The descendants of Sidney and Irene Dearing have now filed a lawsuit in Alameda County seeking damages from the City of Piedmont over an egregious, century-old act of racial injustice.

The story of Sidney and Irene Dearing, who were harassed and intimidated — including by an angry mob led by a Ku Klux Klan-affiliated police chief — after purchasing a house in the all-white town of Piedmont, was brought to greater public attention six years ago. And since then, the City of Piedmont has sought to recognize this dark chapter, funding the design and installation of a small sculpture garden on the property the Dearings were ultimately forced to sell, under duress from the city, in 1924.

That commemorative project was still in the concept phase last June, and the city suggested it would be completed by the middle of this year.

But that gesture doesn't go far enough to repair the wrong that was done, and the generational wealth that was lost because of it, according the Dearings' descendants. As KTVU reports, with the help of the Legal Defense Fund, the nation's first civil rights law firm, they have filed a lawsuit in Alameda County Superior Court.

The suit seeks damages to compensate for the long-term value of the lost property, as well as an official apology from the city, and "other remedies tied to the loss of generational wealth, educational access and other benefits associated with homeownership in Piedmont."

Piedmont has always been an affluent city surrounded on all sides by Oakland, and it was incorporated as a redlined, whites-only city in 1907, with most of its development occurring in the 1920s and 30s.

Sidney Dearing, the owner of a successful Oakland restaurant, the Creole Cafe, decided in 1924 to purchase a new home that sat at 67 Wildwood Avenue in Piedmont. He would not have been able to execute the transaction himself, as a Black man originally from Texas, descended from Native Seminoles. But he and his mixed-race wife Irene were able to buy the home with the help of Irene's white mother, serving as proxy buyer.

The home was purchased in January 1924 for $10,000. And on May 6, 1924, after catching wind of a Black family moving in, a mob of around 500 Piedmont residents — including open Ku Klux Klan member Burton Becker, Piedmont's police chief at the time — showed up outside the home, demanding the Dearings give up the house and leave.

The city then, allegedly, concocted a workaround to push the Dearings out, telling a court that the land the house sat on was needed to build a new road, and that it had to be taken by eminent domain. In the meantime, the lawsuit says, the family was harassed with cross burnings, threats of lynching, and even attempted bombings.

"The city never intended to build the road," says Leah Aden, senior counsel at the Legal Defense Fund, in a statement to KTVU. "We know based upon the factual record that they put the home up for sale and sold it to a white person a mere few months after the condemnation action was settled, which to us is an indication that they were not intending to build or complete a road, but that the city lied to the Dearings because they did not want a Black family to live in the city of Piedmont."

This historic website, set up by Piedmont native and librarian Meghan Bennett in 2020, documents the significant local news coverage of Dearings' case, and of the incident with the angry mob.

Sidney Dearing tried to get the City of Piedmont to compensate him with $25,000 for the house, but records show they ultimately settled for $10,000, the exact price he had paid. A Chronicle article from the time reported that the city had offered him $8,000, and Dearing had said, "I paid more than that for the house. I wIll sell the place, if they demand it, but they will pay the price that pleases me."

100 years later, Piedmont remains a city that is only 0.8% Black. The city has not yet responded to the lawsuit.

After initially suspending the case due to lack of evidence, Petaluma police arrested a suspect who was allegedly caught on video surveillance tracing racial slurs and swastikas onto the dusty windows of local youth mentor and former Harlem Globetrotter William Bullard’s SUV.

As KRON4 reports, the Petaluma Police Department reviewed a week’s work of surveillance footage from early December, which was obtained from the garage where Bullard’s SUV was parked, and identified Corey Newman, 20, of Petaluma, allegedly defacing Bullard's windows.

As SFist previously reported, the police department initially dropped the case before reviewing the footage, claiming there wasn’t sufficient evidence. The case has since been reopened, per the Chronicle, likely due to Bullard’s posts about the incident, which he shared to his large following, along with the subsequent media coverage.

"I'm doing this for awareness. I'm doing this to educate people, and I'm trying to let them know don't be afraid to speak up for yourself if something happens like this," he said, per KGO earlier this month. "Like, what's the worst thing that can happen? It can be ignored by the police, OK, but at least you spoke up."

“The Petaluma Police Department takes all hate-related incidents seriously and remains fully committed to conducting thorough and impartial investigations,” said the police department in a press release. “Crimes motivated by bias have a profound impact not only on those directly affected, but also on the sense of safety and well-being of the entire community.”

Police arrested Newman during a traffic stop on Christmas Eve. He was booked into the Sonoma County Jail for the commission of a hate crime and vandalism, per KRON4.

