San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo turned down an offer from Gov. Gavin Newsom to activate the National Guard to assist police after several chaotic confrontations took place during demonstrations in downtown San Jose in the wake of the death of George Floyd.
Liccardo, speaking at a city council meeting Tuesday night, said he received a call from Newsom over the weekend about deploying the National Guard to San Jose. The mayor said that he, along with City Manager David Sykes and Police Chief Eddie Garcia, all had the same reaction: “Thank you, but no thank you.”
“We feel very strongly that it is really important for civilian police to be policing,” Liccardo said.
The offer came after what began as daytime peaceful protests over the weekend ended with smashed windows, vandalism and violence in the city’s downtown core. In one case, in particular, a deputy fired at an SUV that drove toward a group of protesters and then backed into the crowd, hitting at least two people before it sped away.
Still, Liccardo said he had concerns about bringing in members of the military to quell the clashes between officers and civilians.
“Putting people out there who are not professional police officers is a great risk to our residents because we know when individuals are in tense situations that they haven’t been in a lot may overreact and there are tragic consequences,” he said.
Earlier this week, a black barbeque restaurant owner in Louisville, David McAtee, was killed in a shooting when local police and members of the National Guard attempted to disperse a crowd of protestors.
Mayor Liccardo’s rejection stands apart from decisions made by other local leaders across the state, including those in Sacramento and Los Angeles, who have welcomed aid the aid of the military since protests broke out across the state on Friday.
A few hundred members of the National Guard are in San Jose — as they have been for weeks — helping with the distribution of food amid the COVID-19 pandemic but have not been deployed to help with policing, Liccardo clarified Tuesday.
This story will be updated.
