San Diego County Sheriffs Are Recruiting Anti-Vaxxers
An anti-vaxx “job fair” held in Temecula on December 4th included a San Diego County Deputy Sheriff featured as a “special guest” and the department’s official recruiting unit. The hiring event was promoted on the SD Sheriff website.
A promotional announcement on social media made the claim that organizers were partnering with Self Made Training Facility, PublicSq. and In N Out, which provided meals for the first 200 attendees.
The event was organized by We Are Heros, organized by failed recall gubernatorial candidate (28,101 votes).Anthoney Trimino to “stand with frontline employees against medical discrimination.” The medical discrimination term is anti-vaxxer rhetoric designed to portray denialists as victims.
Trimino was involved in promoting an anti-vaccination rally in Los Angeles on August 14 that devolved into violence as Proud Boys and other known extremists attacked journalists and counter protestors.
The San Diego Union and Los Angeles Times both refused to run full page ads for his group featuring images of two nurses and the words, “Courage is still beautiful even if unvaccinated.”
The Orange County Register and San Francisco Chronicle did publish the ads.
Trimino was suspended from a social media platform after posting a $2,500 bounty; specifically asking for the name and address of a critic who revealed his company also has contracts with health care organizations that promote vaccinations.
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It’s not a big secret that the county sheriffs under Bill Gore have been a hotbed of right wing viewpoints that have influenced their work. When the thugs from the Proud Boys disrupted an anti-Trump rally at the County Building they all-but-turned their heads away.
In the early days of vaccinations, law enforcement agencies around the country demanded to be placed on high priority lists. Now that vaccine denialism coupled with a blind faith in quack medical claims have become the standard for Trump supporters, resistance to public health measures includes many law enforcement officers.
Since the pandemic began, five times as many police officers have died of COVID-19 than by gunfire. You’d think that common sense would influence police attitudes in this critical public health matter; instead misinformation, conspiracy theories, and a sense of ultra masculinity tied to scorn for the “establishment” are all-too-often the norm.
What used to be called “public servants” are now associating themselves with far-right anti-vaxxers who refer to themselves as purebloods, along with assorted white nationalists, conspiracy theorists, antigovernment militias, neo-fascist street gangs, assorted scam artists.”
A report by La Prensa San Diego in late October included information from a small sample of Sheriffs officers:
An internal survey conducted by the San Diego’s Deputy Sheriffs’ union shows many hold extreme political views, including calling leadership decisions “Marxist”, referring to Black Lives Matter and Antifa as “domestic terrorist groups”, and staunch opposition to COVID vaccine mandates, but the respondents showed no support for police reforms or progressive approaches to policing advocated since the killing of George Floyd and protests in several US cities.
The survey, conducted by the San Diego County Deputy Sheriffs’ Association, seems intended to gauge the views of the over 2,400 sworn deputies of the employee union, but it appears that less than 10% of the members responded with only 238 votes being cast.
The Sheriff’s Department denied a report by the Guardian back in August claiming only 23% of its officers were fully vaccinated, but did not provide corrected numbers. A department press release issued in late summer claimed that 49% of staffers at detention facilities were fully vaccinated, saying the rest were on a list of those requiring a weekly COVID-19 test.
(NOTE: Detention staff includes more than sworn personnel.)
Last week the Union-Tribune reported that a “deadly new crush of COVID-19 cases” triggered a systemwide lockdown of county jail facilities.
The latest rash of COVID-19 has pushed the total number of infected inmates to 2,003 as of Nov. 27, the latest date for which historical data has been provided by the Sheriff’s Department.
Department officials previously have acknowledged two jail deaths related to COVID-19, but advocates and family members of deceased prisoners say the virus has killed at least three other people.
Employees have not escaped the virus’s reach. As of Nov. 19, the most recent date for which jail employee data have been provided, more than 900 employees have gotten sick, the Sheriff’s Department said, including two deaths.
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Thanks to The Activated Podcast for bringing this information to my attention.
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https://twitter.com/MyersSD30/status/1467701592308678657?s=20
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