WATCHER DIGEST: FEBRUARY
San Diegans grappled with the ongoing humanitarian crisis of Border Patrol's Open Air Detention Sites, demonstrated for a free Palestine, and held vigils for Nex Benedict and Aaron Bushnell.
This month saw the deaths of two people that San Diegans mourned publicly: Nex Benedict and Aaron Bushnell. These vigils intersected with the region’s struggles for queer rights and a free Palestine.
Although I haven’t been able to cover it much, Border Patrol continues to subject asylum seekers to inhumane conditions in the county. The agency even contracted the destruction of shelter built by volunteers alongside migrants. You can learn more here.
February 3rd: Last night, Border Patrol held migrants in an open-air detention site in San Ysidro over the rain-soaked mud. Today, a coalition of far-right groups held a rally to send off an anti-migrant car caravan.
The rally was attended by known far-right agitators, several of whom descended upon school boards and abortion clinics over the past few years. Some are explicit about electoral aspirations, urging any who will listen to elect far-right candidates to educational and local political offices. Others are uncomplicated fascists who wish to embody a politic of punishing anyone to their left.
Prοսd bοуs were just one of a few infamous groups in attendance today.
The line of cars left for another state in the afternoon. But, they did so after a solid three hours of transphobia, nationalism and an odd admixture of it and Christianity, and xenophobic fearmongering. Christianity is woven through American Civil Religion—faith of and in the United States—and whatever bigotry is politically expedient and available in the bigoted hearts of the reactionary blocs.
Oddly, one speaker called J6 a “trap for patriots.”
Two nights ago, a mother and her infant sheltered under a plastic tarp in the rain as the dirt beneath her soaked into a mire. Fascists and their useful idiots characterize the influx of asylum seekers as an invasion, insinuating that all migrants are either potential democrat voters or sleeper-cell guerrillas.
Oftentimes, as with the Kurdish people, asylum seekers flee violence predicated upon their ethnicity. Often, as with queer people, asylum seekers flee violence predicated upon their sexual or gender identity. The fascists’ desire to remove queer people from public life dovetails with their utter erasure of queer asylum seekers.
We should remember Umberto Eco’s definition of fascism. Eco wrote that fascists utilize a selective populism, wherein a bloc in society is represented as having a singular will that supersedes the individual. Of course, that will aligns with that of the strongman leader, who pretends to voice the people’s will.
That will is tainted by the fascist’s fear of difference, obsession with plots, and manufactured mythic past.
February 6th: Attorneys gave their closing arguments in the case of People v. Pascua and Von Lintig today, two medical professionals facing involuntary manslaughter charges for the in-custody death of Elisa Serna. The prosecution focused on the lack of care taken for Serna’s known medical complications before her death in 2019. The defense, however, tried to shift the blame onto the systemic failures which contributed to Serna’s death.
Both can be true: a system can be murderous, and it can be staffed by negligent people who allow the system to take yet another life.
Notably, both sides mentioned deputy Foster. In one incident, Serna struggled to walk to her cell door and collapsed at Foster’s feet. Foster dragged Serna back into the cell and left her there. Even though Foster was supposed to transport Serna to a medical appointment, this event was seemingly not recorded for jail medical staff.
Jurors were shown several videos of Serna falling brutally hard. The gallery recoiled in shock at a number of these falls and their severe impact. She was given a floor cot after being identified as a “fall risk.”
She was known to need withdrawal care, but was failed there too.
“There was basically no management of the patient’s withdrawal,” said the prosecutor.
The prosecution noted that Von Lintig referred to Serna as a “usual druggie” when speaking to law enforcement officers investigating the death.
Pascua’s defense argued that Serna was responsive enough to justify Pascua's lack of intervention. The prosecution noted that the interactiveness was limited to Serna requesting that the nurse come to her, instead of having to walk to the door—where she fell for the last time. Serna would die in that spot, up against the cell door.
The prosecution cited witnesses who stated that a 911 call or a send-out to escalated care was medically necessary during Serna’s imprisonment.
The prosecutor asked the jury, “would society tolerate treating even a dog this way?”
He recalled a hypothetical question from a testimony: “who needs a nurse more than an inmate lying in a cell?”
The jury will deliver a verdict in the coming days. Two people have died in-custody in San Diego jails this year.
February 7th: San Diego area Border Patrol agents are still holding asylum seekers in open-air detention sites. Last night, numerous families were dropped off and then picked up for transport after hours in the wet mud.
That night, dozens more asylum seekers were dropped off amid torrential rain. Volunteer aid workers say that children had to sleep on the soaked ground, sheltering from the rain with tarps and emergency blankets sourced from community donations.
As migrants continue to cross into the US within the county, the Mexican government is moving to block asylum seekers along our southern border. According to inewsource, the INM, Mexican National Guard, and the Mexican Army have jointly set up a camp to physically block points of ingress near Jacumba.
