The New Year’s Baby is a tradition that goes all the way back to ancient Egypt, though many of us probably associate it with more recent iterations, such as JC Leyendecker’s vintage covers for the Saturday Evening Post stacked at the antiques store alongside plaster busts of Dionysus, who was symbolically reborn on Jan. 1, bringing fertility for the year ahead.
While hailing Dionysus and philosophizing with a hammer, Nietzsche said that in order to be a creator one must first be a destroyer. And so, armed with New Year’s resolutions and determination to bring forth our stronger and wiser selves, let’s look at what is meant by “ego death,” a common term in spiritual circles.
The process of awakening follows a familiar pattern. We find ourselves in a crisis for which our conventional personality cannot find a solution, because it does not operate in four dimensions. But in this dark night of the soul a glimmer of light appears, the divine spark greater than the troubled ego.
We can experience this in a Pure Consciousness Event, typically triggered by a really bad day with much weeping. When the suffering ego exhausts itself, a rainbow appears through the tears. Staring at the ceiling, or with one’s face buried in a pillow, we suddenly realize we’re alert, wide awake even, but at a level beyond name and form. What happened to that miserable person we were just a few minutes ago? We have now passed through the first gate, and possess an entirely new perspective on what is meant by the word “me.”
In Christianity, this process is called making room for God, while Hinduism might say it’s the realization of the unity of atman, or soul, and braman, or spirit. Alchemists would call it the Great Work, astrologers the realization of the natal chart and Jungian psychologists the relocation of the center of gravity in the personality from the ego to the Self, which includes the shadow and contrasexual dimension, which is called the anima for males and the animus for females.
Bidding farewell to one’s outgrown ego is less an event and more a process. It is a long journey, filled with growing pains and confusion. Consciousness must come to know that many more things comprise the personality than previously imagined, including a flaming energy source at the heart that one intuitively feels comes from somewhere else.
We’ll examine more of the rebirth process in this column throughout January, as we valiantly vow to have a Happy New Year, no matter what life sends our way.
Marin County District Attorney Lori Frugoli announced last week that she won’t file charges against photojournalist Jeremy Portje, but documents reveal a disturbing narrative about the logic Sausalito police used to seize Portje’s equipment and obtain a search warrant to electronically rummage through his camera, memory cards and cell phone.
Furthermore, due to conflicting statements from the DA and the police, it remains unclear whether law enforcement officials actually searched Portje’s equipment. Media coverage and letters from advocates drew attention to the legal protections Portje receives as a journalist working on a documentary about homelessness. State and federal laws prohibit the use of a search warrant to acquire a journalist’s unpublished materials.
Frugoli seems to be distancing herself from the legal concerns raised in the wake of the arrest. For instance, Frugoli’s public statement did not acknowledge Portje’s status as a journalist, instead referring to him as “a man” who the Sausalito Police Department said “injured one of its officers with a video camera.” To explain why she wasn’t pushing the case forward, Frugoli simply stated that the burden of proof necessary to make a case was not met.
Two witnesses told the Pacific Sun that Sgt. Thomas Georges pulled on Portje’s camera, accidentally hitting himself in the face with the equipment. Georges reacted by punching Portje and placing him under arrest, according to the eyewitnesses.
The police affidavit, a sworn statement used to establish probable cause for a search warrant, tells a different story, which began on Nov. 30, when Portje, 43, was arrested while he filmed police at Marinship Park, the site of a city-sanctioned homeless encampment.
In written accounts included in the affidavit, police allege Portje intentionally hit Sgt. Thomas Georges in the face with a camera during a confrontation. When trying to control Portje, Georges grabbed Portje’s head, hair and torso. Two other officers assisted Georges in arresting Portje and seizing his equipment as evidence. Later that evening, Portje was booked into the Marin County Jail on suspicion of two misdemeanor counts of battery on a peace officer and a felony count for obstructing an executive officer.
The affidavit claims Portje isn’t a “true, objective journalist,” seemingly in an effort to skirt the California journalist shield laws. Interestingly, Nick White, the officer who doesn’t consider Portje a “true” journalist, is on the DA’s Brady list, which is the prosecutor’s watch list of officers with credibility issues.
The document also alleges Portje conspired with others “to instigate a conflict with officers” at Marinship Park on Nov. 30, merely because “Portje was talking on his phone during the incident and while filming.”
