SLO police chief rejects call to resign over Tianna Arata case, says she wants social change
In a virtual press conference Tuesday after a rally supporting a 20-year-old activist facing eight potential criminal charges, San Luis Obispo Police Chief Deanna Cantrell defended her actions and rejected a call by Arata’s attorney for her to step down.
The 17-minute media briefing came after a press conference hosted by the #FreeTianna Coalition, made up of several groups calling for authorities to drop the case against Tianna Arata.
Supporters say Arata was lawfully expressing her First Amendment rights in a July 21 demonstration in SLO.
Cantrell said she stands by the recommended charges, acknowledging she understands that the community might be upset.
“The facts are Tianna Arata was arrested for her own actions, her own behavior, her own decisions,” Cantrell said. “She broke several laws. She committed several crimes. She recorded herself committing those crimes.”
Cantrell added: “I think I’ve done the job I’ve been asked to do. I can appreciate (Arata’s attorney’s) quest (for Cantrell to step down), but I think it’s off-base and, especially for chiefs that are reform-minded, we’re not going to change policing without working together.”
Describing herself as a police chief who has embraced community relationships since assuming her role in 2016, Cantrell said, “I believe I became a police chief for the right reasons.”
“I became a police chief to have a larger influence of policing and policing future,” Cantrell said. “I’m a relatively progressive police chief when it comes to change, when it comes to reform, and when it comes to community relationships, and in particular, relationships with our marginalized communities.”
Cantrell, in her answers to media questions made public on YouTube, said she’s responsible for the public safety of “all of the people in San Luis Obispo and upholding the rights of all of the people — those who are protesting and those who are not.”
Arata, 20, was arrested July 21 after a five-hour “No Justice No Peace” racial justice demonstration in which a group of about 300 protesters took to the freeway and marched on city streets. Her arrest has received national media attention.
Cantrell said Arata was the “leader and aggressor” of the event in directing marchers, striking a vehicle with a flag pole and rushing to block cars.
Arata and her attorneys have repeatedly said the protest leader was expressing her First Amendment rights against national incidents of police brutality and systemic racism and that, while demonstrating, vehicles in roadways drove into demonstrators. They said Arata’s arrest was a strategic political move related to ongoing demonstrations in SLO.
The DA’s Office is reviewing evidence in advance of a Sept. 3 court hearing; the Police Department is recommending a total of eight charges against Arata: four felony counts of false imprisonment; one felony count of conspiracy; and three misdemeanor counts of resisting or obstructing a peace officer, participating in a riot and unlawful assembly.
Arata’s attorney calls for Cantrell to step down
The demand for Cantrell to leave her position came from Curtis Briggs, one of Arata’s attorneys, who addressed most of his public remarks toward Cantrell at Tuesday’s press conference outside the SLO County Courthouse.
“(Cantrell) has made one decision after another that have been bad,” Briggs said. “She has cost the Police Department esteem, credibility, and here she’s fabricating these charges because she reacted rather than responded to what the protesters were doing. She put SLO on the map with the Black Lives Matter movement.”
Briggs said after the event that Cantrell has “shown her judgment is a threat to public safety more than any other organizer in the community.”
At Tuesday’s rally, Michelle Arata, Tianna’s mother, said, “my daughter’s life is at stake. Her future is at stake. She is my world.”
“It’s about love not hate,” Arata said, her voice rising to a high pitch. “How dare they take it to a political level. Racism is a human rights issue.”
In her comments, Tianna Arata said the support for her case, which has attracted national attention, gives her hope.
“My devotion to this cause is nothing new,” she said, adding that she started protesting at 14 over the death of Michael Brown, an 18-year-old black man from Ferguson, Missouri, who was killed in 2015. “We will not be silenced.”
Cantrell’s defends her SLO community relationships
Cantrell previously told The Tribune she agrees with activists that systemic racism “does exist in SLO County” and said she understands what the protesters are trying to accomplish.
On Tuesday, the chief said she believes she has “done an exceptional job” leading the Police Department, helping to embrace changes.
“I’m willing to sit at the table. I’ve shown that with my history, and I will continue to do that work,” Cantrell said. “I will continue to do that work as long as City Manager (Derek) Johnson would like me to do it.”
Cantrell has appeared at past demonstrations joining with marchers, including at an NAACP rally in June that drew more than 3,000 participants to downtown San Luis Obispo. In that protest, she and other local police chiefs such as Paso Robles Police Chief Ty Lewis marched with the demonstrators.
During her tenure, Cantrell has supported a program called Police and Community Together (PACT), created in 2017 as a collaboration between police and diverse groups of community members to affect positive social change “through dialogue, education and understanding.”
She also has supported “Police Education And Community Engagement (P.E.A.C.E.)“ talks, a series of discussions related to policing a community.
Cantrell said the department’s role in part is to be a victim advocate, and “to not only uphold the First Amendment rights of peaceful protesters, but the rights of everybody else in the community as well.”
“The charges we put forth to the DA’s Office are lawful and appropriate,” Cantrell said. “The DA’s Office will have to move forward, from those charges, what they’ll move forward with.”
Those in attendance at Tuesday’s rally included speakers from the local and national racial justice movement.
Patrisse Cullors, co-founder of Black Lives Matter, said Arata “deserves our praise,” not prosecution. “San Luis Obispo, do not let her down. Do not let black people down. ... And if they dare to take this to trial, put your bodies on the line.“
This story was originally published August 26, 2020 at 1:51 PM.
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