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The CZU August Lightning Complex fires in southern San Mateo County and northern Santa Cruz County had grown to 48,000 acres, destroyed at least 50 structures and remained zero percent contained as of Thursday evening,  according to Cal Fire. About 20,952 structures are threatened by the fire, up from 8,600 structures early Thursday.

Fire officials believe the number of structures damaged by the fires will reach the triple digits, “it’s just too early know what that exact number is,” officials said Thursday evening.

About 48,000 people who have been ordered to evacuate from areas threatened by the fires, officials said. In San Mateo County, about 3,600 people have been evacuated as the fire continues to threaten the communities of La Honda and Pescadero. That’s up from 1,100 residents evacuated as of Thursday morning, officials said.

San Mateo County areas previously considered warning areas for evacuations are now mandatory evacuation areas, including Pescadaro Beach, Pescadero Creek and the County park area, Bean Hollow, the town of Pescardaro, San Gregorio, La Honda, the Red Barn area, Russian Bridge and Sky Londa.

Displaced residents can go to Half Moon Bay High, an evacuation center, as well a new evacuation center at the San Mateo County Event Center.

In Santa Cruz, the fires have crested above the communities of Felton, Ben Lomond and Boulder Creek, moving down to Highway 9 just north of Ben Lomond, officials said.

The fires, which began over the weekend, were active throughout Wednesday and “overnight it became even more active,” Cal Fire Operations Section Chief Mark Brunton said. “We had significant burning conditions that are unprecedented and unseen by veteran firefighters.”

The rapid approach of fire prompted a near last-minute evacuation of the community of Davenport on the Santa Cruz County coast, Brunton said. As of Thursday evening, the fires at Davenport had tampered a bit, but were still going.

There are no known injuries to civilians due to the CZU August Lightning Complex fires. A number of first responders have suffered minor injuries,  such as bee stings and minor lacerations, but no major injuries. An accident involving two firefighter vehicles caused minor injuries.

The blazes are among 367 known wildfires statewide that broke out following a 72-hour period of nearly 11,000 lightning strikes amid hot and dry conditions.

The large number of fires means an under-resourced battle in San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties, where the focus is on safe evacuations, officials said. But as of Thursday evening, the number of fire personnel battling the CZU August Lightning Complex fires nearly doubled to 997.

Visit the regional evacuations portal for more information. Visit Cal Fire’s incident map for more information on the status of wildfires throughout the state.

Photo credit: Cal Fire CZU San Mateo-Santa Cruz Unit

The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors unanimously on Wednesday unanimously proclaimed a local emergency as wildfires burned near Loma Mar and South Coast areas. The emergency proclamation makes the County eligible to receive federal funds for some costs associated with the response and “additional flexibility for staffing and purchasing,” the County said.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the series of lightning-caused fires across San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties had burned over 10,000 acres, threatened over 6,000 structures and prompted the evacuation of over 22,000 people. About 1,000 residents were impacted in the San Mateo County communities of Loma Mar, Dearborn Park (west of Loma Mar), Pescadero Creek County Park area and other neighborhoods and communities, County officials said. An evacuation center has been established at Pescadero High School.

The most current evacuation information can be viewed here.

“My hope is that everyone takes these evacuation orders seriously so that we can minimize the loss of property and maximize helping individuals and families stay out of harm’s way,” Supervisor Don Horsley, whose District 3 encompasses the South Coast, said in a statement. “We are working hard to give everyone plenty of warning so that they can secure their valuables and their pets and in many cases their livestock. The threat from this is very real and my heart goes out to everyone impacted by it.”

For an overview of local response to the wildfires, visit here.

PHOTO: The San Mateo County’s Emergency Operations Center staff is working around the clock juggling two emergencies — response to the COVID-19 pandemic and now the August Lightning Complex fires. It is working with CAL Fire, local fire agencies and the County of Santa Cruz to notify residents about impending threats, establish evacuation routes and minimize the extent of the fire (Credit: San Mateo County).

Lightning-caused wildfires in southern San Mateo County and northern Santa Cruz County had grown to 25,000 acres, destroyed at least 20 structures and was zero percent contained as of Wednesday evening,  according to Cal Fire.

They’re among 367 known fires statewide that broke out following a 72-hour period of nearly 11,000 lightning strikes and record hot temperatures, Gov. Gavin Newsom said.

