by Peter Schurmann, ACoM | Posted September 9, 2025
L.A. Unified Supt. Alberto Carvalho with students in a science classroom. Photo courtesy of American Community Media & LAUSD.
On Aug. 11, masked agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) handcuffed and pointed their guns at a disabled 15-year-old while he waited for his mom to pick him up from school in Arleta, California. On Aug. 8, ICE arrested Benjamin Guerrero Cruz as he walked his dog in Van Nuys, days before the 18-year-old was set to begin his senior year of high school.
These are just two in a string of examples of ICE’s aggressive implementation of the Trump Administration’s mass deportation agenda, an approach experts say is traumatizing kids and families and sending a chill through school communities across the country.
“This back-to-school season, children are facing the terror of wondering if their parents will be there to pick them up,” said America’s Voice Executive Director Vanessa Cardenas during an Aug. 28 virtual briefing. “The usual first day jitters have been replaced by fear.”read more
Community members who spoke hold out hope for people who seem challenging to help
by Yucheng Tang | Posted May 3, 2025
photo by Yucheng Tang
Behavioral Health Director Scott Kennelly speaks at the first meeting of the City’s ad hoc committee on homelessness.
At the first meeting of the City’s ad hoc committee on homelessness, the discussion touched on the overlap between homelessness, substance abuse and mental health. It also raised two related questions: how to address the problem of shelter-resistant homeless individuals, and whether compelled treatment is sometimes necessary.
Scott Kennelly, the director of Butte County Behavioral Health, said homeless outreach teams have worked to convince unhoused people to take advantage of services and have tried to connect them with services, but there are always people who say, “Leave me the hell alone.”
In his view, homeless people who refuse to go to shelters can generally be divided into three groups: those severely addicted to drugs like Fentanyl and Xylazine who are solely focused on their next hit and refuse any care; those with severe mental illness who are psychotic and unaware of their condition; and those who prefer a rule-free lifestyle.read more
Accessing mental health services a challenge for the homeless
by Melissa Herzstein and Amy Ballard | Posted March 18, 2025
photo by Karen Laslo
“I never know what day it is. I only know the time based on whether the sun is out.”
I (Melissa) was alarmed by this statement from an unhoused individual I interviewed as I helped with Butte County’s 2025 Point in Time (PIT) count, the biennial study that measures the number of unhoused persons through observation and response to a survey about their needs. This man was describing the challenges he faced in seeking mental health services at a walk-in facility. He was given an appointment for months out, making it impossible for him to attend because he had no reliable way to tell time.
Based on the accounts of this individual and others, it is common for unhoused people to be unable to access critical mental health and housing services due to overcrowded facilities. As social work students, we are concerned about this issue because it negatively impacts not just the unhoused population, but our community as a whole.
According to the 2023 PIT data, there are about 925 unhoused individuals in Chico. Although multiple homeless shelters exist, 40% of these unhoused persons are unsheltered.
Thirty-eight percent of unhoused individuals in Chico experience mental health issues, while the overall rate in California is even higher — at 50%-60%. Because there are insufficient shelter options and mental health services, this population is susceptible to engaging in substance abuse as a coping mechanism, or crime, including theft, to address their unmet needs.
The increase in substance abuse can lead to potential harm to themselves and others or possible overdoses. Higher rates of violence and crime can trigger negative psychological effects due to fear and safety concerns on the part of members of our community. Also, the lack of hygiene facilities for unsheltered individuals causes unsanitary conditions in public spaces where these persons are living.
During the March 4 Chico City Council meeting, community members echoed these safety concerns while also recognizing the issue of homelessness as a top priority. Currently, a large portion of the budget allocated to addressing homelessness is spent on clearing encampments, which is not only inhumane but also ineffective at solving the problem in the long run. The solutions brought to the Council’s attention were creating managed campgrounds, forming safe parking areas, and increasing the number of shelters.
In addition to supporting these solutions, we urge the new ad hoc homelessness committee to advocate for access to walk-in mental health services at managed campgrounds, facilities and shelters. We implore these organizations to train individuals to be culturally aware and sensitive to issues faced by unhoused persons.
We encourage shelters and law enforcement agencies to conduct regular crisis intervention training for staff to provide better support around substance abuse and mental health issues. We urge shelters to address intake, record keeping and communication issues so that unhoused individuals have consistent housing. Through these solutions, we can create a safer environment and improve the quality of life not only for unhoused individuals, but also for the community as a whole.
Melissa Herzstein is a resident of Chico and a first-year student in the Master’s of Social Work (MSW) program at the University of Southern California (USC). She volunteered to help with the PIT count, which she said was “eye-opening for me because it showed me how much mental health services for individuals experiencing homelessness are needed. I came across multiple individuals who mentioned their struggles with mental health and wished I could have done more than provide referrals to facilities they already knew of.”