Image: NEW YORK, NY - DECEMBER 19: William 'Bull' Bullard of The Harlem Globetrotters Ring The NASDAQ Closing Bell at NASDAQ MarketSite on December 19, 2014 in New York City. (Photo by Steve Zak Photography/FilmMagic)

Previously:Hate on the Rise: Ex-Globetrotter’s SUV Defaced in Petaluma, San Jose Teens Form Human Swastika

As the federal government continues to attack DEI efforts — emboldening racists to come out of the woodwork, two high-profile hate incidents came to light this week. In Petaluma, a youth mentor and ex-Globetrotter was targeted, and in San Jose, high school students formed a human swastika.

As the Press Democrat reports, William “Bull” Bullard, a popular local youth basketball coach and former member of the Harlem Globetrotters, posted on social media that his SUV was defaced with swastikas and racial slurs Tuesday — drawn in dust on the car’s windows — while parked in a garage near his apartment in Petaluma’s Theatre District. Bullard, who moved to Petaluma from Detroit about five years ago, said he’s experienced other racist incidents in Sonoma County, where Black residents make up about 2% of the population.

“Enough is enough,” Bullard told the Press Democrat. “Sometimes these things get swept under the rug, but for me it is very apparent that this needs to be brought to light.”

Bullard said he believes some local youths who hang out in the parking garage at night drew the symbols, which reinforced his belief that young people in the area need constructive places to channel their energy. He hopes his new gym, Bam Bam Training, will help keep them on track. “I want to have all of these kids in the gym or out on the field with me so I can break down life to them,” he said. “They are not going to be able to get away with things like that. When these kids get into trouble it is because they don’t have safe spaces to go to.”

Per the Chronicle, Bullard reported the incident to Petaluma police, who reportedly dropped the case due to lack of evidence.

A commenter on Bullard’s second post said their family had similar experiences in Petaluma. “My family experienced six different racial incidents living in Petaluma. Same area. Shocking bc we thought downtown would’ve been nearly drama free,” the comment read. “Yet here we are in 2025 still dealing with this. Your message is positive. No matter what, we still have to operate from a place of love.”

Another commenter told Bullard, per the Press Democrat, “Just imagine how little their world must be… filled with hate and fear.”

Meanwhile in San Jose, as Bay Area News Group reports, a photo was posted to social media this week of eight students forming a human swastika on the football field at Branham High School, accompanied by a quote by Adolf Hitler in the caption, which was first reported by J. Weekly.

The school has identified the students in the photo, and an investigation is ongoing, per Bay Area News Group. “CUHSD and Branham stand firmly against all forms of hate, discrimination, and intolerance,” said the school’s principal, Beth Silbergeld. “While this incident does not reflect the values of the vast majority of our students and families, the harm it caused is real and must be addressed.”

“The fact that the children feel emboldened to do this and then post it on social media in such a public way is very scary for our community,” said Tali Klima, spokesperson for the Bay Area Jewish Coalition, per Bay Area News Group.

Per KGO, the Jewish Community Relations Council is providing support to the school community, and about 200 students participated in a walkout Wednesday in protest of the incident. “This was an open support for Hitler and had a Hitler quote attached to the image, and so what we're seeing is unadulterated, unafraid antisemitism,” said Tyler Gregory, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council.

“This is not something that should be seen as a one-off incident and so that's why it's really important we stay in touch with the school offering resources and support," Gregory said.

Image: NEW YORK, NY - DECEMBER 19: William 'Bull' Bullard of The Harlem Globetrotters Ring The NASDAQ Closing Bell at NASDAQ MarketSite on December 19, 2014 in New York City. (Photo by Steve Zak Photography/FilmMagic)

Related: NAACP Holds Meeting With Black Families About Alleged Racist Incidents at SF Public Schools

Day Around the Bay: Swastika Incident Shocks SF’s Washington High School

While the Alamo Square home of dog walker Terry Williams undergoes renovations after burning down in the spring of 2024, a porta-potty at the site was set on fire around 1 am Saturday. Additionally, the suspect in the case of the racist threats has been missing since the fall of 2024.

As the Chronicle reports, a porta-potty outside the home of local dog walker Terry Williams and his parents, which is still being rebuilt after it was destroyed in a fire a year and a half ago, was set on fire early Saturday morning. The home wasn’t damaged in Saturday’s fire, but its exterior was charred.

As SFist reported in May of 2024, Williams wasn’t home when the original fire broke out in the home, but his elderly parents had to be rescued by firefighters. Williams told KTVU his 76-year-old disabled mother Carolyn almost died in the fire. “To me, it's a miracle that they found me. It scares me sometime,” Carolyn told KTVU.