David Snyder, an attorney and executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, a press freedom advocacy group, sent Sausalito Police Chief John Rohrbacher and Frugoli a letter on Dec. 7 stating that federal and state laws prohibit the use of search warrants to obtain journalists’ unpublished materials.
Despite Snyder’s warning, two days later, a Sausalito police detective presented the affidavit to Marin County Judge Mark Talamantes to request a search warrant for Portje’s equipment.
“I will say that our detective’s affidavit for a search warrant was reviewed by the District Attorney’s Office and signed by a Marin County Judge,” Rohrbacher wrote in an email to the Pacific Sun on Dec. 17.
Frugoli declined to comment on whether someone from her office reviewed the affidavit prior to submitting it to the judge.
Indeed, Talamantes issued the search warrant. Portje was informed about it in a Dec. 13 letter from the detective, which declared Portje’s devices had been searched by peace officers of the Sausalito Police Department.
Screenshot from video by Emilio Pineda.
On Friday, Dec. 17, Frugoli canceled Portje’s arraignment scheduled for the following Monday. According to Charles Dresow, Portje’s attorney, Frugoli said the delay was due to a pending investigation.
Dresow sent a letter to Frugoli on Dec. 20 to inform her that he was seeking a court order to quash, or void, the search warrant. The materials listed in the search warrant are protected under state and federal laws, as well as the U.S. Constitution and the California Constitution, Dresow stated in the letter.
The following day, Frugoli responded that the evidence had not been reviewed and that no action regarding the evidence will be taken until further notice from her office. Attached to Frugoli’s letter was a memo from an investigator at the Northern California Computer Crimes Task Force indicating the contents of the cell phone had been downloaded onto his computer, though no one had viewed the data from any of Portje’s devices.
On Dec. 28, one day after returning to the office from a holiday break, Frugoli issued a public statement that she would not file charges against Portje. Chief Rohrbacher, disagreeing with the DA’s decision, issued a statement of his own.
“I am disappointed to learn that the Marin County District Attorney has decided not to file charges against a man accused of striking a police officer with his camera,” Rohrbacher said. “I am concerned that the DA’s decision will encourage the continuing aggressive behavior of Jeremy Portje toward police.”
In a follow-up email, Rohrbacher told the Pacific Sun that none of his officers viewed any data from Portje’s devices, despite the statement in the detective’s letter. The video from the body cameras worn by the officers during the confrontation and arrest will not be released by the police department, Rohrbacher said.
Oddly, Rohrbacher also indicated the search warrant had never been executed, which is strongly disputed by Dresow and Snyder from the First Amendment Coalition. Once the data from the cell phone was downloaded into an investigator’s computer, the search warrant was executed, the attorneys said.
The motion to quash the search warrant was heard on Dec. 29 to ensure that Portje’s equipment would be returned as soon as possible. During the hearing, it was agreed that Sausalito’s in-house counsel and Dresow would draft a stipulation for Judge Geoffrey Howard to sign, ordering the return of Portje’s equipment. Barring any roadblocks, that should be the end of Portje’s criminal case.
It took exactly four weeks from Portje’s arrest until the DA announced no charges would be filed. Portje could be considered lucky, as the DA can take up to three years to file charges in a felony case. But those 28 days created havoc in Portje’s life, and though he’s been cleared of all wrongdoing, the ordeal still isn’t over, according to Dresow. Portje isn’t able to work without his equipment. Even worse, Portje has received threats on social media. Dresow points to Rohrbacher’s statements as part of the problem.
“The tone and content of the Chief’s statement fails to recognize that Mr. Portje is innocent of the allegations against him,” Dresow said. “The Chief’s reckless comments are not supported by fact. The framing of a journalist as someone who behaves aggressively towards law enforcement provides encouragement to those who are hostile to Jeremy and have threatened him and his family. If the Chief falsely claims that the warrant wasn’t executed, when his own detective swore under penalty of perjury that it was, how can he be trusted as to any fact related to the case? A reckless disregard for the truth exists in both [the] Chief’s statements and the warrant affidavit.”
Dresow remains mum on whether Portje will file a civil lawsuit against the City of Sausalito for violating his civil rights. San Francisco settled a similar case involving a journalist for $369,000 in 2020. Somehow, this doesn’t seem like the end of Portje’s story.