In southern San Mateo County, the CZU August Lightning Complex fires continued to threaten the communities of La Honda and Pescadero, Operations Section Chief Mark Brunton said. In Santa Cruz County, the community of Bonny Doon is “being directly impacted by fire,” Brunton added. Fire officials believe weather conditions in the coming days could mean the communities of Boulder Creek, Ben Lomond and Felton will be impacted.

Areas where there have been evacuation orders include:

• South Skyline Blvd. Area near Highway 9
• Russian Ridge Open Space Reserve Area
• Middleton Tract Area
• Portola Redwoods State Park and the Portola Heights Community Area
• Loma Mar and Dearborn Park Area
• Pescadero Creek County Park Area
• Butano Community Area
• Butano State Park Area including Barranca Knolls Community
• Butano Creek Drainage
• Whitehouse Canyon

An evacuation center has been set up at Pescadero High School at 360 Butano Cutoff. Visit the regional evacuations portal for more information.

The multiple fires were sparked by lightning over the weekend, and winds helped them to spread, fire officials said. The August Lightning fires have caused injuries to three first responders.

The large number of wildfires across the state has hampered resources to fight the San Mateo-Santa Cruz blazes. Visit Cal Fire’s incident map for more information on the status of wildfires throughout the state.

A series of lightning-caused fires across San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties prompted evacuation orders Tuesday.

The fires had burned about 1,000 acres as of early Tuesday evening, with zero percent containment. Cal Fire has issued evacuation orders to these areas:

• Loma Mar / Dearborn Park Area (Zone SMC E018)
• Pescadero Creek County Park Area (Zone SMC E024)
• Butano Community Area (Zone SMC E098)
• Butano State Park area including Barranca Knolls Community (Zone SMC E019)
• Butano Creek Drainage (Zone SMC E055)

Pescadero High School at 360 Butano Cutoff has opened as an evacuation center.

Click here for information and assistance in evacuations.

Pescadero Creek, Memorial and Sam McDonald parks are closed due to an active fire, according to San Mateo County Parks.

Cal Fire San Mateo-Santa Cruz Unit is calling the series of brush blazes the CZU August Lightning Complex fires. They are among a number of fires statewide, as shown on Cal Fire’s incident map.

Photo credit: Cal Fire San Mateo-Santa Cruz Unit

Even non-historians know that history repeats itself. “There is nothing new under the sun,” as the wise King Solomon purportedly put it. “Been there, done that?” Well, who hasn’t? So about the last person who should have been surprised by Mitch Postel’s recent deep dive into local history for a magazine article was Mitch Postel.

Yet there he was, the president of the San Mateo County Historical Association, sheltered in place at home because of Covid-19, researching the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 and 1919 —and colliding with an astonishing, positive case of déjà vu all over again, right out of Yogi Berra’s homespun lexicon.

The century-ago masks and mask-makers. The curfews and quarantines. Schools and churches closed. Flipflopping health orders, varying by city. And, in time, rebellion against mask-wearing and all the other restrictions. A coronavirus carbon copy. And Postel, of all people, surprised by history.

“Yes,” he agrees with a laugh. “I was just getting hit with it constantly,” he adds, of the then/now parallels he kept finding. “…When I started doing this (I thought) ‘Oh well, this was so many years ago and attitudes have changed so much and it won’t be the same.’ And it turns out to be almost exactly the same. I was really flabbergasted that people have not changed that much.”

This story was originally published in the August edition of Climate Magazine. To view the magazine online, click on this link.

Stuck at home because of the Covid-related closure of the downtown Redwood City museum and its satellites, Postel had just buttoned up a lengthy treatise on turn-of-the-century polo in San Mateo County. The story was to have appeared in the summer issue of the historical association’s magazine, La Peninsula, which is available to association members, some libraries and for sale at the museum gift shop. But members of the publication committee thought since Covid-19 made the Spanish flu more topical, he should switch gears and write about influenza first.

Menlo Park’s WWI Camp

When the United States got involved in World War I, Menlo Park became one of 16 mobilization and training camps in the nation. Camp Fremont was established there in July 1917, and more than 27,000 soldiers eventually lived in the sprawling installation that stretched from El Camino Real to the foothills. (At the time, San Mateo County’s entire population was about 36,800, not including the military.)

