LAW ENFORCEMENT CONDUCTS OUTREACH ON HATE CRIMES GEARED TOWARD EL CAJON’S MIDDLE EASTERN AND MUSLIM COMMUNITY
Total Views: 5 By Briana Ghaffery July 18, 2018 (El Cajon)— Sheriff’s Captain Marco Garmo became the victim of a hate crime at a young age, along with his father, who was savagely beaten over a mistaken ethnic identity during a robbery at the Garmo family’s convenience store in El Cajon. At a hate crimes forum in El Cajon on July 17th, sponsored by the San Diego Regional Hate Crimes Coalition and El Cajon Police Department, Captain Garmo told East County Magazine that he hopes to encourage the public to report hate crimes. “The reason why we’re having this out here in the city of El Cajon is that it has the largest influx of refugees and immigrants from the Middle East, and we feel like they need to be educated as to hate crimes,” he said, adding that law enforcement believes hate crimes are under-reported by those who are victimized. Captain Garmo emphasized, “We want them to know that…they have the support of law enforcement as well as the prosecutor’s office. We want to build their trust and the relationship with them, so they call us.” Garmo’s jurisdiction includes unincorporated areas of El Cajon such as Rancho San Diego, as well as other areas such as Jamul, the City of Lemon Grove, and unincorporated La Mesa. Approximately 50 community members attended the community forum on hate crimes that took place Tuesday at El Cajon’s new police department seminar room at 100 Civic Center Drive. The hate forum was hosted as a collaborative event between the San Diego Hate Crimes Coalition and the El Cajon Police Department and was oriented toward the Middle Eastern and Muslim community. El Cajon hosts the second-largest number of immigrants from the Iraqi Diaspora and is also home to a new influx of Iraqi and Syrian refugees who are resettling in the United States. In fact, the Union Tribune reported that 10,000 Syrian refugees had come to the U.S. as of 2016, under the Obama administration. Refugee number 10,000 settled in El Cajon. Hundreds of Syrian refugee families have settled in East County. “The East County Hate Crimes Forum was an important way to convey law enforcement’s strong commitment to prosecuting heinous hate crimes,” said U.S. Attorney Adam Braverman in a written statement. Captain Garmo’s area hasn’t had a significant number of hate crimes although he does have significant immigrant and minority populations. There is a large Iraqi population in the unincorporated community of Rancho San Diego, a 40 percent Hispanic population in neighboring Spring Valley, and a 12 percent African American population also in Spring Valley. Garmo believes the low number of reported hate crimes may be due to victims not coming forward. “The reason why we are hosting this forum out here today is because we feel there are incidents occurring, but they’re underreported,” said Garmo. This may be due to both fear of law enforcement and language barriers. There are three Arabic speakers at the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, and one officer who speaks both Arabic and Chaldean at the El Cajon Police Department. Although there is representation, the numbers seem a bit low given the Arabic-speaking populations in these communities. “It’s difficult to recruit from the community,” said Garmo, “part of the same problem that we’re having with them reporting crime; law enforcement isn’t a job that’s well looked-at as a career in those countries, either, so we have to get over that barrier…We do have translators and we do a lot of community outreach in the Middle Eastern community.” Garmo himself hails from a Middle Eastern background – his father is a Chaldean Iraqi and his mother is an Israeli of Palestinian origin. He was a victim of a hate crime at the age of 12 when two men broke into his father’s small convenience store, beat his father, robbed them and cursed his father as being an “effing Iranian.” This occurred during the Iranian hostage situation when there was backlash against the Iranian community. In addition to their inexcusable violent behavior, the attackers were also grossly misinformed about their target. Garmo’s personal experience led him to support community initiatives to combat hate crimes among people of all nations and backgrounds. New statues against hate crimes are also extended to include specific ethnicities, explained Assistant U.S. Attorney, Christopher Tenorio, who also differentiated the difference between threats and free speech. “There has to be an intent to cause some kind of harm, other than psychological,” said Tenorio later adding, “It’s not quite clear always what is protected speech and what’s not.” He then proceeded to give the audience examples of ambiguous issues that may or may not be considered free speech, such as swastikas drawn on a garage. “If this is a Jewish family, most likely this is a hate crime,” said Tenorio. The meeting was interrupted by an unknown woman, who barged into the session demanding that the forum offer accurate representation for all groups who are victims of hate crimes instead of focusing on just one. The woman, who arrived late and immediately interrupted the forum, neglected to hear the portions which focused on LGBTQ+ hate crimes and hate crimes and threats against Caucasians. Although she was told to save her questions for the end of the forum, she continued to interrupt the speakers at the podium with an irate tone of voice. “Excuse me, for many of these refugees, this is their first time in a police station,” interjected Dilkhwaz Ahmed, founder of the non-profit organization, License to Freedom which focuses on the rights of domestic violence victims and general issues pertaining to the local Middle Eastern community. Ahmed was attending the event as an Arabic translator for approximately half of the audience, in an effort to provide awareness of their rights in the United States and how to report a hate crime. Among the 50 attendees, approximately 25 were recently arrived refugees who had limited English. Many wore hijabs, or head scarves, reflective