Orin Carpenter’s paintings are active and vocal. Color in motion, pulling the viewer like waves in a sea. Faces, teeth, eyes and fists appear within the undulations of color, like ships.
Carpenter’s solo exhibition, Bridges and Walls, the culmination of his year-long residency with MarinMOCA, sends the viewer quickly and deeply into the circumstances of human connect—and disconnect.
Bridges and Walls investigates the places where we build bridges between one another, and the places where we build walls instead. In this particularly divisive time in human history, fraught with diseases of the body, mind and planet, the choice to build a bridge instead of a wall becomes more and more challenging to make, and the more walls we build, the harder still it becomes to bridge them.
When the exhibition opened in November, Carpenter wrote a blog post about his process producing these pieces, saying: “My work does not depend on the surface or outer layer being meticulously exact and perfect. The surface, needs to reflect the growth, turmoil, changes or metamorphosis happening on the inside. A bridge, if you will, to myself—my heart and soul.”
This willingness to express the turmoil of metamorphosis—the painful, fraught nature of change and of being alive, is what makes bridge-building possible. Too often we seek perfection, or a good feeling, the sense that what we are doing will be easy, easily accepted, complete. Life is not this way. Change is active, dynamic and difficult. Bridges require balance, collaboration and faith.
Time and strength go into the expression required to maintain connection, and there is no guarantee that choosing to engage with reality will feel good—often it doesn’t. But the alternative is worse still: Not expressing, not creating, not inviting ourselves and our vivid imaginations into the circumstances of our lives is like not living at all; meanwhile, we can never really separate from the nature of our shared lives, full, at this moment, of so much sickness and death.
As an artist of color, Orin Carpenter uses this bridging of his imagination with reality to invite the viewer into an understanding of his experience, offering them the opportunity to build a bridge from their own point of understanding into his. Connecting the viewer to his journey without the need for perfection is an exceptional example of bridge building, full of courage and a willingness to endure the struggle of connecting with life.
From his first moments painting as a young child to escape the pain of racism to now, Carpenter has created a connection between himself and the outside world, using creativity and color to communicate his power, pain and perspective. Accepting the imperfections of reality—and building a bridge to it regardless—is an act of courage and faith that inspires. Let Carpenter’s work be an inspiration to build bridges and not walls. Bridges and Walls is on display at MarinMOCA through Jan. 30, 2022. Admission is free to the public. For more information visit marinmoca.org.
North Bay-native Mo Mandel is a comedian and actor who’s been seen on TV shows including Conan, Chelsea Lately and 2 Broke Girls. This week, he’ll be onstage, delivering standup at two shows. First, Mandel gets funny at a show hosted by Barrel Proof Comedy on Thursday, Dec. 30, at Sally Tomatoes (1100 Valley House Dr., Rohnert Park. 7pm. $15–$45. barrelproofcomedy.com). Then, Mandel headlines the annual “Best of the San Francisco Stand-Up Comedy Competition” showcase on Friday, Dec. 31, at Marin Center (10 Avenue of the Flags, San Rafael. 9pm. $25–$58. marincenter.org). Covid mandates apply.
North Bay
Walk It Off
One popular way to welcome in the new year is with a First Day Hike at one of the North Bay’s parks. These hikes include a New Year’s Day Hike of Mount St. Helena, in Napa Valley, on Saturday, Jan. 1 at 9am (napaoutdoors.org). Additional hikes are offered at Jack London State Park (jacklondonpark.com) and Sugarloaf Ridge State Park (sugarloafpark.org) in Sonoma Valley, both on Jan. 1 at 10am. The Stewards of the Coast & Redwoods leads four walks among the Armstrong Redwoods on Jan. 1, 10am to 1pm (stewardscr.org). Friends of Mt. Tam offers a hike of Mount Tamalpais State Park on Sunday, Jan. 2, at 9am (friendsofmttam.org). Covid mandates apply.
