Community leaders will meet and call for calm in Chico this morning as bias-related incidents appear on the increase after last week’s election.
Mike O’Brien is chief of police.
“We do not want to see a community that erupts into violence, that has incidents of hate crimes, that type of thing, we want to get out in front of it,” he said.
O’Brien said violence was absent from an anti-Trump rally last week. However, incidents have occurred in the region. A high school student in Redding presented classmates with fake deportation letters. And an African American pedestrian in Chico reported being jeered by someone in blackface from a passing car.
O’Brien said he and other law enforcement entities would not tolerate bias-related incidents.
“I did hear that there are some in the community that were feeling unprotected or feeling vulnerable, feeling fearful and I’d like to get out ahead of that, I don’t like to just sit and let that fester, I’d like to address that and to make a public statement,” O’Brien said.
As far as advice in a confrontation:
“Don’t engage people that are ignorant,” he said. It’s like an old adage we tell our police officers, ‘Don’t argue with a drunk’ I would say, ‘Don’t argue with the bigoted and those that are small minded.’”
The press conference got underway at 9 this morning in the OLD Municipal Building.