Amy Ballard is a Los Angeles resident who is also enrolled in the MSW program at USC. Ballard said: “Based on our research, the aspect of homelessness in Chico that stood out to me the most was the long wait times for unhoused individuals to receive mental health services at walk-in facilities. Through the efforts of the ad hoc committee on homelessness and other community endeavors, we hope that the unhoused population will be able to obtain more timely and accessible services in the future.”
Update: At a Nov. 16 hearing, a judge suspended criminal proceedings in this case and ordered a psychological examination of Thomas Bona that will be delivered Dec. 21. Bona had refused to come to court for the hearing.
Thomas David Bona, who has been in and out of the Butte County courtrooms and jail during the past 16 years, now faces felony charges with hate crime enhancements in connection with two recent graffiti incidents.
Bona is scheduled to be back in court Nov. 16 on charges related to the discovery of swastikas etched into the Murdered & Missing Indigenous Women mural at Cedar and Second streets and on the Congregation Beth Israel sign at the local synagogue. Both the mural and the temple sign had been partially burned. He’s also charged with throwing a rock through the window of a local restaurant.
Someone had scrawled, “Fuck Indians” and “Indian killer” on the mural when the artists discovered the defacement last month. Broken glass had been thrown into the face of an indigenous woman depicted in the artwork.
“He targets minorities,” said Ali Meders-Knight, a member of the local Mechoopda Tribe and one of three artists who has been working on the mural. The defacement “really made us feel like there was a group of Nazis targeting us.”
Nazi swastikas and other hate graffiti aimed at ethnic minority groups are festering throughout California. White supremacist groups are often responsible for these hate incidents. In some cases, however, the explanation can be very complex.
Bona, a diagnosed schizophrenic who has been living unhoused in Chico, was convicted early last year on charges related to 2019 graffiti incidents involving what the district attorney’s office called “white power statements,” as well as a confrontation with a motorist. His recent re-emergence on similar charges has raised questions about mental health care in and outside of jails and prisons and how best to protect the community.
During the confrontation with the motorist, prosecutors said Bona yelled racial slurs at the driver, kicked the side of the car and tried to carve a swastika into the hood. He was sentenced to the highest possible term of six years.
But in July, Bona was released early from state prison after receiving 526 days credit for time served in jail and at a state mental hospital during court proceedings. A Butte County District Attorney’s press statement says Bona was released “with conditions that he seek continued mental health treatment and be subject to GPS ankle-monitor tracking as he had no home and declined sober living residences.”
Now Bona faces charges of arson, vandalism, and a parole violation — with hate crime enhancements — and a possible nine-year sentence. DA Mike Ramsey confirmed that Bona has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, but his press release states that the 36-year-old suspect “has had many treatment opportunities both in custody and out.”
His “continual terrorizing of the community cannot be tolerated …,” the press statement says.
The recent defacements to the mural and the synagogue were, in fact, frightening to the people who were targeted.
Lisa Rappaport, spiritual leader at Congregation Beth Israel on Hemlock Street, said the discovery of the vandalized temple sign had been “very rattling and disturbing” -– especially coming as it did about the same time as similar incidents in Los Angeles, Sacramento and Davis.
Siana Sonoquie, an advocate for the unhoused community who is familiar with Bona’s history, seems as frustrated as those in local law enforcement -– but for different reasons.
“I don’t want to minimize the harm [Bona] has caused and the potential for more harm,” said Sonoquie, who helped in trying to locate Bona during Project Roomkey, a state-driven effort to shelter unhoused people during the pandemic. “Two things are true at once … we also know that the response from the justice system is not effective.”
Sonoquie says Bona represents a more complex social problem: How to effectively treat mentally ill, unhoused community members, who are often in and out of jails and prisons — and how to support them when they’re released.
“For severely mentally ill people living with delusions and all of the things that go with schizophrenia, there are no good solutions for them when they come out of prison — just the hope they will find their way out,” she said.
Bona’s odyssey
Bona’s court docket tells the story of troubles that began in 2006 and then become a litany of arrests, jail sentences, probation violations and restitution fines that end up turned over to the county collections division.
It goes like this: In 2006, Bona was arrested for possession of a deadly weapon — a concealed knife of some kind. He was sentenced to three days in jail and two years probation. In 2007, he was charged with vandalism and failures to appear in court. During the next three years there were other issues forcing him back to court, including restitution fines referred to collections.
There were also new, worrisome charges. In 2010, he fired a rifle in a north Chico apartment complex and was convicted of reckless discharge. He failed probation and ended up on his first stay in state prison.
