A May 30 protest in La Mesa against police brutality that turned violent and left parts of the downtown area destroyed and saw sheriff’s deputies fire tear gas at people drew responses from Alpine’s County Board of Supervisor representative Dianne Jacob and San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore.
Protests have been held across the nation in the days since George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer who jammed his knee into Floyd’s neck for almost nine minutes.
Many of the nationwide protests have been organized by civil rights organizations such as the Black Lives Matter movement and have drawn attention to the treatment of black people by police.
Floyd is black and the Minneapolis officer, Derek Chauvin, is white.
On the day after two La Mesa banks had been burned to the ground and numerous stores had their windows smashed and were looted, Jacob took to Twitter to, in part, praise volunteers who had shown up to clean the small east county city.
“I also want to thank the folks who have stepped up today to clean up La Mesa. The immediate outpouring of support is touching and it sets the tone for how we need go come together to address these issues,” the Alpine representative wrote.
Gore said in a Monday press release that while many of the protestors are peaceful there are factions who have a different agenda.
“There are people at these rallies exploiting the situation to discredit those peacefully assembled by looting businesses and setting fires to buildings,” Gore said.
Alpine Chamber of Commerce Chairman of the Board and Primary Residential Mortgage of Alpine Branch Manager Chris Wiley said protests that end like this are a detriment to small businesses.
“The events that have happened across the country and now in La Mesa are hard to understand. One thing that is easy to understand is that after so many small businesses have been closed for Covid and starting to reopen, this is not what they need to succeed,” Wiley said.
Similarly, East County Chamber of Commerce CEO Rick Wilson said the chamber fully supports everyone across the United States expressing themselves in a peaceful manner but as soon as the violence starts against businesses that are struggling to get back in business after COVID, it is like an attack on the community.
“I really hope the protesters understand that part of the beauty of America is the right to have protests in a peaceful manner but as soon as you attack businesses you’re hurting your own community and all we try to do every day is lift up our local businesses,” Wilson said.
Gore asked the community for patience and calm, said acts of violence distract from the message of honoring the memory of George Floyd.