Per the SF Standard, Carolyn died in January 2025, possibly due to health issues that were exacerbated by injuries sustained in the fire.

A few weeks before the May 2024 fire, per SFist, Williams received racist hate mail, including “a voodoo doll depicting a Black person with a noose around his neck, as well as postcards and other mail containing racist and threatening language.”

On November 6, 2024, the San Francisco Police Department identified the person suspected of the racist threats as April Martin Chartrand, a 67-year-old Black artist and Williams’ neighbor who was reported missing on August 23, 2024, per SFist.

“I was shocked,” Williams told KTVU when he heard who the suspect was. “It's a disgrace to Black people and you're an elder.”

Williams recalled that he had confronted Chartrand about five years previously about leaving broken glass in the street out of concern for neighborhood dogs’ paws, which created lingering hostility between the two, per SFist.

“I’m an animal lover. I don’t want any animals getting hurt,” Williams told KQED.

SFPD is still seeking assistance from the public in locating Chartrand, as they obtained a warrant for her arrest. Contact the SFPD at (415) 575-4444 or text TIP411 and begin the message with “SFPD.”

Williams’s family has two GoFundMe accounts, which became the center of a dispute between Williams and his family following Carolyn’s death, per the Standard.

Image: May 2024 house fire; SFFD

• Both houses approved a bill Wednesday that would reverse the new 19% state excise tax rate on cannabis products back to 15%, which took effect in July. The measure was introduced by Assemblymember Matt Haney who says the new hike has impacted sales negatively statewide. [KPIX]
• The Associated Press awarded Golden State Valkyries Coach Natalie Nakase “Coach of the Year” Friday, and Vs guard Veronica Burton received “Most Improved Player.” With Nakase’s guidance, the team has “wildly outperformed expectations” and is the first expansion team in history to make it to the playoffs in its first year. [ESPN]
• Tesla board chair Robyn Denholm is pushing shareholders to approve Elon Musk’s nearly $1 trillion pay package, while critics point to Tesla’s falling sales, shrinking profits, and the flopped Cybertruck. [New York Times]
• Legislators have approved a bill that would ban local, out-of-state, and federal law enforcement officers from wearing face masks, which awaits Newsom’s decision. [NBC Bay Area]

• Here’s a reminder that not too long ago a large number of cities in the Bay Area were once considered sundown towns where Black, Latino, and Asian Americans were strictly allowed to enter for work during daytime hours and then escorted out by police at dusk. [Paralegal_ via Bay Area Alert]

National:

• In some strange news, two Cornell students legally hunted a black bear and brought it back to their dorm to skin and butcher, prompting complaints but no charges. Bears have long been part of Cornell tradition, appearing in school imagery and on fan gear, though not as the official mascot. [NBC News]
• A new study suggests that allergy nasal sprays containing the ingredient azelastine may significantly reduce the risk of contracting COVID-19 and other respiratory infections, though it’s not FDA-approved for that use. [CNN]
• A federal judge in Arizona has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deporting dozens of Guatemalan and Honduran children in U.S. shelters and foster care, extending the order until September 26. [Associated Press]

Video of the Day:

The clowns are yucking — and mucking — things up in front of the SF Immigration Court at 100 Montgomery Street every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. Join them!

Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist

A May 23 TikTok video of a Healdsburg woman hurling a racial epithet at a team of movers racked up millions of views and became a viral “Karen video,” but that woman, who’s since moved out of state, blames the whole thing on being bipolar.

The latest viral “Karen” video comes from the upscale Sonoma County town of Healdsburg. (The video below may not be the original, as many TikTok bottom-feeders have swiped the video and posted it as their own. A KRON4 report from immediately after the incident mentions a cease-and-desist request on the original video, so the original video may have been deleted.)

@jay.a0l “This is what we still face in 2025. Racism isn’t ‘over’ — it’s just behind screens now. #Exposed #StopRacism #SayNoToHate ♬ original sound - Jay Money

Regardless, the fact remains that a white woman confronts a group of movers, angry that apparently their moving truck had been blocking her car. “I live here, I can’t get out of my house! Fuck you,” she yells at them. Upon one Black mover’s reply that “I think a simple ‘Can you move your truck please’ would have sufficed,” the white woman turns around and calls him a s “stupid n*****.”

The video racked up more than two million views, and the woman was outed and tormented online. Her name is Caleigh Buchignani, and now she’s speaking out publicly, and local station KRON4 says she “reached out” to them to give her side of the story. Buchignani has since moved out of state, and dyed her hair purple in an apparent attempt to avoid recognition.