Postel knew Camp Fremont would be part of the story of how the Spanish flu impacted the county, but after it emerged with deadly effect in September 1918, cases were by no means confined to the base. The first camp death was recorded Sept. 28, the same day the U.S. Public Health Service issued a report on “a very contagious kind of ‘cold’ accompanied by fever, pains in the head, eyes, ears, back or other parts of the body.” Though symptoms supposedly would disappear after three or four days, sometimes pneumonia set in and patients died.

October was the worst month both for the soldiers at Camp Fremont and residents of San Mateo and San Francisco counties, Postel writes. Although it was apparent across the nation that a health emergency was in progress, 150,000 patriotic Northern Californians gathered in Golden Gate Park to show support for the soldiers fighting in Europe in the final Allied push.

By early October a strict quarantine was declared at the camp, and Palo Alto began requiring residents to wear cheesecloth masks. Meanwhile, cases were showing up in cities, including 153 in San Francisco and 500 in Los Angeles. By mid-month, conditions at Camp Fremont continued to deteriorate, with 164 patients critically ill and only 25 nurses available.

Concerned about Camp Fremont, Redwood City’s health officer Dr. J.D. Chapin quarantined 12 residences as a “precaution” and ordered public gathering places closed. Only a week later, victory seemed to have been declared: The Redwood City Democrat newspaper reported that the Sequoia Theater and schools could be reopening as a result of a rapid decrease in new cases.

Not Really Over

Later in the month, however, new cases had jumped to 149, for a total of 250 altogether, including seven fatalities. The city trustees adopted a resolution calling for all residents to wear masks and the police chief was approaching citizens “without gauze” to advise where they could get a mask.

Newspapers devoted space to each illness and death. In the pre-Hollywood era, members of “the smart set” were celebrities whose clubs, parties and travels were followed assiduously. Prominent people began to catch influenza and die, among them the superintendent of two mosquito districts in the San Mateo/Burlingame area who was the son of a well-known, long-time ranch owner. Just 28, he left a wife and baby.

San Mateo’s health officer ordered schools, churches, theaters, clubs, lodges and pool rooms shut down. Burlingame did the same. Only manual arts classes in the San Mateo high school district could continue; students were filling orders for emergency surgical supplies for U.S. troops in Siberia.

The death of a member of the pioneering Parrott family was particularly upsetting. After serving overseas in an ambulance unit, Joe Parrott spent only six months at home before volunteering to go back to the infantry. After a brief bout with pneumonia, he died at the Camp Fremont hospital.

“He was a legitimate hero and just to enlist in the Army as a private from this big classy important family is kind of amazing to me,” Postel says.

Despite Parrott’s death, the San Francisco Examiner reported that the Camp Fremont quarantine had been lifted. Most soldiers could leave the base. Meanwhile, up in Hillsborough, San Mateo and Burlingame, masks were required on penalty of a $100 fine and 20 days in jail.

A Mask Revolt

The flu rolled up new San Mateo victims in the prime of their lives: a 44-year-old painter, a 38-year-old housewife and a chauffeur. Mask-sewing brigades sewed away. Though initially acquiescent, mask-wearers in time began to resist, especially in San Francisco, and police there started hauling “mask slackers” into court by the hundreds, Postel says. “An anti-mask league was formed and rallies were attended by the thousands.”

The mask-or-else edict came down San Mateo Countywide in late October. But by November, despite some contradictory evidence including more deaths, newspapers were reporting a falloff in cases and that the epidemic was coming under control.

“By December of 1918, many in the San Francisco Bay Area believed, if not entirely eradicated, influenza was a decreasing problem,” Postel writes. “That and the euphoria caused by the War ending [Nov. 11, 1918], resulted in a lessening of attention by local newspapers to the epidemic.” They started calling it “pneumonia” instead of “influenza.”

In fact, the flu continued its dread harvest locally until at least February 1919, though the one newspaper minimized the disease as “old-fashioned grip(pe),” nothing new. Closures of schools and public gathering places were intermittent; many parents just kept the kids home.

Summing up the trajectory, Postel says, “Around the middle of September, people were starting to get the idea that there was a problem. And then October was horrible. Well, by mid-November, people had had it. You know, ‘The crisis is over, I’m taking off my mask. This has got to be it.’ And then of course there was a spike in January. And then putting back on the masks and taking the kids back out of school, that became really politically difficult.”