Healdsburg
New Year Jazz
Featuring the region’s best players performing an eclectic mix of jazz with diverse influences, Hotel Healdsburg’s Jazz Music Series rolls into 2022 with an intimate concert outdoors at the Fireside Lounge at the hotel’s Spirit Bar on New Year’s Day. Curated by local arts ambassadors Healdsburg Jazz, the weekly series presents a performance by the Neil Fontano Trio; fronted by pianist Neil Fontano and including Trevor Kinsel on bass and Ian Scherer on guitar. The trio plays a blend of jazz and Harlem swing on Saturday, Jan. 1, at 25 Matheson St., Healdsburg. 5pm. Free. healdsburgjazz.org/hotelhealdsburg.com. Covid mandates apply.
Napa
Grand Return
After a 22-month hiatus due to the pandemic, Napa’s acclaimed Jarvis Conservatory relaunches the monthly concert series, “It’s a Grand Night for Singing,” with a concert on New Year’s Day. The longest-running show in the Napa Valley returns to the conservatory’s jewel box theater for it’s 25th season, which will also see the musical torch passing from longtime host Richard Evans to newly-named Resident Music Director Frank Johnson. Hear popular Bay Area vocalists and up-and-coming talent at the monthly singing series, opening on Saturday, Jan. 1, at 1711 Main St., Napa. 7pm. $20. Jarvisconservatory.com. Covid mandates apply.
Matt Metzler’s letter (“Historical Accuracy,” Letters to the Editor, Dec. 22) about naive exhibits at Mission Sonoma State Park, like much recent scholarship, attempts to blame genocide upon the Spanish Viceroyalty and Mexican, Catholic missions.
However the cultural violence of Christianity affected the Native Californians, a firm study of the well-researched life of Chief Marin shows the missions as both a refuge from settler violence and an education in adapting to new technologies such as steel, firearms, the written language and horses. Spanish-era documents show a self-criticism of their failings, and renewed legal rights—such as voting and owning property—for the Indians. Chief Marin was an elected alcalde in both Mission Dolores and Mission San Rafael Arcangel.
All of these rights were removed by the new State of California, in 18 of the 24 paragraphs of the 1850 State of the State address to the California legislature by our first governor. These paragraphs deal solely with the need to make a war of complete annihilation against the Native Californians.
Therefore, we have to look at the actual intentional attempted genocide, by American settlers of the Golden State, with government bounties, and not fall into the trope of “Black Legend” anti-Catholic scapegoating.
Neil Hammari
Marin City
DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS: Last week’s Bohemian/Pacific Sun news article (“Mouse Management,” Dec. 22) incorrectly stated that the approved plan includes dropping 2,880 pounds of poison on the Farallon Islands. That figure should have referred to the weight of the poison-laced pellets, not pure poison.
In addition, last week’s feature story (“Countdown to the Countdown,” Dec. 22) about New Year’s Eve events failed to emphasize that all in-person gatherings will follow Covid-related safety and health protocols, including requiring proof of vaccination or negative Covid tests, and requiring face coverings indoors.
I thought for a while about this week’s “Look.” With 2022 around the corner bringing us to two full years of overt strange, and last week devoted to sequins and metallics to keep spirits shining, this one needed something extra.
I sat contemplating fashion for a while, and the image flashed into my mind of me as a little girl, wearing a long, pearl-colored slip on my head.
As a little girl I had a rebellious relationship with scissors—resulting in generally very short hair and precarious bangs. I also had a deep love of dressing up and a sense that glamour and long hair were deeply associated. There was a mood, a character, I felt I couldn’t really access without a mane of hair to gracefully draw over one shoulder and stroke.
I found a solution in my mother’s slips, which more often than not went unused—the late ’90s rendered the slip largely irrelevant, except to young children playing dress up. I would wrap and secure the elastic waistline around my head, letting the fabric hang down my back, or else if I was going for casual chic, I would secure it in a scrunchie.
Dress up was a huge part of my childhood—not long after my slip-wearing, hair-cutting days ended I began to experiment with shirt-cropping, fringe-cutting, power-clashing and so on. There was a year in middle school where I recall going to Six Flags with upwards of 16 rings on my fingers, all of which had to be removed when I went through security.
My childhood fashion sense—free, curious and inimitable—was influenced by movies like Auntie Mame and pictures of Greek gods and goddesses. I was fearless in my experimentation and proud of my combinations.
Now, as an adult woman who studies fashion from an artistic and an anthropological standpoint, I find incredible benefit in returning to the mindframe of that fearless, creative little girl in her mother’s slip. It reinforces my sense of courage in creativity without boundaries.