“I’m sorry for what I said. I’m sorry I wanted to hurt you, but it’s not because I’m a horrible person, it’s because I have been struggling recently,” Buchignani told KRON4. “I had to change my number, turn off all social media. I had people calling me, giving me death threats.” She added that she has “Multiple people a day calling me, harassing me, telling me what a horrible person I am. My parents still get phone calls.”

But the mover Keonta Gilmer spoke to KRON4 in their initial report in May. “That being in your vernacular, like you said for it to slip out so fast it just shows it’s common for you,” he told the station. “It wasn’t a slipout, you didn’t feel bad for it. It didn’t take a lot out of you to say it.”

In her own defense, Buchignani insisted she is bipolar, not racist. “I think it is important that people with mental health [issues] are heard,” she told KRON4. “We don’t talk about this in our society. It’s shameful.”

Shameful, indeed. Though to her credit, Buchignani has not started a crowdfunding campaign in defense of her being caught using the N-word on video, as one Minnesota woman did last month. And depressingly, that woman’s crowdfunding campaign has raised more than $675,000.

Related: Alameda County Firefighter Placed on Leave as Racist Confrontation Goes Viral on TikTok [SFist]

Image via TikTok

The PTA at Oakland's Montclair Elementary School is frantically trying to undo the damage, as their new and just-released yearbook contains a pretty outrageous racial slur from a reprinted 1940s-era newspaper clipping.

Montclair Elementary School in Oakland’s Montclair District would seem a pretty racially progressive school. A mural on the front of the school depicts a choir of children singing "Lift Every Voice and Sing," aka the Black National Anthem. That mural also depicts the late Wanda Redman, a Black woman known as “Miss Wanda” who served as the school’s music teacher for more than 20 years.

But there’s clearly some racial anxiety around the Montclair Elementary School community at the moment. KTVU reports that the school’s yearbook was printed and distributed with a racial slur in it, and no one noticed this until all of the yearbooks had already been handed out to students.

How did this happen? The yearbook contains a reprinted clipping from a 1940’s newspaper article from The Montclairian, a weekly neighborhood newspaper that still exists. And that article contained a reference to a carnival game that was colloquially called “n***** babies.”

"The description of the game, once you start Googling it, is horrific," Montclair PTA president Sloane Young told KTVU. We did Google it, and the description is as awful as you would imagine.

But apparently, parents and staff volunteering on the yearbook project simply did not notice the slur. "Unfortunately, they skimmed the first paragraph of that article, and scanned it into the software we use for the yearbook," Young added. "I have a very bold, outspoken eight-year-old, and when she saw it, she said, ‘Mom, why did you allow this to go in the yearbook when you’re Black?’"

The Montclair PTA ordered all new copies of the yearbook. Some fifth graders were allowed to keep their yearbooks because they’d already had their friends sign them, and those students will be given stickers with which to cover up the offensive reference.

Related: Entire Tamalpais High School Football Program Put On Probation Over Racist Incidents [SFist]

Image: Google Street View

The small Temecula Valley Unified School District in Southern California’s Riverside County has made a big deal out of their extremely vague ban on critical race theory, but a state appeals court just ruled that it violates the state Constitution.

We’ve noted in the past that Southern California’s Temecula Valley Unified School District tried to ban a book mentioning Harvey Milk, with a right-wing school board member calling Milk a “pedophile.” That same school board banned critical race theory in 2022, claiming that any examination of the role of race in US history “assigns moral fault to individuals solely on the basis of an individual’s race,” and that “critical race theory assigns generational guilt and racial guilt for conduct and policies that are long in the past.”

But the California Court of Appeals just shot down that ban on critical race theory, according to the Southern California News Group. The court ruled that “The Resolution’s language is ambiguous, lacks clear definitions, is unclear in scope, is seemingly irreconcilable with state-mandated educational requirements, and contains no enforcement guidelines.”

The decision comes after a lawsuit was brought by teachers, parents, and staff who felt the ban was whitewashing history.

“We believe our students deserve access to an honest education that helps them develop the knowledge and skills they need to learn, grow, and thrive,” California Teachers Association president David Goldberg said in a Tuesday statement.

Also, teachers say, they aren't even teaching critical race theory, a term from higher education that scaremongers in right-wing media circles have twisted into a non-existant conspiracy to make white children feel bad about themselves.

Per the News Group, the Temecula school board could still appeal the appellate decision by Tuesday, June 3, to have it heard by a larger panel of judges. They could also drag this thing to the California Supreme Court if they file to do so by late June.