World War I with all of its privations was over. Thousands turned out for a Feb. 22, 1919, welcome home celebration in Redwood City. About 40 San Mateo County residents had died in the war, compared with 131 taken by the flu by December. But many people were just tired of it.

Heroines of the Flu

In his research, the big surprise to Postel was the heroic response of women volunteers through two emergent Red Cross chapters who stepped up to help wherever needed. The San Mateo County chapter provided over 61,000 gauze compresses, 1,900 face masks, 4,400 pairs of socks, and 3,400 sweaters, plus more than 400 “pneumonia jackets” (used either to warm patients or to cool them through tubes inside the jackets.)

The women raised more than $118,000 and organized a “motor corps” to transport victims and ferry supplies. At mortal risk of coming down with the disease themselves, they delivered food and cleaned houses for victims too sick to cook or clean.

One remarkable society woman, Cecelia Cudahy Casserly, converted her Hillsborough mansion into an emergency hospital for three weeks. At 1 p.m. Oct. 23, her furnishings began to be moved into a cottage on the grounds. Later that night, “Casserly Hospital” took in its first four patients.

“I think it’s rare in history that you have moments like that,” Postel observes, “that there are that many people who are so altruistic that they’ll step forward and help others. … We were really picking up statewide notice because of the activities that were going on here.”

The Progressive Era ethos that people should take responsibility for their community was an influence on these motivated women. Progressives, Postel says, saw value in government marshaling everyone behind the war effort and in applying expert opinion to combat influenza. “Doctors were saying things like wear face masks and don’t congregate in large parties. Close your movie theaters, close your schools. Do all the stuff that’s really repugnant,” Postel says. “Still is today. All the things that we rebel against today, people were rebelling against then.” People got fed up with government telling them what to do.

Despite being closed since March and losing both revenue and visitors, Postel concludes that “as much as I hate to admit it, a lot of the restrictions we’re facing now are probably necessary.” Rest assured, though, that the history of the 21st century pandemic isn’t being overlooked: People are being asked to submit their own Covid-19 stories and observations to www.historysmc.org— what they did, what they missed, what they learned as a result of the 2020 pandemic and so forth.

Surprising or not.

National debate connecting racism and policing in the wake of the May killing of George Floyd has penetrated Peninsula police and public agencies and raised the eminence and effect of Black Lives Matter’s “8 Can’t Wait” platform, especially its call to ban carotid restraint holds.

The argument over a statewide ban on carotid holds continues to rage in Sacramento, with the California Police Chiefs Association in strong disagreement. But the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office suspended its use in June, the San Mateo Police Department drafted policy prohibiting not only carotid holds but all choke holds, and Redwood City is waiting to modify its “highly restrictive” policy on carotid restraint until the state police training agency and the Legislature act on Governor Gavin Newsom’s call for a complete ban on the practice.

Action on the remaining seven of 8 Can’t Wait’s wish list is less certain. Local agencies say they are already doing what’s being asked, or a version of it, or are open to discussing it.

The concept of black lives matter, but not the political movement, won the endorsement of the San Mateo City Council July 20, but the council stopped short of going along with a proposal for a “Black Lives Matter” mural on a downtown street. A resolution acknowledging “the dignity of all our community members” was brought forward by Council member Amourence Lee with the support of faith leaders, Police Chief Ed Barberini and the Police Officers Association. But the separate mural proposal is to be referred to the Civic Arts Commission.

This story was originally published in the August edition of Climate Magazine. To view the magazine online, click on this link.

Redwood City and San Mateo have launched public “listening sessions” about policing and budgets that so far have solicited constituent demands for everything from eliminating police departments to increasing police budgets.

At least one elected participant in the listening sessions, Redwood City Council member Alicia Aguirre, who serves on the city’s new Ad Hoc Committee on Policing, insists that the talk must lead to “actionable items.”

Redwood City has announced one action: returning to the federal Defense Logistics Agency the police department’s 30-ton Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle, taken out of military surplus and given to Redwood City in 2014.

Hardened to protect soldiers from bombs and weapons when deployed to such places as Afghanistan, the vehicle was upgraded with paint and police logos and intended to serve as a police rescue vehicle. It has been deployed once in the last six years. Mayor Diane Howard has long criticized it as bad for the image city government wants to project to its citizens.