As 2022’s sun rises in the sky and a new year breaks, I look back on those first few hilarious outfits and take inspiration from the open-minded, free-thinking dresser I once was. Now is a time when creativity without boundaries is needed, in fashion and in everyday life. This is a great moment to let the inner kid offer some refreshing direction.
To this end, I’m calling on all the fashion heads out there who started early. From Wednesday Dec. 29 through Wednesday Jan. 5 post your wildest childhood fashion photos to your instagram story, tagging @pacificsunweekly or @northbaybohemian and using #firstlook. We will feature you on our socials, and the winner will get a special shout out in next week’s “Look.”
Looking good, everyone.
Love,
Jane Jane Vick is a painter, writer and journalist who has spent time in Europe, New York and New Mexico. She is currently based in Sonoma County. View her work at janevick.com.
Remember playing this childhood game with friends?
A small group of boys and girls would get together and designate one person as IT—and then scatter to see how long they could avoid being tagged—but once caught it would be their turn to be IT. As a child, there was much joy and laughter involved in the activity. It was also a game that was discarded for more interesting challenges.
The boys and girls from both sides of the aisles in Congress seem to have rekindled the flames of this game … calling out the opposition party, as well as specific members on each side … to be IT. It has become an underlying tactic of calling out and attacking when disagreements occur in seeking solutions to critical questions that face our nation.
This continued childish behavior, by “adults,” has resulted in yet another supply chain issue—not from lack of goods or employment—but of goodwill and compromise. It has created a stagnation and build-up of toxins that continues to erode the foundations of trust in our basic institutions of governance and towards each other. It is trickling down and poisoning the psychic soils of both our urban and rural populations. The result will be a bitter harvest of anger and blame—everyone will be IT. If we cannot learn that we all must sacrifice, then this game is really over and the clock—truly—has run out!
Maybe, those “enlightened leaders” we have elected to serve at the will of the people should end this game now. After all, even the children knew when the game was over and it was time to move on.
Perhaps we can suggest to those “so-called statesmen and women,” another game—one that might be more challenging, for their young minds, based on common sense and logic—and not emotion—to solve the crimes that are being committed against the nation. Hey boys and girls … how about a fun game of Clue?
These internal emails between “Bohemian” and “Pacific Sun” Editor Daedalus Howell and copy editor and writer Mark Fernquest were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. They are presented here, including redactions purportedly made in the interest of national security, in their entirety. We present them here in the interest of fostering a transparent and open news-gathering process.
Hey, Mark—I need a Gen X gut check here. As the elders of the editorial team we have undoubtedly accrued the knowledge necessary to know whether or not something is going to fly over the heads of our readers, right? First off, as you know, I never aim that high—so why is it that every time I attempt to publish a column with a John Hughes film reference—“Breakfast Clubbing: The Up-All-Night Guide to Dining and Dashing in the Early AM” or “Daedalus Howell’s Day Off: In Which Our Hero Ditches Work, Lip Syncs the Beatles and Gets Up Close and Personal With a Seurat Before Trashing a Classic Car,” you “copy edit” the headline to a truncated shadow of my original? “Scone Zone?” That has none of the David Foster Wallace-ian zeal of my original breakfast piece headline. “Work From Home” completely misses the point of my eponymous day off. What’s the deal man? Is [REDACTED] once again threatened by my genius? Please inform. —Your Editor.
My Good Man—Proud ’68er here, as you know, wot. First lesson of the trade: Less is more. Less is always more. But also, regarding my continued egregious butchery of your insufferably gregarious headlines: We’re appealing to a multigenerational readership at this establishment, lad, not just our personal flocks of doddering groupies. Bridging the gap between “I love your sardonic sense of literary humor, you big, barrel-chested bucket of dry laughs!” and “ROFL,” as it were. I’ve been granted full command to wield the sword of grammatical propriety at this papyrus-printing enterprise, and wield it like the Grim Reaper I shall. The key word is “readership,” old chap. Because readership = gold. Think: pieces of 8. We must. Maintain. Readership. And yet, with regards to [REDACTED]: your fear is so very real and poignant—grounded, as it were, in insufferably correct observation. In truth I’m quite verbose myself, as you well know, and if I’d my way I’d let the written words run away like wild horses over the hills—but there is a sound at my door, and I must take my leave immejiately, wot. I will continue to work “remotely” until the situation with [REDACTED] er … “resolves.” I will flee now, but remember: Less is more. Less is always more. —Your inimitable underling, Lord Fernquorcestershire
In his poem, “Correspondences,” Charles Baudelaire invokes the great mystery, likening our earthly dream-life to the experience of walking through a forest composed of symbols.