And that may be the ultimate endgame here, as the school board is represented by a law firm whose actual name is Advocates for Faith & Freedom. That law firm claims that it “safeguards the constitutional liberties that define the United States as a beacon of freedom,” though they clearly don’t believe in freedom of speech when it comes to teaching American history.

Related: Two Conservative East Bay School Board Members Who Banned the Pride Flag Get Recalled [SFist]

Image: Wingtipvortex via Wikimedia Commons

One former Fremont Tesla factory employee has received a settlement in a three-year-old lawsuit over alleged racially charged workplace incidents. But there are still more big lawsuits against Tesla looming, including a class-action suit from 16,000 Black workers.

Despite Elon Musk’s currently very unpopular electric car company Tesla having moved its headquarters from the Bay Area to Texas, Tesla still operates a huge factory in the East Bay’s Fremont. (They even say they’re hiring!) Though if you’re job-hunting, understand that Fremont Tesla factory has had a reputation for being an allegedly racist workplace for the better part of ten years, with one recent lawsuit from a Black worker saying her manager would say things like “Welcome to the slave house” and “Welcome to the plantation.”

That worker is Raina Pierce, who sued Tesla in 2022 over racial discrimination in that workplace. In addition to the above claims, she also alleged that her manager discussed not being able to tolerate Black people, that Black workers were not allowed to switch their shifts as easily, and that those who complained faced retaliation from HR. On Monday, the Bay Area News Group reported that Tesla has settled the suit that Pierce brought against them, though the financial terms were secret and not disclosed.

Yet this may just be the beginning of the troubles for Tesla’s Fremont plant, a location whose “Lawsuits and controversies” section on Wikipedia is quite lengthy. The Bay Area News Group has reported on a laundry list of other alleged racial incidents against Black employees there, and in 2022, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) sued Tesla over a rash of these incidents. That lawsuit alleged that Black Tesla employees there saw racist graffiti “including ‘N (word),’ ‘KKK,’ swastikas, the Confederate flag, a white (supremacist) skull, ‘go back to Africa,’ and ‘mayate’ – written on the restroom walls, restroom stalls, lockers, workplace benches, workstations, lunch tables, and the break room.”

But the biggest lawsuit may be a separate 2022 class-action lawsuit against Tesla calling that factory a "hotbed for racist behavior,” and per the News Group, “More than 16,000 current and former Black workers at Tesla have signed on to the lawsuit,” which was originally brough by contractor Marcus Vaughn in 2017.

The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission also sued Tesla in 2023, alleging that Tesla was “tolerating widespread and ongoing racial harassment of its Black employees,” though that lawsuit came before the Elon-friendly Trump took office.  

The Vaughn case, which had been set to go to trial this September, has been pushed to early next January.

Related: State Agency Sues Tesla Over ‘Racially Segregated Workplace’ Where Racial Slurs Are Thrown Around Commonly [SFist]

Image: Tesla

After undisclosed acts of football team racism toward Black members of the team, Tamalpais High School has put the whole football program on probation, and will forfeit all of the team’s remaining games if there’s another incident.

The Marin Independent Journal reported Wednesday morning that the Tamalpais High School football team has been put on probation over racist incidents where players targeted a Black teammate. The incidents are not described in detail in that report, with the Independent Journal merely saying these were “two incidents occurred involving racist speech made toward, and about, a Black teammate.”

But the probation means that if school officials learn of another such incident, they will force the football team to forfeit all of its remaining games.

“I am appalled that this has happened twice on the football team,” Tamalpais Union High School District assistant district superintendent Kelly Lara wote in an October 25 letter to the parents of Tam High football players. “This is unacceptable. It is deeply hurtful to the targeted teammate and to all Black teammates. The ripple of harm is not limited to the Football team; this also hurts the wider Tam High community of Black students, staff, and families.”

District officials note that additional disciplinary action was taken, but did not disclose this for the privacy of the students involved. The district’s superintendent noted that suspension and/or expulsion are options for students violating such codes of conduct.

This comes barely a year after Tamalpais High School was rocked by students widely sharing a video with a racial slur, and a series of apparently racially charged fights on campus that may or may not have been related to that video.  

“The district is charting a path of ‘belonging’ for all students and there is no room to mistreat others based on their racial identity, gender, economic status, or individual preference,” newly elected Tamalpais Union School District school board member Ida Times-Green said in an email to the Independent Journal. “Certainly racist acts should never manifest on educational institutions and especially among organized sports. Organized sports is a time for students to build camaraderie, character, friendships and pride.”