Choke Holds

A carotid hold is law enforcement authorization to use force to subdue an individual by cutting off the flow of oxygen to the brain. The throttle is pressure on the carotid artery in the neck that is the brain’s primary blood supply. The carotid hold is intended to render a subject unconscious, and most police policies caution that it can have lethal consequences.

A medical examiner’s report blamed intoxicants and a possible cardiac condition for Floyd’s death; an independent autopsy paid for by the Floyd family concluded he died of asphyxiation when Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin knelt with knees on his back and neck for nearly nine minutes. Officer Chauvin has been charged with Floyd’s murder in the case.

Protest marches, riots and property destruction in more than 300 American cities that followed spawned the web-based 8 Can’t Wait movement, which itself is an outgrowth of the five-year-old Campaign Zero. Campaign Zero in turn was organized after nationwide protests over the killing of Michael Brown by Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Mo., in August of 2014. All organizers of 8 Can’t Wait and Campaign Zero are activists of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Efforts to contact Campaign Zero, 8 Can’t Wait, Black Lives Matter Los Angeles and local BLM activists for comment in this article were unsuccessful.

Sheriff’s Jurisdiction

Twenty-five law enforcement agencies have jurisdiction over San Mateo County’s 20 cities and other areas. With more than 800 employees, the sheriff’s office is by far the largest, providing police services to areas outside of city limits as well as to Woodside, Portola Valley, San Carlos, Millbrae and the Coastside including Half Moon Bay.

Sheriff Carlos Bolanos is elected countywide. He contends that equating racism and police use of force is “missing the point.

“The point,” he said, “was, before May 25, George Floyd, we weren’t talking about defunding police, we weren’t talking about 8 Can’t Wait, everybody was pretty much happy going all along recognizing racism has been with us forever in the history of our country.

“We had this horrible, tragic incident. I can’t in any way defend that officer’s action,” Bolanos said. “From my perspective law enforcement is part of the problem, but the difficulty I have with this entire issue is law enforcement is just part of the systemic racism that exists in all of our institutions.

“I think by focusing just on law enforcement — I’ll be the first to tell you we can always make improvements — but by just focusing on law enforcement it allows people to, basically they’ve found their scapegoat. But racism is found everywhere. Everywhere. Education. Housing. Business. Hiring.

“I’m a person of color,” Bolanos continued. “People choose to live on the Peninsula for a reason. They move from Redwood City to other cities for a reason. My concern is that by just focusing on law enforcement — please remember the word ‘defunding.’ Once people recognized that that is not a good word, they changed it to ‘reimagining,’ I’d never heard those used in law enforcement, and I’ve been in law enforcement for 40 years.”

A Checklist

The sheriff’s web page prominently displays the icons of all eight of 8 Can’t Wait’s calls to action with green checks for compliance next to “Bans Chokeholds and Strangleholds,” “Requires De-Escalation,” “Requires Exhaust All Alternatives Before Shooting,” “Duty to Intervene,” “Utilizes Use of Force Continuum” and “Requires Comprehensive Reporting.” “Requires Warning Before Shooting” and “Bans Shooting at Moving Vehicles” are unchecked.

The sheriff’s department has revised use-of-force policies following a police death before, in 2019 following the death of a pedestrian, Chinedu Okobi, who was Tased seven times during an arrest by Sheriff’s Deputy Joshua Wang in Millbrae on Oct. 3, 2018.

At that time the sheriff brought in the American Civil Liberties Union to consult.

Deputies Wang and John DeMartini, Alyssa Lorenzatti, Bryan Watt and Sgt. David Weidner, who were involved in the arrest, were investigated by the district attorney’s office, which declined to file charges.

Deferring to the AG

San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe has prosecuted police misconduct at jury trials, unsuccessfully, in the past and said he supports a system kicking cases like Okobi’s up to the California Attorney General when local opinion impugns the objectivity of the local DA.

“The Okobi case in our county that got so much attention,” he said, “I feel on a real, real level I could fairly evaluate. I think I did — obviously that’s what I think — but I understand there’s a lot of people who felt, you know what, the DA was just backing the sheriff.

“That might be a case where I would say, yeah, I’m going to request the Attorney General to take a look at it. It might be one like that … ones where I want the community to have faith in these most important cases. “… It’s hard for the public because,” Wagstaffe said, “as you know, police officers very, very seldom get prosecuted. And that does create a feeling about the big cases.

