The board of San Mateo County, California, which includes part of Silicon Valley, is coming under fire for approving a budget that includes the purchase of over 300 Tasers — moments after supporting a Black Lives Matter resolution.
The unanimous board vote to spend nearly $1 million to replace the local police department’s aging supply of stun weapons might have been thought of as a positive step, giving police an alternative to service pistols.
However, activists disagreed, according to the Los Angeles Times, seeing the new weapons as a new means to terrorize minorities:
On Wednesday, the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors approved a budget that includes the purchase of 310 new Tasers. The approval of the Taser purchase is coming under fire, in part because it occurred just minutes after the board adopted a resolution supporting the Black Lives Matter movement.
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In 2018, three unarmed people died after officers used Tasers on them within county limits.
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[Faraji] Foster said the [Black Lives Matter] movement calls for a reduction in law enforcement funding and police violence against Black communities and people. It also calls for investment in educational, recreational and senior care in Black communities.
“They say they support Black lives, but, how can we believe it if they’re investing in more weapons for the police?” said Tenedra Julian, a resident of East Palo Alto, who was at the Thursday demonstration.
The objection is apparently to any increase in funding for police.
The Times referred to several recent racial incidents, and included one dubious example of “nooses” being found in trees in a park near Lake Merritt in Oakland.
As Breitbart News and others reported, the “nooses” were reportedly ropes placed in trees for exercise by Victor Sengbe, who is black, and his friends. Sengbe vigorously denied that the ropes were nooses, but Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said that the intentions behind the ropes did not matter and they would be investigated as a hate crime.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His new book, RED NOVEMBER, is available for pre-order. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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