County releases Micalizio documents

ChicoSol requests officers' records under SB 1421
by Leslie Layton | Posted October 1, 2019
Myra Micalizio (left) with her daughter, Hali McKelvie.

In July 2018, a Sacramento civil rights attorney noted just how much information had been withheld in the shooting by Butte County sheriff’s deputies three months earlier that had killed a Palermo woman.

Myra Micalizio, 56, died in April of that year during an encounter with a pair of deputies who together fired 13 rounds. Attorney Mark Merin, representing Micalizio’s family, issued a press release noting that Butte County had “refused to produce any interviews, investigation reports… statements of the officers, coroner’s report…” read more

‘Cluster of mistakes’ by officers in Rushing killing

Cop experts: Police dog attack on Tyler caused flailing
by Dave Waddell | Posted September 22, 2019

photo courtesy of Rushing family

Tyler Rushing

A law enforcement veteran who is also a police dog expert has called the strategy used to apprehend wounded Tyler Rushing “a cluster of mistakes from the time the officers knew where Rushing was barricaded, until he was shot and killed.”

Ernest Burwell, a Thompson Falls, Mont.-based consultant, was hired by Rushing’s family to study and evaluate the July 23, 2017, shooting of the 34-year-old Ventura man at a downtown Chico title company. Rushing was behaving bizarrely on the title company’s property when he was shot once by private security guard Edgar Sanchez, whom he had attacked and cut with a small glass flower pot. read more

Hundreds rally at City Plaza on #GlobalClimateStrikeDay

Some 200 students walk out of Chico classrooms
by Leslie Layton | Posted September 21, 2019

photo by Karen Laslo
Students Sar Moch, CORE Butte Charter School, and Maggie Pope, from Inspire, attended the rally.

A couple hundred teen and pre-teen students filed out of classrooms today and marched to City Plaza to join the Chico Climate Strike rally, an event that was both upbeat and insistent as speakers demanded bolder climate action.

The Chico event coincided with demonstrations throughout the world that turned out millions of people demanding action. Together, they made up the largest climate change demonstration in history. The Chico rally was co-sponsored by Sunrise Movement Chico and Butte 350 and drew about 500 people — students, teachers, parents, families — to City Plaza. read more

Wrestling with the climate threat to human civilization

"Maybe our purpose is not to go gently"
by Anna Blackmon Moore | Posted September 5, 2019

Anna Blackmon Moore

When I was 16, I was watching a sitcom on my 8-inch black and white TV. Outside my bedroom window, the sun had set. At the start of a commercial, it occurred to me that I was wracked with fear and dread. By the commercial’s end, the dread had anchored itself inside my body— my chest, my limbs, my temples.

I wasn’t better the following day; I wasn’t better the following week. Anxiety became incapacitating. Two months later, I was taking a now ancient antidepressant, beginning what would become a lifelong path of medication and treatment. read more

Chicoans trained to monitor immigration enforcement

NorCal Resist holds training at Chico cafe
by Leslie Layton | Posted August 31, 2019

photo by Leslie Layton
Autumn Gonzalez

Autumn Gonzalez, an attorney who helps lead the Sacramento-based NorCal Resist group, spoke at the Blackbird Chico cafe this evening on how community members can support immigrants and monitor ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) during raids or other actions that might occur in this area.

Gonzalez said residents of the North State can support immigrant communities by acting as observers during ICE detentions, or by conducting a simple protest during immigration enforcement actions or by accompanying asylum seekers who need support and/or rides to appointments and court. Those who attended today’s “Chico Accompaniment & Rapid Response to ICE Training” session were invited to fill out applications to become NorCal Resist observers who contact a hotline if they think they’ve spotted ICE in their community and then record or take notes if officers question or detain people. read more

Bernie Sanders talks climate change in Chico

The Democratic presidential candidate holds town hall, tours Paradise
by Leslie Layton | Posted August 23, 2019

photo by Karen Laslo
Steve Marquadt, Chico Sunrise Movement (left) and Sen. Bernie Sanders open town hall in Chico.

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders brought his ambitious and sweeping plan to combat climate change to Paradise and Chico Thursday, touring fire-ravaged neighborhoods and holding a town hall in a packed auditorium.

Speaking at Chico’s Masonic Lodge to an audience of some 700 people – most of whom had probably been affected directly or indirectly by the Nov. 8 climate-driven Camp Fire — Sanders was passionate in defending a plan that he had put forth just a day earlier. Sanders’ version of the Green New Deal is now viewed as the most ambitious plan to combat climate change that the Democrats have touted. read more