Retired SLO County pastor stands vigil for 5 months to honor people slain by police
For more than five months, a retired Lutheran pastor has been holding a one-man vigil on a street corner in Cambria’s East Village.
Most of the time, Rev. Donald “Don” Dallman of Cambria holds up a sign bearing the name of a person of color killed by white police officers or armed citizens. A sign on a chair near him asks observers to “say their name.”
Dallman confirmed via email that he has been “standing my post” near the busy intersection of Main Street and Burton Drive from 2 to 3:30 p.m. on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays for more than 160 days, as of Sept. 2.
The 83-year-old wrote that he sees himself as a “one-man silent demonstration” in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, and in memory of the approximately 45 people whose names he has written on individual signs.
Those include George Floyd, a Black man who was murdered in Minneapolis police custody in May 2020; Breonna Taylor, a Black woman who was fatally shot in her Louisville, Kentucky, apartment by police officers in March 2020; and Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man who was shot to death in February 2020 after three white men chased him through a Georgia neighborhood.
Dallman displays one name at a time, holding that sign for that entire 90-minute vigil. He follows a careful routine so older signs alternate with newer ones.
On Sept. 2, for instance, Dallman’s sign honored Elijah McClain, a Black massage therapist who died in August 2019, after police in Aurora, Colorado, confronted him as he walked home from a convenience store.
On Sept. 1, a Colorado grand jury indicted three police officers and two paramedics involved in McClain’s death.
“All of the signs bear the name(s) of people of color who have been killed by white police officers or armed white citizens,” Dallman explained, with a few exceptions.
He carried a sign bearing the name of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg along with the words “Thank you” and “RIP” for a week after she died. And the retired pastor honored law enforcement officers with signs reading “DC Metro Police” and “U.S. Capitol Police” after rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
Dallman also held up a sign bearing the name of San Luis Obispo police Det. Luca Benedetti, who was shot and killed while serving a search warrant on May 10.
The retired pastor wrote that has only “a few signs bearing the names of women or of Latinos,” he wrote, “so I weave them in a little more frequently.”
So far, Dallman wrote, the responses to his vigil have been mostly positive.
He wrote that he gets negative reactions — “middle-digit salutes, thumbs-down gestures, angry shouts” — less than five times a day, while positive reactions such as drivers beeping their horns, blinking their headlights and flashing thumbs up “average about 30 to 40 a day.”
“I suspect many of those who signal their affirmation are not doing so in support of the person whose name is on the sign … but in support of what I am trying to do,” Dallman wrote. “Frequently people say things like ‘Thank you for reminding us.’ ”
Dallman always declines when people offer him money, suggesting that instead they donate to the church or charity of their choice.
Occasionally, people ask the retiree what he’s doing and why, Dallman wrote, noting that those interactions range from friendly and open to more hostile.
According to Dallman, his “Say Their Name” sign is designed “to emphasize that these were people, not statistics.”