Related: NAACP Holds Meeting With Black Families About Alleged Racist Incidents at SF Public Schools [SFist]

Image: Tamalpais High School via Facebook

A San Francisco woman who was allegedly attacked by a man who she says called her the N-word as he passed her on the street in the Financial District Monday says she no longer feels safe walking on her own in the city. And, meanwhile, Black community leaders held a press conference Thursday to discuss a perceived uptick in anti-Black violence and hate.

Wendy Drew, a native of South Africa who has called San Francisco home for two decades, says she was standing outside Terminus bar on California Street Monday when a man walking his dog called her the N-word. She confronted the passerby, and he then allegedly assaulted her — surveillance video obtained by KTVU shows the attack as the suspect pushed Drew to the ground inside a next-door liquor store, and then began rapidly punching her in the face while she was on the ground, all while his dog stood by barking.

As Drew told KPIX, "This guy looks pretty normal, with this dog, walks by and he calls me the N-word, right? And I was like, excuse me, why are you calling me that? So he comes back and says what? Then he starts pummelling, and just knocks me down."

Drew says she held onto the suspect as she yelled for others to call police, and that she had to fight him off for nearly five minutes.

The suspect was subdued by Drew's boyfriend and other men who had heard the commotion from inside Terminus and come outside, and the man was quickly arrested.

He's been identified as Irvin Alberto Rivera-Lara, 31, and he faces potential charges of assault likely to cause great bodily injury, committing a hate crime, and providing false information to a peace officer. Rivera-Lara reportedly has a record of violence, and was arrested last year on battery charges for relating to an attack on a chef.

Drew, coincidentally, is also a chef, and she appeared on the Netflix series You Are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment. The show explored how changing one's diet can affect one's health in an eight-week period.

Wendy's twin sister tells KPIX and KTVU that she believes the man was out looking for a fight. "When he obviously sees Wendy, he sees a Black woman, and what is the trigger word for Nlack people, the n-word," Pam Drew tells KPIX. "So he's obviously doing things to trigger people's emotions."

"This man does have a rap sheet of violence. So this to me is a person that is walking around looking for trouble," Pam Drew said to KTVU.

When contacted outside her home in the Inner Sunset, Wendy Drew told KTVU, "I’m walking around with my sister [now]. I don’t feel safe. I don’t feel safe at all. I need to have someone next to me."

This random attack took place the same week that local NAACP chapter president the Rev. Amos Brown hosted a press conference at Third Baptist Church to call attention to recent, seemingly racially motivated attacks. Brown held a similar conference in April to discuss a spate of racial incidents at SF public schools.

As Mission Local reported from the event, one focus was on a brutal July incident between a Black woman who was allegedly jaywalking and an SFPD officer. That woman, third-generation San Franciscan Christiana Porter, said at the event, "There is no way I should have been brutalized the way I was for merely walking across the street — in the crosswalk." And, per Mission Local, she said she had never experienced "so much hate" for being a Black person here as she did that day, at the hands of SFPD Officer Josh McFall.

The event also spotlighted some recent racist graffiti at the site of an after-school program called Youth 1st. And the recent, possibly racially motivated arson at the home of Alamo Square dogwalker Terry Williams — who said he had received a racist doll at his home in the weeks prior to the fire.

Police chief Bill Scott and District Attorney Brooke Jenkins were both in attendance at the meeting, and Mission Local reported that a community member addressed Scott directly, saying that the incident involving Porter was "wrong," and saying, "I hope you hold those officers accountable."

"It is imperative that San Francisco and Bay Area law enforcement officials, as well as its citizens, repudiate these activities, find and punish the perpetrators, and take steps to prevent future occurrences," said Brown in a release prior to the event.

An unidentified Alameda County Fire Department officer has been placed on administrative leave after a TikTok video showed him confronting a driver and calling that driver a “dumbass Mexican” who was “going to work some f***ing lawn job.”

As a reminder here in the smartphone era, when you confront someone yelling, “I have a fucking camera, dude,” it is entirely possible that the other person also has a camera, and that you are being recorded. And if you are wearing a shirt that displays who you work for, and their recording racks nearly a million views on TikTok, then you may be in hot water with your employer.

That is precisely what happened over the course of this weekend, as KRON4 reports that an Alamanda County firefighter has been placed on administrative leave over a racist confrontation that was posted to TikTok.

