'Prioritizing Public Safety'

Editor:

My compliments to the Eureka Police Department (EPD) for doing a stellar job prioritizing public safety at the No Kings rally on Saturday.

I was positioned at the curb on the east side Fifth Street between J and K streets. An EPD officer was parked in the alley across the street from us keeping a watchful eye. Drivers were honking their horns and giving thumbs up, with the occasional middle finger at a ratio of about 10 to one in support.

When a red light at J Street turned green, a few of the opposition drivers would rev their engines and race off in what most anyone would interpret as a threatening manner to us pedestrians lining the curb. Each time this happened that EPD officer would quickly pull out and ticket them. I witnessed him issue at least five citations within the first hour I was there.

Later, when a few rogue activists took the crowd out into the streets (no doubt against the wishes of the rally organizers, as the traffic on Fifth was our audience and with the street closed down, we were now only talking to ourselves), from what I could observe, the EPD redirected traffic around the protesters, temporarily closing the street rather than attempt to forcibly move the rally back onto the sidewalks.

I don’t think we would have seen this level of support, de-escalation and level-headed response to a fluid situation from the EPD of 20 years ago. So, I applaud the Eureka City Council and its current leadership, particularly EPD Chief Brian Stephens.

Thank you for keeping us all safe!

Richard Salzman, Sunny Brae