Conditions in open-air detention sites are still dire. I’m told some migrants have been treated for hypothermia, or have sheltered in portable restrooms to withstand the recent bout of cold weather.
In San Ysidro, three of four open-air detention sites are not being made accessible to volunteer aid workers. An asylum seeker died at one of these restricted sites last year.
As Border Patrol perpetuates this unnecessary suffering, the federal government is debating the humanity of asylum seekers. Democrat representatives have attempted to pass hardline legislation that would allow expulsion of asylum seekers under certain conditions—conditions tied to the number of encounters recorded by immigration enforcement officers.
To put it succinctly, the largest federal law enforcement agency has not provided tents nor shelter to the asylum seekers it has detained, even when storms soak families with children.
If you’d like to learn more about how to help, check out borderaidsandiego.org
February 9th: Activists rallied and held a sit-in at the Oceanside office of representative Mike Levin today. The demonstrators condemned Levin’s support of funding for arms for Israel, and called for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. As the war passes 120 days, at least 27,500 Palestinians have been killed, and nearly 70% of Gaza’s 439,000 homes have been destroyed.
Today, Netanyahu announced the invasion of the city of Rafah in southern Gaza. This follows a protracted, forced migration of Gazans to the south, and what some are calling false promises of safety.
Many have expressed concerns about the culture of the IDF. An occupation soldier shocked the world by posting a photo of a nude Palestinian man, bound to a chair and bleeding from a gunshot wound in his leg. The IDF was also found to have been running a Telegram channel that called for the extermination of Palestinians.
Levin voted for aid to Israel in a standalone bill, but called for increased humanitarian aid to Palestine. The representative’s statement on the matter did not address the contradictory nature of these goals. He instead emphasized his commitment to unity in the house.
Demonstrators today rallied outside the building where Levin’s Oceanside office is located. A contingent of protesters sat in his office, demanding to be heard. They spoke with some of Levin’s local team.
Protestors held signs condemning the vicious and indiscriminate killing of civilians in Gaza and the West Bank.
At several points, the crowd chanted, “Mike Levin, you’re a liar! We demand a ceasefire!”
Learned of event via @pymsandiego and @jvpsandiego
February 13th: As Israel begins its assault on Rafah, hundreds rallied in downtown San Diego today to demand an end to the genocidal campaign. The city of Rafah is the site of 1.4 million Palestinians, a number that has surged following internal displacement over the course of the IDF’s 130-days long assault.
As Palestinians have been pushed further and further south, those left alive have nowhere else to go. As refugee camps become collateral or deliberate damage, some far-right nationalists are attempting to block aid from entering Gaza by forming a vehicle and tent blockade.
According to ABC, more than 28,000 people have been killed in Gaza over the course of this war.
EDIT: sources that include those presumed dead beneath rubble are reporting a death toll of over 33,000.
A spokesperson for the US State Department admitted that Israel does not have a plan to deal with the “humanitarian situation” in Rafah.
“It’s my understanding that the prime minister [Netanyahu] only directed the creation of this plan on Thursday or Friday,” said spokesperson Matthew Miller.
The IDF continues to use US weaponry in its assault. Although the Biden administration claims it is frustrated with the amount of civilian casualties in Gaza, it refuses to halt weapon sales to Israel. The obvious contradiction has not been substantively addressed by the administration’s spokespeople.
The release of hostages over the course of this war has been more effectively accomplished through negotiation. An Amnesty International investigation found that four strikes on Rafah in the past two months had no evidence of military targets. As Rafah has more than quadrupled in population, protesters across the US are demanding meaningful responses from their elected officials before more people are slaughtered.
Demonstrators today highlighted the death of Hind Rajab, a six-year-old who was killed by the IDF. The Red Crescent stated that an ambulance it dispatched to rescue Hind was bombed as it arrived, mere feet away from the terrified child who had called for help.
Learned of this action via @pymsandiego
February 13th: Community members and victims’ families attended the Citizens Law Enforcement Review Board meeting last night. Several commenters called for meaningful changes to San Diego jails. The family of William Hayden Schuck addressed the board’s report on Schuck’s 2022 death in custody—an incident for which the CLERB identified numerous failures and neglect.
Schuck was not provided with a bed, shower access, and missed meals on the day he died. The missed meals were not properly logged, meaning that the Sheriff’s Department’s allegations that Schuck refused meals can’t be proven or disproven.
The CLERB reported that deputies and jail medical staff did not identify or respond to Schuck’s medical needs. He collapsed several times, but jail staff did not take him to the medical wing.
Victims’ families called for the Sheriff’s Department to scan deputies entering the jails. The CLERB has made this recommendation before, and Sheriff Kelly Martinez has steadfastly refused to implement it. Martinez has instead deflected by highlighting drug detection methods used on incarcerated people at intake.
According to the SDUT, the CLERB found that “deputies allowed Schuck to overdose on drugs while under their care and failed to keep drugs out of the jail.” Last year, a deputy was arrested for possessing drugs on jail property.
