sun-bathing and sitting on the beach.

He reported it was all chill.

“Groups of people were chillin’ and maintaining physical-distance between groups though some groups were probably not people from the same household.

Wednesday, June 3 was the sixth straight day of protests in San Diego County over the George Floyd murder. All were peaceful and all were respectful of this local and national moment of push for needed change.

The protests included a march from the Midway area into Ocean Beach, one in Mira Mesa, a vigil in Broadway Heights and a massive paddle-out at Moonlight Beach in Encinitas.

A mostly young crowd rallied in the Midway Area for Black Lives Matter and several San Diego Police officers joined them in prayer; the crowd chanted, “SDPD! SDPD!” and the officers actually led the marchers through the area. The marchers continued into Ocean Beach and down several streets around Newport Avenue, past boarded up windows of businesses, some of whose owners sprayed supportive statements (some would call them “graffiti”) onto those boards.

The California National Guard deployed 200 troopers in San Diego County over the last 20 hours or so. One hundred are assigned to La Mesa and another hundred to the County Sheriff’s Department. Sheriff Bill Gore is the one that requested them. Governor Newsom authorized their deployment.

From my knowledge of San Diego history, this could be the very first time National Guard soldiers have been assigned to San Diego County. They weren’t deployed during the infamous San Diego Free Speech fight in 1912-1913, the labor strife during the thirties, nor were they deployed in San Diego during the social turbulence of the sixties and 1970s, and not during the May 1970 student rebellion, which in part shut down the gates to the Naval base on Catalina Boulevard.

So why are they here now?

The OB Mainstreet Association has been asked by the San Diego Police Department to cancel the Farmers Market scheduled for today, Wednesday, June 3.

Here is what we found on a facebook page:

No one knows anything about the protests. Don’t know who’s is planning it. Don’t know if it will even happen. But after all this hard word to reopen the market, now this.

Protests in San Diego for George Floyd continued for the fifth day in a row on Tuesday, June 2, with the largest demonstration in downtown San Diego.

Dozens of people had been protesting in the afternoon, then joined others for a short rally at Sixth and Laurel in Balboa Park. There they spread out on the grass and listened to a few speeches, keeping proper physical-social distance.

Around 6 pm the crowd marched into downtown, where they were joined by another group. After marching down Broadway and through downtown streets, the combined crowd of at least 500 then rallied at the County Administration Building. At one point on Broadway, the marchers were being pushed along by a phalanx of police SUVs. Participants said the crowd was larger than the day previous,