@kttoys2022 #stockton209 #stockton #lodicalifornia #lodi #stocktonfirefighters #mexican #pinoy #khmertiktok🇰🇭 #california ♬ original sound - Vath Touch885

The original TikTok video is seen above, but it went far more viral when picked up by some Los Angeles-based TikTok account that seems to specialize in remixing and promoting “Karen” videos. We see an apparent post-car crash dispute between two drivers who are both acting tough and being confrontational. But one of them, clearly wearing an Alameda County Fire Department t-shirt and identifying himself as a firefighter, calls the other man a “dumbass Mexican,” and later says, “I don’t know what the fuck you are, Filipino?” He alleges that the driver is “going to work some fucking lawn job,” and admonishes, “You're going to be late for your $10-an-hour job, bitch.”

While the unidentified man is an Alameda County firefighter, KTVU notes the crash that spurred the confrontation happened on Highway 99 in Lodi, at Armstrong Road and Harney Lane, sometime Friday morning.

But it was clear by Monday morning that the Alameda County Fire Department had a situation in their hands.

“It has come to our attention that some language was used during this interaction that does not align with the values and standards we uphold as an organization,” Alameda County Fire Department Chief William McDonald sai at the Monday press conference seen above. “What you saw in the video does not in any way reflect our dedication to integrity, professionalism, and community trust.”

Chief McDonald added that the firefighter in question is a 20-year veteran of the department, and expressed that he was “disappointed in himself” over the matter. The department is investigating the incident, and it’s possible the firefighter will be terminated.

Related: Local TV Journalist Suggests Media Should Not Publish Every 'Karen' Video Without Adequate Context [SFist]

Image: TizzyEnt via TikTok

The SFPD has released a surveillance image of a person of interest whom they are seeking for questioning in connection to the racist threats that were left at and mailed to the home of a dog-walker in Alamo Square.

Police had previously indicated they might have a suspect in the case of the threats made against dog-walker and longtime Alamo Square resident Terry Williams, whose family home was then destroyed in a possible arson fire last month. One month prior to the house fire, Williams, who is Black, said he had received a threatening voodoo doll and written racist slurs on his doorstep, and some postcards were mailed to the house featuring threats. At the time, he told Mission Local that he had obtained, with the help of the police, surveillance footage from a neighbor that showed a hood suspect who walked with a slight limp.

The SFPD has now released that video, which is somewhat blurry, as well as a still image of the person they're calling a "person of interest." The video appears to have come from a home on Steiner Street between Fell and Hayes streets, about two blocks from Williams's home on Grove Street near Fillmore.

The person is seen carrying package. Williams tells Mission Local today that he does not recognize the person.

"Investigators are looking to speak with a person who may have information about the case. The SFPD is seeking the public’s assistance in identifying the person," the department said in a statement.

"The San Francisco Police Department does not tolerate racism of any kind," the SFPD adds. "No one should be targeted because of their race, religion, gender, sexual orientation or any other shared characteristic."

The case is being investigated as a hate crime.

There still is no indication that the fire on May 21 was caused by arson, and that investigation is far from complete. Williams's elderly parents, who live in the top floor apartment, were injured in the blaze, one of them seriously, and they required hospitalization.

At the time the fire broke out, Williams was at City Hall meeting with staffers in the mayor's office about the racist threats.

Williams, who grew up in the home on Grove Street, is known as the "Mayor of Alamo Square" and is a frequenter of the dog park on the far side of Alamo Square Park.

He said his father was chilled by the doll and racist postcards, comparing them to the racism he experienced growin up in the South.

There is still an active GoFundMe campaign for the Williams family as they try to recover from the fire and rebuild, which has so far raised $130,000 of a $150,000 goal.

Previously: SFPD Has ‘Possible Suspect’ In Case of Dog Walker Whose Home Burned After Racist Threats

There was a meeting Sunday at Third Baptist Church in San Francisco at which several Black parents spoke about racist incidents their children had suffered at SF public schools.

"What do we do about this school district that's continuing to fail our children?" asked one grandparent, Paulette Brown, per KPIX.

Brown told the assembled group, organized by the NAACP, that her grandson Marcus had been kicked off a play structure at his school and was forced to transfer schools.

"Our children are being left behind," Brown said. "Our grandchildren are being left behind and we're tired of it. We shouldn't have to fight like this."

The Reverend Doctor Amos C. Brown, who is both a pastor at Third Baptist Church and the president of the San Francisco chapter of the NAACP, led the meeting and said that he had received five separate complaints of racist incidents targeting Black students in the last three months alone.

According to KPIX, the meeting included discussion of a potential class-action lawsuit against the San Francisco Unified School District.

Reverend Brown added, per KPIX, "We have lost over 40,000 Black people from this city since 1970 and it's because of subtle and sometimes overt bigotry and racial attacks."

