Isonomia01

The following is a sandbox for a section I intend to add to the Sonoma County article. If anyone would like to comment, ask any questions, or provide suggested edits, please feel welcome to. I intend to add this as a subsection under the "Government" section of the article. This is not complete. And I will connect sources to the assertions, and consider removing whether to remove assertions that do not have adequate support in the sources, per Wikipedia's standards. Sources are listed at the bottom, but I have not referred to the sources in the writing yet. I will do that later. Isonomia01 (talk) 00:13, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

One of the difficulties I am having is balancing being objective with not being too graphic. There are things I personally do not feel comfortable describing on the public-facing Wikipedia page, because of how graphic they are, and because I feel like people visiting the Sonoma County article are not really expecting to find graphic depictions of torture on the page. For example, one victim of the torture ring was beaten until he had internal bleeding and lost control of his bowels, then was stuffed into underwear several sizes too small for him, and then isolated for several days and not allowed to watch and was denied medical care. I don't know how to resolve this difficulty at this moment, and am open to suggestions. I feel it is worth putting into Wikipedia, if it can be done in an appropriate manner. But for now, I will just leave it vague. This is described in the sources for readers to discover. The same goes for the serial rape accusations. Foppoli was accused, for example, of putting a date rape drug into a woman's drink, raping her in a wine tasting room, filming it, and then trying to use the videos as leverage afterward. I am going to try to tone this down.

Well, the sources have been reviewed. But I admit I didn't place them precisely next to the statements they support. I'm going to go ahead and add this to the Sonoma County article. There has been discussion on the talk page for almost a year and nobody has objected since I cited sources. I am taking that as consensus. I intend to clean up the sources so that they are next to the statements they support, and I also intend to cite documents from the federal lawsuit(s), and possibly add other sections in the future.

Government Corruption

2015 "Yard Counseling" Torture Incident

In 2015, the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office were running a torture ring, where they were routinely torturing inmates. The basis for the torture is disputed. The inmates claim that it was for things like leading an exercise routine, or were for no reason whatsoever, where staff at the jail claim that it was in response to inmates performing a "coordinated mass disturbance". The torture was videoed, but at least one of the videos was unlawfully destroyed. The videos show that victims were put in "figure 8" wrestling techniques for around 20 minutes at a time, and had knees driven into their lower backs, necks, and other parts of their bodies. One victim suffered from internal bleeding, and was subsequently denied medical care for several days. Numerous victims claim that they were inflicted with various forms of head and brain trauma and sustained brain injury.

The County (represented by spokesperson Cecile Focha) issued a press release where they lied, and stated they "categorically deny these outrageous and inflammatory accusations", prior to the discovery of the videos. The videos, taken by staff of the actual acts of torture, were discovered through investigative work by the private civil attorney for the victims, and was released during federal litigation. The authenticity of the videos is not disputed by the County.

That particular incident in 2015 was endorsed by an official written policy called "Yard Counseling" or "Behavior Counseling". That policy was in place until 2018.

Dominic Foppoli

Dominic Foppoli was a mayor of Windsor, and on the town council. He was accused of rape or sexual assault by 14 different women. Accusations include the use of date rape drugs, alcohol, violence, and manipulation.

Shooting Protesters in the Head and Face with Crows Control Munitions in the 2020 Protests

In 2020, during the George Floyd protests, the victim who organized the 2015 lawsuit over the torture ring, Marqus "Red Bear" Martinez was, while filming himself live on Facebook, shot in the face with a crowd control "stingball" grenade from close range with a grenade launcher, which caused extreme injury. Other protesters were also shot, but the other protesters were shot with rubber bullets. The attorney stated that all the protesters that were shot had been shot in the head or face, indicating that law enforcement had been aiming for the head and face.

Sources

I need to attach these to the 2015 torture ring section.

Page 9 of the Federal Lawsuit reads: (how do I cite the federal case, which are behind a paywall?)

"Blood was in his stool for the next three weeks, and the inmate was plagued by profound headaches for at least two weeks after, and suffered symptoms consistent with traumatic brain injury"

https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2020/06/santa-rosa-native-leader-hospitalized.html?m=1

"The impact knocked out four of his front teeth, lodging three of the teeth into the roof of his mouth and one in his tongue ... his jaw was fractured ... It has been verified by Martinez and other protesters that the officer that shot Mr. Martinez was less than 10-15 feet away"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eekVT7nJfBU

https://sonomasun.com/2022/01/12/explosive-charges-of-systemic-racism-brutality-in-the-sonoma-county-sheriffs-office/

https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/sonoma-county-sheriff-offices-sued-for-alleged-torture-beatings-of-jail-inmates/65366/

https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Suit-charges-inmates-were-beaten-tortured-at-6553508.php

https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/jail-guards-beat-humiliated-sonoma-county-jail-federal-lawsuit/104173/

https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/lawsuit-claims-sonoma-county-jail-inmates-suffered-5-hour-beating-at-hands/