In preparation for a Tuesday, January 5th proposal to Mendocino County’s Board of Supervisors, Mendocino County Sheriff Matt Kendall generated a PowerPoint presentation to advocate for the funding and hiring of ten additional deputies to address organized crime and illegal marijuana growing.
On the second to last page of the presentation entitled “Imminent Threat – Appropriate Response,” Sheriff Kendall included two images that he sees as demonstrative of the need for more deputies: game camera footage of a late-night cannabis thief carrying an AR-15 and a photograph of a black, hogtied suspected marijuana thief with his face redacted taken by Laytonville residents after detaining him.
The inclusion of the second photograph has caused consternation among some Mendocino County residents. Resident Jade Tippet wrote on Facebook, “For Black people, it is a massively triggering image, and has no business being included in a petition to the Board of Supervisors for additional funds unless the intent is to invoke and stoke racial tension, fear, and hatred in Mendocino County.”
5th District Supervisor Ted Williams said on his Facebook page that “the final slide depicting the black man hogtied in the dirt is not one I would personally publish, and I believe it detracts from the otherwise relevant information.”
In an update on his Facebook post, Williams said, “Our Sheriff has explained to me that the slides need the context of his narrative, which will be given on Tuesday. He will highlight that the final slide is what happens when law enforcement is understaffed, and vigilante action takes over.”
In conversation with Sheriff Kendall, the images were included to depict what occurs when “people are tired of being robbed.” He sees both images as demonstrative of “what happens when deputies do not show up.”
Sheriff Kendall addressed the inclusion of the images. He said, “unfortunately, the images are the things that a lot of our residents are seeing.”
Speaking to the game camera footage of the night-time, gun-wielding cannabis thief, Sheriff Kendall said, “the man with the big rucksack on his back was put on Facebook by a cultivator who chose not to notify law enforcement. That is a frightening thing to have happening behind your house.”
Addressing the image of the cannabis robbery suspect hogtied, Sheriff Kendall explained, “ that is basically what happened to him when locals found him.” Recalling the circumstances that led up to the act of vigilante justice, Kendall said, “Deputies were out investigating the robbery the night before and had caught some folks, but not all of them. Locals went out, caught this guy, and as you can see in the images, he was bound up and hogtied with his hands to his feet.”
After getting a call from an “old friend” who took offense to the image, Sheriff Kendall said he was going to pull the image from the presentation so as not to offend anyone else.
Sheriff Kendall explained that he redacted the hogtied, cannabis robber’s face because he wanted to highlight the results of vigilante justice and not the individual’s face, race, or age.
Sheriff Kendall wondered if “the Sheriff’s office had not have been out there working on this the night before, whether he [the hogtied man] might have suffered a worse outcome.”
Unequivocally, Sheriff Kendall said, “We don’t want to see any vigilante justice. I always have this terrible fear, especially in Mendocino County, where we are so accustomed to dealing with things ourselves. If you are not trained, I don’t believe you should be enforcing the law.”
That is not vigilante justice it is simple self defense. The fact that he was black has nothing to do with it. He was a robber caught by public and held for police, not punished. Maybe roughed up a bit but no lynching or beating. Self defense remains a major basic human right.
The word “Vigilante” is a hot button word. The very first vigilante committee was formed in in San Francisco by Sam Brannan during the early days of the lawless goldrush.
It was NOT “vigilante Justice” that a robber was hog tied & held for law enforcement. Any reasonable person would do the same to ANY & ALL robbers to detain them, especially in an ongoing incident with demonstrated violence. That was a big guy who if not detained that way, could have escaped back into the woods, and or commit even more violence.
So his being hog ties WAS very approriate, no matter what the persons race is. Race has no business in THIS discussion, a group of city THUGS come up here, and they rob, assault, & kidnap. One got away, he was detained for law enforcement.
IF this was ACTUAL “vigilante Justice”, that robber would be swinging from a tree, no matter what race the robber is, so COOL IT WITH THE HOT POINT USE OF INFLAMATORY WORDING. This goes for the police, media, and online community…AND SHERIFF KENDALL.
What do folks expect to happen when such a dangerous robber is caught..? ”
Oh, please mr thug, stay here & wait until the cops show up… you won’t try to run away again will you..?” Invite him in for tea & cookies..? That’s misguided bullshit.
They are THUGS… not the cream of society coming for tea & crackers…
The very same exact reason he was hog tied is the very same reason cops put people in handcuffs, and sometimes in leg irons… to restrain the individual from escape or further violence..!
DUH..! I’m surprised this has to be explained to folks to whom this is not obvious…
The robbers knew what they were doing is just plain wrong, morally and legally. They took a chance, they were violent, they got caught, they will face penalties
Why do liberals express sympathy for people (when they’re non-white) being man-handled, arrested etc…but never express sympathy for the *victims* of the criminal?
I’ve seen little innocent black children killed during “BLM” protests over the last year. I’ve not seen sympathy from left-wing media. I’ve seen no protests against their killers (all non-white). When an adult black man is killed by police during attempted arrest resulting in assault or life-threats, the officers are torn to pieces by left-wing media and white and black liberals. When a black child is killed by black people during “protests”…no anger expressed toward the killers. No nationwide call for action. Nothing.
Try not to waste your energy thinking about how liberal-black folks and liberal-white folks cry false racism and incite violence, looting, canceling, and the firing of innocent people.
Instead pay attention to the *real* majority of black folks out there. Here’s some ways to do that:
Search and watch “REACT TO NO LIVES MATTER TOM MACDONALD” on Youtube. Watch as many of the **black** reactors as you can. Do the same with “REACT TO WHITE BOY TOM MACDONALD” and “REACT POLITICALLY INCORRECT TOM MACDONALD”. And “REACT RACISM ADAM CALHOUN”….see how black folks, who are more interested in unity than division, react to these messages.
Or watch Anthony Brian Logan or Larry Elder or Candace Owens or Brandon Tatum, on Youtube. Get a real, rounded view of how black folks in general feel, rather than paying too much attention to the haters who divide us. We all have more in common than the dividers want us to believe.