Everything is linked by analogy to a higher realm of laws and principles, and those who hold the key tread their terrestrial path in an exalted state of serendipity and synchronicity, with nothing taken at face value. The material world is merely the realm of effects; causes come from above, from the mysterious forces, always in motion, circling with the wheel in the sky. What’s more, our experience of physical life is determined by the subtle flow of cosmic energies and whether they are blocked or flow freely.
Since the beginning, when order was formed from chaos, mankind has used symbols to express a metaphysical reality that eludes rational thought. Symbols have a universal character and appear in world civilizations isolated in time and space, suggesting they appeared in mankind’s imagination via divine transmission.
Consisting of two simple intersecting lines, the cross is perhaps the world’s oldest symbol. Its meanings are myriad: the four points can represent, for example, the four elements or cardinal directions, while the horizontal line can stand for everything that rises and falls, lives and dies in the world of Becoming, with the vertical line symbolizing the eternal present of Being in the immutable, celestial realm outside of space-time.
Those who feel the stirrings of spiritual awakening, the growing-pain tremors of something greater than their personal ego starting to rise like incense into conscious awareness, can orient themselves by visualizing one symbol said to perfectly illustrate the task that lies ahead.
Let us take those two intersecting lines forming a cross and have the vertical stand for the ordinary waking consciousness. The spiritual journey begins with a rupture, a long process of “ego death” in which the person lies down in the “earth” or “waters” symbolized by the horizontal plane.
This is the realm of the subconscious: the shadow figure with its unrealized powers, the energies of the opposite-gender polarity and the suprapersonal spark of life. It is a hero’s journey into the cave of the psyche, where past sorrow lies petrified, and where the bugbears of fear and anxiety cast their spells. But it is also the place where the Spirit is found, which lifts the hero back to their feet in a state of wholeness and illumination. The cross is now complete: vertical, fallen and resurrected.
And at the center of the intersecting lines blooms a rose, the symbol of spiritual rebirth, with petals unfolding across eternity.
Marin County District Attorney Lori Frugoli’s office announced Tuesday afternoon that it will not file charges against Jeremy Portje, an independent photojournalist who was arrested by Sausalito police officers on Nov. 30 while filming at a city-sanctioned homeless encampment in Marinship Park.
Police claimed that Portje, 43, intentionally hit Sgt. Thomas Georges in the face with a camera. Portje was booked into the Marin County Jail later that evening on three counts, two misdemeanors for suspicion of battery on a peace officer and one felony for obstructing an executive officer.
The arrest, which was partially filmed by a bystander and first covered by the Pacific Sun, quickly drew attention from free speech advocates, who raised concerns that the arrest may have violated state and federal laws protecting journalists.
According to the Dec. 28 statement, the district attorney’s office determined, after reviewing footage from the officers’ body cameras and bystanders, that the available evidence was not strong enough.
“While we take all allegations of assault on a police officer seriously, in this case a team of veteran prosecutors who reviewed the case found that the evidence did not show beyond a reasonable doubt that Portje intended to injure the officer,” Frugoli said in the statement. “Beyond a reasonable doubt is the standard of proof required by ethical and legal standards for prosecutors to move forward with a case.”
Despite receiving letters from advocates concerned that Portje’s rights as a journalist were violated, the district attorney’s statement does not mention that Portje is a journalist, instead referring to him as “a man.”
Portje’s attorney, Charles Dresow agrees with Frugoli’s choice not to press charges. Since the arrest of his client, Dresow has been outraged that a journalist would be arrested “for doing his job as a journalist.”
“The DA made the right decision and I credit them for that,” Dresow said.
While police claimed that the journalist intentionally injured Georges, two witnesses told the Pacific Sun that Georges pulled on the photojournalist’s camera, accidentally hitting himself in the face with the equipment. Georges reacted by punching Portje and placing him under arrest, according to the witnesses.