Six months after he was paroled -– August 2012 – he was charged with elder abuse, accused of punching an 86-year-old man in the aisle at Best Buy. According to a Butte County probation report, the victim said he noticed Bona talking to himself and made a comment referring to him as “crazy.” Bona punched him once and the man fell to the floor.
In a subsequent interview with police, Bona was described as “confused.” By October, the court had found Bona incompetent to stand trial, and by the end of 2012 he was committed to a state hospital. On Feb. 28, 2014, Metropolitan State Hospital in Los Angeles County declared Bona “restored to mental competency,” the probation report says.
In April 2014, the report says Bona was interviewed at Butte County Jail and described his behavior at Best Buy this way: “I saw the Sopranos DVD and I was quoting lines from the show. I’m Sicilian and love anything Sicilian. I acted like a ‘wise guy.’
“He walked up to me and threatened me …” Bona said of the elderly victim. “I feel bad since he was an older guy but I’ve been ‘in’ for 2 years.”
Bona also told police he hadn’t taken medications for at least a month because he had been “on the streets.” He described his symptoms this way: “Sometimes I see bugs crawling then look again and they’re not there. I also hear voices.”
Bona was returned to state prison to serve time for the elder abuse conviction.
By 2019, he was back in the community facing charges of violating parole and hate-fueled vandalism. He was convicted and returned to prison for the third time.
Sonoquie, who serves as a board member of the Safe Space sheltering program, says that apart from the racist and sometimes violent nature of Bona’s behavior, he’s not atypical in his inability to manage his illness while living on the streets.
Unhoused people struggle with how to charge a mobile phone and where to sleep, and if they’re ill, are often reluctant to take meds that make them sleepy because they’re afraid of getting robbed, she said.
Ramsey is less sympathetic. “The state prisons have a robust mental health program,” the DA said. “He did get substantial help, but did it cure him? That’s the question.”
Sonoquie and others interviewed for this story challenged the assertion that mental health care is good in jails and prisons. “Jails are not set up to be mental hospitals,” Sonoquie said.
Supportive housing in short supply
“The simple idea that he was released to the streets with an ankle monitor is insane,” Sonoquie said of Bona. “It sets him up for failure. There’s no support system.”
Added Sonoquie: “This is all connected to the way we care for the severely mentally ill in our community. Just handing a [homeless] person a piece of paper” and telling them to show up at behavioral health or for a probation appointment on a certain date won’t work. An unmedicated, mentally ill, unhoused person “will find it hard to keep up with things.”
Many former prisoners find re-entry to their communities challenging, she added. “Imagine layering on top of that schizophrenia. It’s a very, very difficult journey.”
People released from custody have few places they can go for housing, particularly if they need a structured support program for ongoing care, she said. Someone managing mental illness may need, for example, transitional housing that has a case manager who shows up daily and ensures the client takes meds.
“Supportive housing is the most important piece of this,” Sonoquie said, noting that Chico has a limited supply.
Bona’s public defender, Matthew Bently, declined to comment on the case or the plea his client may enter at arraignment.
But he agrees that a much greater supply of transitional housing is needed in the community. Upon release, some people will need curfews, mental health services, vocational counseling — something that’s “a step down from incarceration and gives them a chance to re-enter society.”
“You can’t just throw people back into the society they came from and say ‘good luck,’” Bently said. “We have some excellent cops and probation officers who truly care, but I don’t think we have a strong rehabilitative aftercare program” that goes beyond parole.
A nonprofit criminal justice reform organization, Civil Rights Corps, says supportive housing with “wraparound services” has been shown to dramatically reduce re-arrest and re-incarceration rates.
“Jail is just not a conducive place to receive mental health treatment”–Washington
Sam Washington, a policy associate with the Washington, D.C.-based group, told ChicoSol that getting a resistant former prisoner into housing with a structured program requires “relationship-building” with social and behavioral health workers.
In-custody mental health treatment can be helpful, but Washington said most of the programs are “woefully inadequate.” In addition, because of the “traumatizing conditions” in jails and prisons, it’s difficult to have “productive mental health programs.”
“Jail is just not a conducive place to receive mental health treatment,” Washington said.
Nevertheless, the care may provide some benefit to some inmates with the goal of learning to manage their illness successfully. “Many schizophrenic people are living healthy, productive lives,” Washington pointed out.
“Perpetuating a cycle”
Chico Police Lt. Brian Miller indicated his frustration with the rate at which California prisons release prisoners convicted of crimes that are deemed “non-violent” and “non-serious.”
“When we started seeing swastikas again, we asked ourselves ‘Where’s Thomas Bona?’” Miller told ChicoSol. “The way things are, we can do the best we can, but we have no say over people staying in custody.”