ESTELA DE LOS RIOS: AN ADVOCATE FOR HER COMMUNITY
Total Views: 31 Human rights leader is an organizer of hate crimes forum July 17 in El Cajon By Mimi Pollack July 14, 2018 (El Cajon) — As the executive director of CSA-Center for Social Advocates, Estela de los Rios cares about the well-being of the community. She also has a strong sense of justice, which she developed at an early age. As a human rights activist, she strives to make the world a better place and doesn’t want others to feel the pain of discrimination, something she herself has faced in her life. CSA is a place where people can come and voice their concerns. It is made up of six agencies that provide community services to East County, including fair housing, immigrant and refugee rights, civic engagement, hate crimes, and human trafficking. It is a place that in her words, “embraces newcomers and community.” Growing up in rural Brawley, California, de los Rios went to a mostly white elementary school where she was taunted for being Mexican. Recalling her past still brings tears to her eyes as she explained how those taunts made her feel like she didn’t belong and that she was nothing as a Mexican. Then in the 10th grade, she had an epiphany while studying about Rosa Parks. She realized that like Parks, she had to do something to make change happen. Both these incidents shaped her into the person she is today: She feels passionately about fighting for the rights of others and making a difference in other people’s lives through her work at CSA. De los Rios was born in Tepic, Nayarit. When she was five, she moved to Yuma, Arizona with her mom who worked as a housekeeper there. They later moved to Brawley, where she finished high school, and enrolled in Imperial Valley College to study psychology. She later switched to sociology because she felt she could do more for society. She went on to graduate from SDSU with a degree in sociology. After college, she first worked in Imperial County as a supervisor in the probation department in El Centro. She married and moved with her husband to San Jose. While living there, she worked for the Santa Clara Housing Authority. However, her marriage was troubled and after a divorce, she moved to San Diego/El Cajon where she met her second husband and the father of her three children, all girls. Her second husband worked in El Cajon as a cabinet maker. They stayed together until his death in 2006. Today de los Rios stil lives in El Cajon with her children and grandchildren nearby, but since most of her time is spent working at CSA that is really like her second home. When she first arrived in El Cajon, she worked as a legal assistant with an attorney whose specialty was inmates’ rights. She also began to volunteer at Heartland Human Relations and Fair Housing which later became CSA. This volunteering led to a part-time job and finally a full-time job as a fair housing counselor and human rights director. She dealt with all the issues Latinos faced in the East County in the 1980s when the demographics were mostly white and racism more overt. At that point, even de los Rios thought about moving, especially after her daughter faced verbal abuse and prejudice in high school. However, they stayed put and this strengthened her resolve to fight even more for human rights and against hate. Her first case as a fair housing counselor was with a Mexican family whose new landlord wanted them to move after he took over from their previous landlord. She helped them by gathering evidence; they won their case in court and were compensated by DFEH, a government agency that works with the federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) department. This made her feel proud and she wanted to do more to help others in similar situations, especially as demographics were changing and more Latinos were moving to El Cajon. Together with Pedro Rios, they began to give human rights classes. Her agency also started doing more advocacy for all immigrants as many Middle Easterners were also moving to El Cajon, especially from Iraq. Today as executive director of CSA, de los Rios has realized that collaborating with other agencies is a powerful tool to fight for the rights of others. She also works closely with License to Freedom, an advocacy group for Middle Easterners, among other organizations. She is well known and respected. Although close to the age when most people retire, she is still going full steam. She feels she needs to continue her work, especially in today’s world and all that is going on. In fact she has been asked about runing for El Cajon City Council seat in 2020 and is seriously considering saying “yes.” For now, she is focusing her efforts on more immediate actions. There will be a “Stop the Hate” rally on July 17th from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. This will be a free forum at the El Cajon Police Department. She feels she needs to take a leadership position to ensure the ongoing animosity against immigrants and refugees ceases. She wants to shift the negative into positive and change the rhetoric in the communities in East County and San Diego. Printer-friendly version