Officer Nick White seized Portje’s equipment at the time of the arrest. Police kept Portje’s camera, memory cards and cell phone as evidence, which is a violation of California’s shield law for journalists, according to David Snyder, an attorney and executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, a press advocacy group.
On Dec. 7, Snyder sent a letter to Sausalito Mayor Jill Hoffman, Sausalito Police Chief John Rohrbacher and District Attorney Frugoli advising them that a search of Portje’s equipment would be a violation of state and federal laws, as well as the U.S. Constitution and the California Constitution. California laws ban the use of search warrants to obtain and search a journalist’s unpublished materials.
Despite being informed of the applicable laws, two days later, the Sausalito Police Department prepared an affidavit seeking a search warrant allowing the department to look through Portje’s camera, memory cards and phone for evidence. Sausalito Police Chief Rohrbacher has previously told the Pacific Sun that the district attorney’s office reviewed the affidavit prior to the police submitting it to Marin County Superior Court Judge Mark Talamantes. Talamantes approved the search warrant.
According to the Dec. 28 statement, the district attorney’s office decided not to review the materials covered by the search warrant. No reason was given for the decision.
Dresow has filed a motion to quash the search warrant and a hearing will be held on the matter tomorrow. If successful, the Sausalito police will be required to return Portje’s equipment.
The New Year’s Baby is a tradition that goes all the way back to ancient Egypt, though many of us probably associate it with more recent iterations, such as JC Leyendecker’s vintage covers for the Saturday Evening Post stacked at the antiques store alongside plaster busts of Dionysus, who was symbolically reborn on Jan. 1, bringing fertility for the...
Marin County District Attorney Lori Frugoli announced last week that she won’t file charges against photojournalist Jeremy Portje, but documents reveal a disturbing narrative about the logic Sausalito police used to seize Portje’s equipment and obtain a search warrant to electronically rummage through his camera, memory cards and cell phone.
Furthermore, due to conflicting statements from the DA and the...
Orin Carpenter’s paintings are active and vocal. Color in motion, pulling the viewer like waves in a sea. Faces, teeth, eyes and fists appear within the undulations of color, like ships.
Carpenter’s solo exhibition, Bridges and Walls, the culmination of his year-long residency with MarinMOCA, sends the viewer quickly and deeply into the circumstances of human connect—and disconnect.
Bridges and Walls...
Rohnert Park/ San Rafael
Local Laughs
North Bay-native Mo Mandel is a comedian and actor who’s been seen on TV shows including Conan, Chelsea Lately and 2 Broke Girls. This week, he’ll be onstage, delivering standup at two shows. First, Mandel gets funny at a show hosted by Barrel Proof Comedy on Thursday, Dec. 30, at Sally Tomatoes (1100 Valley House...
Matt Metzler’s letter (“Historical Accuracy,” Letters to the Editor, Dec. 22) about naive exhibits at Mission Sonoma State Park, like much recent scholarship, attempts to blame genocide upon the Spanish Viceroyalty and Mexican, Catholic missions.
However the cultural violence of Christianity affected the Native Californians, a firm study of the well-researched life of Chief Marin shows the missions as both...
I thought for a while about this week’s “Look.” With 2022 around the corner bringing us to two full years of overt strange, and last week devoted to sequins and metallics to keep spirits shining, this one needed something extra.
I sat contemplating fashion for a while, and the image flashed into my mind of me as a little girl,...
Remember playing this childhood game with friends?
A small group of boys and girls would get together and designate one person as IT—and then scatter to see how long they could avoid being tagged—but once caught it would be their turn to be IT. As a child, there was much joy and laughter involved in the activity. It was also...
These internal emails between “Bohemian” and “Pacific Sun” Editor Daedalus Howell and copy editor and writer Mark Fernquest were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. They are presented here, including redactions purportedly made in the interest of national security, in their entirety. We present them here in the interest of fostering a transparent and open news-gathering process.
Hey,...
In his poem, “Correspondences,” Charles Baudelaire invokes the great mystery, likening our earthly dream-life to the experience of walking through a forest composed of symbols.
Everything is linked by analogy to a higher realm of laws and principles, and those who hold the key tread their terrestrial path in an exalted state of serendipity and synchronicity, with nothing taken at...
