Compassion Must Not Enable Crimes Against Women and Downtown Businesses
January 18, 2025
By Heather Caswell and Jonathan Greenberg
Commentary
January 18, 2025
Since writing my December 18 Enterprise column about the public safety crisis in downtown Davis, I have heard feedback from dozens of my customers, most of them older women.
Some, like former Assembly Member Helen Thomson, asked how they could support the effort. Many thanked me for paying attention. Nearly all of them told me that they now feel unsafe in downtown Davis for the first time in their lives.
Who are we, as a community, when we cannot protect our most vulnerable members? After decades of progress in curtailing violence against women, how is it that our legal system today tolerates mentally unstable younger men menacing women, children and the elderly with violent threats, week after week, with no consequences?
We need to reclaim Davis’ public spaces, businesses and restaurants as safe places for ALL of us.
My customer Jana Tutan is a lifelong Davis resident and a 73 year old attorney retired from the California State Attorney General's office. Today she told me that she and her friends now go out to eat in Woodland to avoid the insecurity they feel as seniors in downtown Davis.
Jana went to UC Davis Law School in the 1970’s, and has been committed to civil rights her whole career. “I never thought a time would come when I would feel unsafe in downtown Davis in broad daylight. It’s a balancing act. Our rights have been short changed in favor of extending every possible accommodation to a small group of potentially dangerous men.”
Some friends talk to me about the need for more compassion, not prosecution, of criminals who are repeat offenders and homeless. But compassion for the most vulnerable people in our community is important too. Compassion for those who have lived here their whole lives, who deserve the right to enjoy our community without fear of being menaced in public spaces. My heart breaks when I hear of parents who are afraid to take their children downtown.
My husband Jonathan and I have been talking to community leaders about developing an empowering new information network system that could be used by business owners to help prosecute repeat offending criminals.
This repeat offender information network would provide participating businesses with access to names and past arrest records of repeat offenders, with photos taken from security videos of businesses where they committed crimes.
Businesses would also have easier access to public information about past arrest records and incident reports. For instance, months after a mentally unstable man threatened my life twice and walked away without a criminal charge, I learned that he had already been arrested 26 times in Yolo County, including for aggravated assault. Why should our businesses not have this kind of information BEFORE deciding whether or not to file a restraining order or prosecute?
The Davis Police Department currently has a list of the top 10 to 20 repeat criminal offenders who are responsible for a majority of terrorizing threats and actions downtown. But because sharing this information with a business might be seen by a court as unduly influencing a complaint, police are unable to share this important information with businesses when responding to an incident.
As a result, every time a business owner has their life threatened by a mentally disturbed or drug addicted person, the police respond to their complaint as an isolated misdemeanor offense, without providing us with knowledge of who the offender is or how violent their past might be. Even when the police arrive in time to remove the person for criminal behavior, they simply get them to move on, or “catch and release” them so they are free to menace other people the next day. Because businesses are left unaware of the history of a repeat criminal offender, and because of the likelihood of catch and release, they often feel unmotivated to invest the significant time needed to aggressively prosecute them.
This is why we need a business association, not a government entity, to host and administer a transformative solution that can inform to empower Davis businesses with actionable intelligence. The 400-plus member Downtown Davis Business Association, with additional funding from the city, is clearly the best organization to facilitate this network.
This week, Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig read and expressed his support for the creation of a DDBA-based Safety Empowerment Network that we describe above. “I think any business association that is able to improve information sharing with each other AND police as described would be very helpful,” D.A. Reisig explained. “Our success in policing and prosecution would absolutely be enhanced by better information sharing among businesses/retailers on prolific offenders."
I am now running for the Board of the Downtown Davis Business Association so that I can reverse a December 12 decision of the existing DDBA Board to avoid taking an active role in public safety.
On Thursday, January 23, the DDBA will hold its annual board election at 5:30 at the Natsoulus Gallery, 521 1st Street. I am urging downtown business owners to vote for me, and Ezra Beeman, founder of the Davis consulting firm Energeia.
"Unfortunately, violence, and threats of violence have become a daily reality for those of us that work or live close to the downtown,” Ezra says. ”I have two young girls, one of whom will not walk anywhere in the area without me. In discussions with downtown business owners, they have relayed stories of being threatened and assaulted, and I have witnessed threatening behavior myself. The situation is why I have decided to run for the Board of the DDBA, to support its becoming part of an improved public safety solution."
Ezra and I will be running against two existing board members, Randii McNear and Kevin Duncan, who, during a December 12 meeting, opposed the organization taking any active role in downtown safety.
If you are one of the 400-plus member businesses of the DDBA, I ask that you, or any employee you designate, turn out for the board election.
And if you are one of the thousands of loyal customers who help downtown businesses like mine thrive, I encourage you to talk to the business owners you know and request that they show up at the January 23 DDBA election to help make Davis safer for everyone.
Heather Caswell is owner of the longest running woman’s business in downtown Davis, the Wardrobe. Jonathan Greenberg is a journalist and founder of Progressive Source Communications.
I read the article in the December Enterprise.
Regarding your plan, is there a similar example from another municipality in California, with both successes and failures in establishment, and the same in implementation....?
Posted by: Todd Edelman | January 18, 2025 at 04:45 PM
I applaud your efforts, along with Ezra. I cannot believe that some DDBA Board members don't think public safety should be part of the group's mission. An older female friend of ours was attacked and badly beaten in downtown Davis several years ago, and still suffers the aftereffects. Other people just walked by and did nothing as she was laying on the sidewalk and being bludgeoned. The police later said that the assailant was well known to Davis PD. I suspect she visits downtown less often now.
I'm older as well (nearing 74 but still in good shape), yet I nonetheless am always vigilant about my surroundings when downtown. This includes many trips downtown by bike for banking, grocery shopping and picking up deliveries at PDQ. I see many other older Davis residents doing downtown errands by bike. There may be few alternatives for them if downtown safety continues to deteriorate.
Posted by: Greg Rowe | January 18, 2025 at 05:42 PM
Davis' Council has known about the (drug-addict/criminal/mentally-ill) 'homeless' issue along our drainage ditches, bike paths, railroad tracks, parks, downtown, etc. (I know because I shovel it into their faces every chance I get), yet they only finally did *something* when the business community downtown started complained when the 'new homeless' population exploded in the fall of 2024 due to other cities clearing encampments and threats to Davis businesses and customers skyrocketed. This article is spot on - but only because Ezra is quoted regarding his daughter's concerns about going out is it made clear another truth: *many neighborhoods are also heavily impacted by the so-called 'homeless'* -- most definitely Old East Davis and Huntwood and Davis Manor -- due to their close proximity to the 'Respite Center' and Downtown.
This has to stop, and it will :-|
Because Alan Miller says so. And it all starts when the gaslighting stops, the suicidal compassion stops, and the mean mean enforcement begins.
Posted by: Alan C. Miller | January 18, 2025 at 06:40 PM
I'll never understand why cities let themselves go to Hell because of the supposed rights of a few vagrants.
Posted by: Keith | January 18, 2025 at 09:01 PM
Stop voting for democrats.
Posted by: Beth Bourne | January 18, 2025 at 10:58 PM