Yesterday, Mayor Eduardo Martinez’ recent chief of staff and stalwart RPA member Shiva Mishek, now campaign manager for Jovanka Beckles, posted on Facebook her description of an alleged assault on a canvasser for Jovanka Beckles at a Richmond residence. She followed up with the information that the canvasser had filed a police report alleging battery. She went on to describe how important canvassing is for “progressive candidates who don’t take corporate money, like Jovanka and Richmond Councilmember Claudia Jimez. Corporate-free candidates don’t’ have deep pockets to pay for ads.”

This whole incident reeks of RPA lies and hypocrisy. First of all, there is no way in anyone’s wildest imagination that the encounter could be considered an assault or battery. Take a look at the video at https://ring.com/share/acc62838-3a3e-44d6-a13e-f0000e5f8261. The resident was handed a sheaf of campaign literature, which she promptly ripped up. She even returned one item at the canvasser’s request. There was no physical contact between the resident and the canvasser, and there were no threats made. According to Shiva, a police report was filed alleging battery and hate speech. If such a report was filed, it would have been a false police report. Filing such a report is, under Penal Code § 148.5 PC, a crime. False reporting is only a crime if the person making the report knows it to be false. The offense is punishable by $1,000 and up to 6 months in jail.

Shiva went on to defend canvassing for RPA members because they could not raise enough money to pay for ads. Apparently, Shiva does not read the Grandview Independent, which on August 5, 2024, reported that Claudia Jiminez “led the pack with $42,907.48 from 38 individuals, government employee PACSs and money transferred from the 2020 campaign, closing in on her $50,000 goal.”

It is also ironic that the RPA canvasser’s first impulse was to file a police report. The anti-police and defund the police RPA believe that low level, non-emergency calls should be handled by a non-police alternative response team (Grandview Independent, September 13, 2023). “City Councilmember Claudia Jimenez made a motion to direct the staff to move forward with the option to institute the team within an existing city department, the Office of Neighborhood Safety, at Tuesday night’s meeting. The motion passed with Councilmember Sohelia Bana voting no and Councilmember Melvin Willis absent.” “The council tasked ONS with creating a proposal for the program implementation by November of this year, drafting and approving job descriptions by the middle of December, and a timeline to launch the program by August 2024.”

One wonders why the canvasser did not contact ONS instead of filing a report with the RPD. Getting one’s feeling hurt by rejection of campaign literature would seem to qualify as a low-level, non-emergency issue rather than a crime.