Schuck’s family disputed this claim and argued that any drugs in his system were taken before he entered custody. The family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the county.
Elisa Serna’s mother Paloma commented that statutes of limitations prevent families from getting justice for in-custody deaths. Serna died in 2019, and her family has been fighting for justice since then.
Some families, like Saxon Rogriguez’s, still don’t have a full picture of what transpired in the jail. When critical incident reports take years to be released, families are hamstrung in their search for answers and due process.
Three people have died in-custody in San Diego jails this year.
February 13th: San Diegans attended a City Council District 3 candidate’s forum today. Several attendees called for a resolution supporting a ceasefire in Gaza.
Incumbent Stephen Whitburn’s record on humanitarian matters was questioned. Challenger Coleen Cusack highlighted the U.N.’s special rapporteur’s findings—that he found human rights violations during his tour of the city, under the current mayor’s tenure and within Whitburn’s district.
Both Whitburn and Cusack supported a ceasefire resolution.
“I think there needs to be an immediate, negotiated, permanent, bilateral ceasefire,” said Whitburn.
Whitburn is supported by a police department that has trained with the IDF.
Cusack also noted the crime of domicide being committed in Gaza, or the deliberate destruction of homes. The U.N.’s special rapporteur on the right to housing also called for this kind of destruction to be internationally recognized as a crime.
Challenger Kate Callen was strongly opposed to resolutions outside what she saw as work for her district. Her view seemed to exclude the Palestinians living in district 3.
The death toll in Palestine has surpassed 29,000. There are likely many more dead beneath the rubble following the IDF’s brutal, ongoing campaign. Top Israeli officials are signaling an outright rejection of any ceasefire which acknowledges Palestinian statehood.
February 23rd: San Diegans held a vigil for Nex Benedict last night, the Oklahoma nonbinary indigenous teenager who died after being assaulted by their classmates.
Benedict was in the bathroom they were legally required to be in under Oklahoma’s SB 615. They were assaulted by three students had been bullying them.
While the Owasso Police Department has stated that Benedict’s death was not trauma-related, Benedict’s mother told Popular Information that the statement was a “big cover” released as “something to calm the people.”
At last night’s vigil, San Diegans reacted to the death. Trans people lamented the persecution they face and an uncertain future in the US.
Some speakers noted that San Diego has to do better when showing up to confront bigotry—whether at local and regional school boards and city council meetings, or at violent fascist demonstrations like those in Sаntee last year.
Another speaker argued that San Diegans need to make an effort to confront the anti-indigenous prejudice in their own communities before any real progress can be made—that is, San Diegans need to stand up to white supremacy in their own circles. Others felt that the queer community in San Diego had not adequately addressed their own prejudices—for example with Palestine.
Trans youth spoke at the vigil. They shared the grief and fear they felt following Benedict’s death. Some noticed that they were the same age as Benedict. But, the youths were comforted by the show of community—one remarked that the experience at the vigil had changed their life.
The Oklahoma superintendent recently put Chаyа Raіchіk on the state’s library panel. Raіchіk’s posts under LіbsOfTіkTok are associated with higher incidences of bomb threats against schools with queer staff or queer-affirming materials.
February 27th: San Diegans held a vigil for Aaron Bushnell tonight, the active-duty Air Force member who self-immolated outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC.
As he burned, Bushnell shouted “Free Palestine.” As he collapsed, an officer approached Bushnell with a firearm trained on the burning man. Another agent shouted, “I don’t need guns, I need fire extinguishers.”
Bushnell was hospitalized and later succumbed to his wounds. His prior statements condemned the ongoing genocide of Palestinians.
Speakers at the vigil tonight drew parallels between Bushnell and Rachel Corrie. Twenty years on, Israel is threatening to besiege Rafah, the same village where Corrie was killed. She was crushed to death by a bulldozer—one that judges ruled was engaged in a “combat operation.”
Several speakers remarked that the pathologization of Bushnell’s last act constituted a failure to engage with the reality of the genocide in Palestine. By writing off Bushnell’s actions as the product of mental illness, the state and media are able to sidestep 30,000 dead Palestinians. Further, this rhetoric frames mental illness as fundamentally dangerous and wrongly frames millions of people as dangerous.
One speaker pleaded with the world to recognize the value of Palestinians, of the human lives lost.
In a statement to crimethinc, Bushnell wrote, “Today, I am planning to engage in an extreme act of protest against the genocide of the Palestinian people. The below links should take you to a livestream and recorded footage of the event, which will be highly disturbing. I ask that you make sure that the footage is preserved and reported on.”
On stream, Bushnell addressed current and future viewers, saying, “I will no longer be complicit in genocide. I’m about to engage in an extreme act of protest, but compared to what people are experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers, it’s not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal. Free Palestine.”
Aaron Bushnell was 25 years old.