The San Francisco Unified School District has faced multiple claims of racism in recent years — and the debate about racial equity at the merit-based Lowell High School is likely to reignite this week after the release of the racial makeup of the incoming class there. The Class of 2028 at Lowell High is only going to be 1% Black if all 14 of the admitted Black students choose to attend. And it will be only 12.8% Latinx, with the remaining 84% of students in the class split between white and Asian students. In the broader city school population, as the Chronicle reports, Black students make up 7% of the student body, and Latinx students represent 35%.

This has frequently been the case in Lowell High classes, which are majority white and Asian, raising questions about the equity of the merit-based system, which favors students from middle- and upper-income families who have received better elementary school educations.

In 2020, the school board attempted to switch permanently to a lottery system at Lowell, to which parents broadly objected, and the board switched back to the merit-based system after the pandemic.

A newer, mayor-appointed school board member who was in favor of the merit-based system, Ann Hsu, also faced accusations of racial insensitivity in 2022, and she lost her election several months later to a challenger.

Several lawsuits stemming directly from a 2022 mass shooting at a Buffalo, New York grocery store, which contend that social media platforms actively engage and profit from individuals spreading and consuming hate speech with deadly consequences, can move forward, a judge has ruled.

While Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other companies have successfully avoided legal judgments against them over the years when it comes to the consequences of content posted by others on those platforms, a judge in New York thinks she sees a new angle on the issue.

As CNN reports, Erie County Supreme Court Justice Paula Feroleto is allowing suits to move forward that blame Meta, Alphabet, Reddit, and 4chan for helping to radicalize then-18-year-old Payton Gendron to commit the heinous mass shooting he allegedly committed for racist reasons in May 2022.

We learned in the days after the shooting, which took the lives of 10 Black residents of Buffalo who were shopping at a Tops supermarket, that Gendron subscribed to the "white replacement theory" or Great Replacement Theory — the same theory that is all over X to this day, and that Elon Musk sounds very much like he is parroting when he spewed his thoughts on illegal immigration in that Don Lemon interview.

Gendron published a 180-page manifesto spouting his racist and paranoid views, lifting entire sections of it from a manifesto published three years earlier, when Brenton Tarrant killed 50 people at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, live-streaming his crime on Facebook.

Judge Feroleto said in her decision this week that Facebook, YouTube, 4chan, and Reddit all "profit from the racist, antisemitic, and violent material displayed on their platforms to maximize user engagement." And while the companies may consistently say that they bear no legal responsibility for content posted by third parties, and that they function like "message boards," Feroleto sided with the plaintiffs saying, "plaintiffs contend the defendants’ platforms are more than just message boards. They allege they are sophisticated products designed to be addictive to young users and they specifically directed Gendron to further platforms or postings that indoctrinated him with 'white replacement theory'."

As Reuters reports, the 25 plaintiffs in the lawsuits against each company include "store employees and customers who witnessed the May 14, 2022 shooting, and the son of one of those killed."

The Supreme Court ruled last year, in a case stemming from the ISIS terrorist attack in Paris in 2015, that social media platforms were not responsible for content that radicalizes people toward violence. In that decision, the court ruled that neither Twitter nor YouTube was responsible for content that radicalized the Paris shooters — and that ruling would seem to doom this New York prosecution along the same lines.

The decision effectively upheld Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the 1996 law that social media companies have used for two decades now to shield themselves from liability for the content posted by users.

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority in that case, Gonzalez v. Google, saying, "It might be that bad actors like ISIS are able to use platforms like defendants’ for illegal – and sometimes terrible – ends. But the same could be said of cell phones, email, or the internet generally."

Regarding the Buffalo case, YouTube issued a statement saying, "While we disagree with today’s decision and will be appealing, we will continue to work with law enforcement, other platforms, and civil society to share intelligence and best practices."

Reddit also responded, giving CNN this statement: "Hate and violence have no place on Reddit. Our sitewide policies explicitly prohibit content that promotes hate based on identity or vulnerability, as well as content that encourages, glorifies, incites, or calls for violence or physical harm against an individual or group of people. We are constantly evaluating ways to improve our detection and removal of this content, including through enhanced image-hashing systems, and we will continue to review the communities on our platform to ensure they are upholding our rules."

Previously: Supreme Court Hands Big Tech a Big Win In Content Moderation Cases

Top image: Payton Gendron arrives for a hearing at the Erie County Courthouse on May 19, 2022 in Buffalo, New York. Gendron is accused of killing 10 people and wounding another 3 during a shooting at a Tops supermarket on May 14 in Buffalo. The attack was believed to be motivated by racial hatred. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)