Few subjects touch as many lives as law enforcement. Police officers and Sheriff’s deputies cover San Diego county and their departments’ influence shapes the region.
This year, we dedicated our annual local news summit to just that: law and justice. Politifest 2021 happened this week and it was full of great, though sometimes difficult, conversations about surveillance, criminal sentencing, the trauma of incarceration and more.
This week on the VOSD Podcast, hosts Scott Lewis, Andrew Keatts and Andrea Lopez-Villafaña reviewed a few of these panels and highlighted some of the most crucial moments that spotlight how directly law enforcement can shape society.
Also on the table…
- After a well-received retirement announcement by labor leader Tom Lemmon, Keatts revealed that Lemmon’s departure came as his employer — the Building Trades Council — discovered Lemmon received up to $200,000 that he wasn’t supposed to. On the show, Keatts and Lewis lay out what we know and what it could mean for the local labor coalition and the leadership vacuum to be filled.
- Homelessness continues to be a major problem in San Diego. Mayor Todd Gloria said on the campaign trail he’d do better than his predecessor. To date, a lot of the old ways have stuck around, according to VOSD’s Lisa Halverstadt.
- The Centers for Disease Control — and the New York Times — are wrong about San Diego’s COVID-19 vaccination rate.
We’ve got a 101 for that!
Also this week, we dropped a new episode of the San Diego 101 podcast, also dedicated to law and justice. (Look at us, being all thematic.) Check out Episode 2: Who Polices the Police?
Hosts Maya Srikrishnan and Adriana Heldiz in this episode reviewed three cases of local men who were killed by San Diego law enforcement and use their stories to explain the most important people and systems that run the law. And they’ve got three things you need to know about police reform.