SLO activist Tianna Arata faces 8 criminal charges. Here’s why the DA should drop the case

Eight charges?

Five of them felonies?

What is the San Luis Obispo Police Department thinking?

Asking the District Attorney’s Office to come down so hard on Tianna Arata smacks of vindictiveness and is only going to further divide our community.

If police wanted to teach a lesson to civil rights protesters who blocked Highway 101, they should consider it mission accomplished.

They have already made a sufficient example of Arata — the 20-year-old Black woman who led the protest — by arresting her in a public show of authority and accusing her of a variety of crimes.

Now, they’re just piling on, asking for four felony counts of false imprisonment and one count of felony conspiracy, plus three misdemeanors.

Yes, it was a dangerous and illegal move to blockade the freeway, but the charges against Arata are way out of proportion.

Then again, the handling of this entire episode has been ham-handed from the get-go.

Authorities were not prepared to keep protesters off the freeway.

After the protest had wound down, police swooped in and arrested Arata, without telling her why.

There are eyewitness reports and video evidence of motorists driving into groups of protesters, but we’ve yet to hear whether any action will be taken against them. Instead, the narrative has been spun entirely in the drivers’ favor, as if they were blameless victims racked by fear.

And now we have this recommendation to heap charges against Arata.

It’s going too far. It already went too far.

This city needs to heal. Instead, the Police Department wants to drag this out into a lengthy, high-profile criminal case that only will serve to escalate unrest.

We’re already seeing clear signs of that.

Protesters have been talking about showing up in front of District Attorney Dan Dow’s house in Templeton, and remaining there until he announces that he’ll drop the charges.

That will not help, and they should rethink the strategy.

The District Attorney’s Office is going to need some time to review the case.

Are protesters prepared to camp out in front of Dow’s home for weeks?

Also, trying to strong-arm a DA into dropping charges just might have the exact opposite effect, and it’s guaranteed to shift focus off the anti-racism message that brought protesters to the streets in the first place.

For his part, Dan Dow has put out a plea for patience.

We ask for the same. Let the process play out — keeping in mind that the district attorney’s role is not necessarily to punish, but to serve the interest of justice.

In fact, Dow himself made that crystal clear in a recent video, in which he explains why he won’t prosecute people who violate a statewide health order by singing in church.

“My duty and my solemn commitment as a district attorney is to protect our community by enforcement of the rule of law in a way that results in justice,” Dow says on the video.

“Inherent with my responsibility to enforce the law is the discretion that I have as the chief prosecutor to pursue only those charges that are warranted and are in the interest of justice and to decline prosecuting cases that would not be in the interest of justice.”

If ever there was a time to exercise that discretion, this is it.

Arata has been through enough.

She and her mother are afraid to sleep in their own house due to death threats. She’s been compared to Charles Manson. She’s waking up in the middle of the night.

This needs to end.

Charging Arata with serious felonies for what is essentially an act of civil disobedience is absurd, especially in a progressive city that stresses tolerance, sensitivity and diversity.

We urge District Attorney Dan Dow to act in the interests of justice and dismiss, or at least greatly reduce, criminal charges against Tianna Arata.