“In Minnesota (George Floyd), Atlanta (Rayshard Brooks), those are simple, there’s no prosecutor anywhere who isn’t going to say, ‘Charge that.’ It’s the tougher ones, the closer ones where the law has to be applied.”

Wagstaffe acknowledged that he had “not filed a case involving a death. In my time I have found those to be justifiable use of force in all occasions.”

The district attorney prosecutes criminal (not civil) cases and brings to court only those in which he believes the evidence proves guilt. He confronts in the courtroom and figures into his calculus the well-documented phenomenon of jury bias in favor of police.

Use of Force Training

According to the American Bar Association, in these cases it doesn’t take long for a defense attorney to recite for a jury’s benefit police policy manuals on use of force. The ABA quotes Maria Haberfeld, professor of police science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City: “Most jurors who sit through a trial come away with the realization that ‘police work involves force,’ and officers are trained and authorized to use it at all times.”

Court cases have dictated that use-of-force policies are a requirement and have even prescribed language; however, state legislatures also can legislate use of force policies.

A back-and-forth in California over state legislation has gone on for years. As it stands at the moment, critical sections of use-of-force policies must use the terms “objectively,” “necessary,” and sometimes “feasible.”

For example: “Deputies shall use only that amount of force that reasonably appears necessary given the facts and totality of the circumstances known to or perceived by the deputy at the time of the event to accomplish a legitimate law enforcement purpose.” (Sheriff’s Operations Manual Chapter 300.3) Such language is the product of lobbying by organizations such as the California Peace Officers Association, California Police Chiefs Association, American Civil Liberties Union and various state legislators.

Some wanted a standard of “reasonable” force. Others wanted “necessary.” The compromise was to use both.

Not only is it “a vague standard of reasonableness” according to Wagstaffe, “a local police agency can change it. According to someone’s point of view that can be good. Most people at the time felt police policies were not tough enough 20 years ago when the country reacted to the destruction of the Twin Towers on 9/11.

The Public Mood

The backlash was so strong, Wagstaffe noted, that “I remember 9/11 and the Patriot Act and the secret court and thinking to myself, ‘Wow. I feel like I’m back in 1916 and they just passed the Alien Sedition Act.”

As a consequence, the “tough on crime” political mantra of the 70s, 80s and 90s, which had provoked contentious political debate in elections for decades, no longer was the subject of debate.

Today, because of police killings across the country and the prevalence of citizen video and social media, the pendulum is moving in the opposite direction in some cities, though not all. Police policy manuals are as individual as the 20 cities and the 25 law enforcement agencies in the county, each of which can make changes. And an officer from one city on police business in another city — which happens — only has to comply with his home city’s rules.

Some city councils and their law enforcement agencies may feel they have settled the matter by adopting bans on carotid holds and lethal chokeholds. But the low-hanging fruit when considering remaining issues such as civilian oversight of police, public identification of police offenders, shooting at moving vehicles and more, is most definitely not settled at the state level.

For example, Assemblyman Mike Gipson (D-Carson) introduced legislation that would strike the specific language about these control methods and replace it with a prohibition on “techniques or transport methods that involve a substantial risk of positional asphyxia.”

Difficult to Define

“Positional asphyxia” plausibly could describe what happened to Floyd. But it equally describes many other manners of death, regardless of whether a hold was involved or not.

The California Police Chief’s Association is opposed. In a statement, its President Eric Nunez said, “The added language expands the bill’s scope in a way that lacks the clarity and specificity an issue of this magnitude deserves.

“No police chief supports prolonged force being used against an individual who is not resisting, but we cannot take away necessary tools needed to overcome combative suspects and expect our peace officers to be able to keep the public safe.”

The bill will go the way of dozens of others urgently proposed in this Covid-isolated legislature. It will go nowhere.

But there is another, calmer place from which police policy, including use of force policy, derives.

In the spirit of not wanting to reinvent the wheel, law enforcement agencies around the country turn to policy consulting companies for help in writing these carefully worded, exhaustively-catalogued manuals, which run to at least 600 pages.

Lexipol of Frisco, Texas, delves into its knowledge of best practices, legislation and case law to contract with local agencies which need policy manuals for police, fire, correction, emergency response and general government. It counts 8,100 public agencies as clients, including the City of Redwood City.Lexipol reports that it is considering offering clients a “no carotid” option and is assiduously following state and national developments to gauge where the public is leading.

But it doesn’t report much action on that front so far.