SDPD lied about beating of black jaywalker

Feb. 3, 2018 started out as an uplifting day in San Diego, thanks to the firm but peaceful resolve of about 1,000 people in Chicano Park. Activists successfully repelled a klavern of white supremacists from vandalizing the park’s iconic murals. A lineup of patient San Diego Police officers helped keep the peace.

Minutes later, about 210 yards away, some other San Diego police lost their cool, abandoned their professional training, and savagely beat and traumatized an unarmed black homeless veteran. 

Then they lied about it.

Repeatedly lied about it.

Much of the San Diego County and Los Angeles print and broadcast news media lazily went along.

Frederick Jefferson – whose initial offense was jaywalking – was pinned bloodied to a Logan Avenue sidewalk.  Also bloodied were the reputations of some cowboy cops and some journalists who were spoon fed a large serving of nonsense by a hotheaded SDPD lieutenant pretending to be a communications professional and the soon-to-retire Chief of Police Shelley Zimmerman.

Jefferson, who was not part of the protest or rally in Chicano Park, was exiting a small clump of businesses at the corner of Logan Avenue and Cesar E. Chavez Parkway on his way to a restaurant to have lunch with a friend.  He saw a crowded sidewalk, an intersection bisected and blocked by dozens of SDPD officers on motorcycles, and an empty Logan Avenue.  He crossed in the middle of Logan Avenue.

Coincidently, a squad car carrying a pair of SDPD officers just turned the corner. The officers yelled at Jefferson to get out of the street and drove on. Jefferson, bewildered by the order, looked at the crowded sidewalk and the sealed off intersection, then walked on to try to get across the street.

He disobeyed the officers, but he did not deserve what came next. Two officers exited their car and grabbed Jefferson from behind, manhandling him. The panicked jaywalker fought them off and backed away.  Rather than just steer Jefferson to the sidewalk and send him on his way, the officers lost their tempers and escalated a silly situation into an appalling act of violence and police brutality that gave the normally well-regarded SDPD a black eye.

We will stipulate that Jefferson could have handled things better and should have just walked away from a pair of tired, testy trash-talking cops. He is not entirely blameless in this situation and was a fool to slug a cop. We are sorry that Officer Matthew Ruggiero was so badly injured by the punch. So was Superior Court Judge Sharon Majors-Lewis, who after scolding the officers in open court for escalating the situation, declined to dismiss the case due to the severity of Ruggiero’s injuries.

What we are offended by as journalists and citizens was the stunning stupidity the SDPD put on display on TVs and newspapers from here to Santa Barbara. Lt. Scott Wahl, a mouthy and ill-tempered amateur, pulled a fast one on most of the news media with a series of whoopers.  He said there was a fight in Chicano Park. He said a police officer was “sucker punched” by a protester. He said Jefferson started the brawl. Sadly, his boss, Chief Zimmerman, mindlessly parroted Wahl’s nonsense.

Without checking out the details or verifying the SDPD’s fantastical story, Southern California news media published and broadcast the lies.  They unfairly smeared Chicano activists, residents of Barrio Logan and human rights supporters by making it seem like a peaceful rally by people of color had devolved into an unprovoked attack on innocent police officers.

When The Sun published video from the incident, Wahl went ballistic. He screamed at a student journalist on the phone for 10 minutes, then screamed at her adviser for another 15. He was so loud every single student in the large newspaper lab could hear him. Luckily the student and our adviser were calm, professional and did not take Wahl’s bait to argue. Wahl then called our dean and the vice president of academic affairs in his effort to censor The Sun, to no avail. (We appreciate Dean William Kinney and VP Dr. Renee Kilmer defending our First Amendment rights.)

Wahl wailed that police body camera video would show that he was right. He was wrong. The body camera video shown in court verified the accounts of witnesses quoted in The Sun.

The sordid tale gets worse. Ruggiero, it turned out, seems to have serious problems with African Americans. His Facebook was littered with ugly posts about Black Lives Matter activists (whom he called “black slime”), Beyoncé and Michelle Obama.

Ruggiero and his partner, Justin Tennebaum, got their own beat down in court. Judge Majors-Lewis expressed her disbelief that a jaywalking became a violent fight. She scoffed at Tennebaum’s ridiculous claim that they suspected Jefferson of being a dangerous “AntiFa” thug because he was wearing a red t-shirt. She said she would have dismissed the case on the spot had Ruggiero not been so badly injured.

The Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics requires journalists to call each other out when mistakes are made that are not corrected. We are calling out some of our brothers and sisters in the professional news media to revisit this story, correct their mistakes, and give this community the true version of events. We are also calling on brand new SDPD Chief David Nisleit to give his officers a stern talking to about mendacious behavior, bullying student journalists and unfettered arrogance. Chief Nisleit really needs to hire a professional Public Information Officer with the skills, experience and integrity to communicate with the news media.