SLO mayor’s scathing letter was a ‘campaign stunt,’ District Attorney Dan Dow says
San Luis Obispo County District Attorney Dan Dow said a scathing open letter written by San Luis Obispo Mayor Heidi Harmon was “a political campaign stunt.”
In the letter, sent Saturday, Harmon condemned Dow for filing charges Friday against three Black men — Marcus Montgomery, Joshua Powell and Amman Asfaw — for their alleged actions at a July 21 protest that ended in the arrest of local activist Tianna Arata.
The three men were added as co-defendants of Arata’s ongoing criminal case nearly three months after the protest in question. One of the three, Asfaw, was recently hired to lead the city’s Diversity and Inclusion Task Force.
Harmon called Dow’s actions “nothing more than an intimidation tactic” that specifically targeted people of color.
Dow, who spoke at a fundraiser with a controversial keynote speaker who told the crowd that systemic racism doesn’t exist, denied the accusations Monday.
“It has come to my attention that a local incumbent mayoral candidate pulled a political campaign stunt over the weekend by using my name and office to make preposterous false allegations,” Dow wrote in response to Harmon’s letter.
“The mayoral candidate’s campaign stunt, intended to help her political fundraising, was untruthful as it intentionally misstated facts and fabricated allegations for political purposes,” his statement continued.
The “misstated facts” Dow referred to were those that Harmon wrote regarding the severity of the charges brought forth against the three Black men.
In her letter, Harmon wrote that the three men may face prison time and lose their right to vote. Both claims are untrue because the men were charged with misdemeanors, not felonies.
Each misdemeanor count carries a maximum sentence of six months in San Luis Obispo County Jail and a $1,000 fine.
The letter also assumes the men were in custody. However, they were only served papers and not booked into County Jail.
When asked about the inaccuracy, Harmon said Tuesday that while she wrongly stated the three men face prison time, the facts still remain that five of the eight people charged in connection to the protest were people of color in a majority-white city.
“In my recent statement, I incorrectly stated that activists being charged for the protests on July 21st, faced possible prison time. In fact, they face jail time,” she wrote in an email the The Tribune. “My intent in my open letter was, and remains, to highlight the unfairness and injustice of charging these activists at all, and it’s important to set the factual record straight while doing so.”
“Let me be clear on the facts. From the events of July 21, in a community that is 84.2% white, 5 of the 8 people charged are people of color. Charges against 6 of the 8 activists were announced months after many in the community had questioned why the 2 activists originally charged were singled out among the hundreds of mostly white activists protesting on July 21,” Harmon wrote.
Dow’s response denies Harmon’s allegations of discrimination against Black protesters — something that RACE Matters SLO also raised concerns over.
Five of the eight people charged in connection with the July 21 protest are people of color.
Until Friday evening, only people of color had been charged for their alleged actions at the protest, which was attended mostly by white community members.
Yet Dow’s office said the delay in a separate filing of charges against three white men in connection to the July 21 protest was unintentional and not a matter of discrimination.
“I am proud of the tireless work of my office to protect the people of our county through aggressive and fair prosecution of crime and protecting the rights of crime victims,” Dow said in his statement.
“It is the duty of the District Attorney’s Office to thoroughly review every investigation to determine if the evidence proves that a crime was committed. We perform that duty every day without regard to individual characteristics such as race, color, religion, sex, national origin or political viewpoint,” Dow wrote.
Harmon, Dow link timing to the election
Dow — who notably referred to Harmon as a mayoral candidate as opposed to her current title as San Luis Obispo’s mayor — said she was intentionally divisive just weeks before the election.
“The mayoral candidate’s dangerous and divisive rhetoric seeks to stir more unrest rather than promote peace and healing in our community,” Dow wrote.
In Harmon’s letter, she said the charges, not her response, was planned near the election.
“The timing of these particular indictments isn’t even particularly covert. California ballots just started arriving in SLO at the beginning of the month,” Harmon wrote.
In a follow-up response to The Tribune, Harmon brought up the timing of the charges once more, along with three motorists who were involved in altercations with protesters and have yet to face charges.
“Announcing these additional charges three months later — days from an election, while voters are casting their ballots — is not just a profound miscarriage of justice, but also a blatant misuse of prosecutorial authority,” Harmon wrote. “And no charges have been brought against the motorists involved in the matter, despite footage showing that they drove into activist.”
Harmon did not respond to questions about her decision to speak out against Dow.
Dow responded to follow-up questions regarding the timing of the charges via email Monday after the initial publication. According to Dow, the charges were filed once sufficient evidence had been gathered, not due to the timing of the election.
“Identifying additional individuals took a significant length of time and thus the additional investigation was not completed until very recently,” he wrote. “Investigators poured through volumes of digital evidence and interviewed many individuals which took a substantial amount of time.”
Dow concluded his initial response to Harmon by reiterating that the District Attorney’s Office does not consider race when filing charges.
“I will never compromise the integrity of this office by using race or public opinion to decide whether or not to file a criminal charge. My decisions will always be based on the evidence and the law,” he wrote.
Dow said while the District Attorney’s Office does not anticipate more charges related tot he protest at this time, that may change if more evidence is discovered.
Montgomery, Powell, Asfaw and Arata are schedule to appear in San Luis Obispo Superior Court at 8 a.m. Thursday.
Editor’s note: This article was updated with follow-up responses from Harmon and Dow at 1:45 p.m. Tuesday.
This story was originally published October 19, 2020 at 6:06 PM.
