SLO County DA Dan Dow is a ‘warrior’ for the right — everyone else be damned

Is District Attorney Dan Dow deliberately trying to inflame division and alienate the majority of voters in San Luis Obispo County?

If so, mission accomplished.

He’s become so embedded with far-right groups that he’s practically turned his nonpartisan office into a PR machine for the Republican Party.

This, at a time when the Democratic Party is gaining momentum — and members — in San Luis Obispo County.

The latest outrage came last week, when Dow’s office belatedly filed charges against six more participants in a July 21 civil rights protest that included a march on Highway 101.

Three of the six newly arrested protesters are young Black men.

If Dow was trying to make it appear that he was not singling out people of color for prosecution, he failed miserably by inadvertently releasing word of the charges against the Black men ahead of those against three additional protesters, who were white.

Even with the white protesters, five of the eight now facing charges are people of color, from an event where the majority of people were white.

Don’t forget, also, that only protesters have been charged.

Despite several reports of motorists driving into pedestrians during the July 21 march, no drivers were arrested. In fact, Sam Grocott, one of protesters charged last week, reported being struck by a silver BMW.

Yet in San Luis Obispo County, it’s the quivering driver who’s the victim (of supposed false imprisonment), not the activist who was hit by a car.

Dow’s statement

Dow defended his decision on the latest charges in a brief statement released on Monday, in response to a blistering attack by SLO Mayor Heidi Harmon over the weekend.

“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.”

Dow can pontificate all he likes, but the way this case was handled leaves law enforcement — and all of San Luis Obispo County, for that matter — open to accusations of racism, such as the one fired off by Harmon.

“Your Jim Crow tactics will not stand here in SLO,” she said in an open letter to Dow on Saturday. “And we, the people of SLO, will not stand idle while our young people are being played like pawns for political gain.”

Dow called Harmon’s letter a “political campaign stunt” and said it was “untruthful as it intentionally misstated facts and fabricated allegations for political purposes.”

It’s true that the letter — which appeared to have been issued before Harmon’s camp had all the facts — did not mention that three white protesters had been charged. It also claimed that Black protesters were facing felonies, when they were charged with misdemeanors.

And while the mayor’s righteous anger is understandable, it’s also a little late.

Where was this outrage when former SLO Police Chief Deanna Cantrell recommended filing eight charges, including five felonies, against protest leader Tianna Arata?

It’s clearly easier to target an elected official outside your government rather than your own Police Department.

Where does Dow’s allegiance lie?

This and other recent events leave us wondering exactly what Dow is up to.

It’s no secret that he is politically conservative.

In the last election, the local Republican Party endorsed him as a “warrior representing our interests at the state level and county level.”

We hoped that was campaign rhetoric, and that Dow would serve the entire county without undue bias or prejudice.

The last five months have proved that to be wishful thinking.

Dow has instead taken this warrior status to a new level.

In the Tianna Arata case, Dow played to his base by filing penny-ante misdemeanor charges against protesters — again, mostly protesters of color — setting up the opportunity for the defense to put on a show trial the prosecution has no guarantee of winning.

And at what cost? San Luis Obispo will likely be the target of more protests, and a community that’s already seen as an unwelcoming place for people of color will be perceived as even more hostile.

Yes, he didn’t take SLOPD’s recommendation of felony charges, but his basket of 13 criminal counts also did nothing to soothe an already wounded community.

Meanwhile, instead of helping to heal, Dow is running around looking for more ways to foment division.

Last week, he attended a fundraiser sponsored by a group whose sole aim is to secede from California. It believes the state is “governed by tyranny,” and seeks to “re-establish and restore our constitutional freedoms following the same process as West Virginia.”

As if keeping that kind of company weren’t bad enough, the guest speaker at the event, Candace Owens, praised the crowd for not wearing masks — she said she’s afraid of socialism, but she doesn’t fear COVID-19.

This comes right on top of other overt displays by Dow that both align him with extremists and left him actively working against state and county health recommendations.

At a Tea Party Fourth of July event this summer, Dow announced that he was declaring San Luis Obispo a “sanctuary county for religious freedom,” meaning he would not enforce a state prohibition against singing in church.

He also made the announcement on a national radio show for a fundamentalist Christian organization that’s been labeled a “hate group” for its anti-LGBTQ views.

Where does all of this leave us?

It leaves us with a DA who, in the name of religious freedom, gives his blessing to a dangerous act such as singing in church, even though that’s been proven to spread COVID-19.

Yet blocking traffic on the freeway in the name of free speech and social justice is a prosecutable offense.

It’s a heinous double standard, and it’s gone on long enough.

Dan Dow has been a “warrior” for the religious right and in doing so, he’s turned his back on those San Luis Obispo County residents who aren’t members of his tribe.

He may say that he will never compromise the integrity of his office, but in fact he is doing that very thing by acting against the county government and people who pay his salary and the state of California whose laws he has sworn to protect.

The next election is two years away.

With this kind of leadership from our county’s top prosecutor, that simply may be too long.

This story was originally published October 20, 2020 at 5:30 AM.