Meders-Knight has worked on several murals that have been defaced and was wondering whether Bona has been held accountable for his role when she was contacted by Chico police on Nov. 4 after his most recent arrest. The nature of his graffiti indicates “he knows exactly who he’s targeting,” she said.
In September, the state Legislature passed legislation to stiffen penalties for swastika graffiti. AB 2282 makes punishment for using nooses and Nazi swastikas comparable to that of cross-burning.
Sonoquie said early releases aren’t the problem –- the problem is the lack of community resources to support former prisoners when they return.
“When [mentally ill] people cause harm in a community, the response is to banish them to prison,” Sonoquie said. “Then they are let out and they cause more harm, perpetuating a cycle. Our response is not to have a place for this person to go. We keep doing this to ourselves.”
Sonoquie agrees that racist graffiti and property damage Bona is suspected of producing and has produced in the past is not just frustrating, but “super scary.”
“But what the county is doing is not making people safe,” she added.
Sonoquie said the community members who have been threatened by recent graffiti incidents should be involved in responding to whomever was responsible. “People have a right to feel safe in our community,” she said. “The people that were harmed should have a say in how to make it right.”
Leslie Layton is editor of ChicoSol and a freelance journalist.
Quick reversal to be sought in Chico police killing suit
by Dave Waddell | Posted August 3, 2019
photo courtesy of Phillips family
Desmond Phillips
SACRAMENTO – When a conservative federal judge this week blocked claims for damages sought by Desmond Phillips’ family, Chico Police Chief Mike O’Brien quickly spun out a press release saying the judge had justified Phillips’ controversial police killing.
However, Ben Nisenbaum, an attorney for the family, told ChicoSol in a Wednesday phone interview that Judge John Mendez erred in his rulings in court Tuesday. Once Mendez’s words are sorted out, Nisenbaum believes Phillips’ survivors will get the jury trial they are seeking.
Mendez, a judge in the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of California, in Sacramento, dismissed civil claims that had been filed by the family of 25-year-old Desmond Phillips, an African-American man who was suffering from a mental crisis when he was killed in his own living room by two young Chico police officers. The family’s complaint alleged violations of both federal and California laws.
Nisenbaum indicated that once a transcript of Tuesday’s hearing is prepared, he will ask Mendez to reconsider his dismissal of several state claims made by Phillips’ survivors, including his father David Phillips and mother Delphine Norman.
“I’m very troubled by the court’s ruling,” Nisenbaum said. “I suspect he’ll reverse himself on a motion for reconsideration” within the next few weeks.
Nisenbaum also indicated that if the state claims are not reinstated, an appeal by his clients to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is sure to follow.
Chief O’Brien’s press statement says Mendez confirmed that the conduct of the officers was lawful and justifiable and their use of force neither excessive nor negligent. The judge granted the city’s request for a “summary judgment” in its entirety, dismissing all nine damage claims made by the plaintiffs. Summary judgment means to decide in favor of one side against another without a full trial.
“Although a tragic incident, the Chico Police Department concurs with this important ruling,” O’Brien said.
Phillips was killed March 17, 2017, by two officers, Alex Fliehr and Jeremy Gagnebin. Together, they fired 16 rounds, hitting Phillips 11 times. Just seven seconds elapsed from the time Phillips was felled by a Taser until the officers started shooting him with pistols.
A law enforcement expert hired by the plaintiffs, Roger A. Clark of Santee, Calif., said in a report earlier this year that Fliehr and Gagnebin inexplicably froze after Phillips was, as planned, shot to the floor with a Taser by officer Jared Cumber. Clark argues that when Phillips unexpectedly got to his feet, and while he still was feeling the effects of Cumber’s stun gun, Fliehr and Gagnebin unleashed a barrage of gunfire.
One of the bullets hitting Phillips was fired at a sharply downward angle, according to a medical examiner’s report.
“In my experience, this level of excessive shooting is indicative of a panic shooting [by Fliehr], and consistent with sympathetic and contagious gunfire [by Gagnebin],” Clark wrote.
Fliehr and Gagnebin denied those contentions in depositions (sworn, out-of-court) testimony.
Fliehr claimed Phillips rose and charged at him swinging a knife in each hand, but Nisenbaum says the evidence is “indisputable” that Phillips dropped both kitchen knives he had been holding when downed by the Taser. When shot, Phillips at most held a piece of “wood shatter” from a broken door jamb created when Fliehr kicked open the front door in response to Phillips’ father’s frantic 911 call saying Desmond was trying to stab him.
Nisenbaum’s argument relies largely on statements and depositions from two Chico police sergeants on the scene the night Phillips was killed, Todd Lefkowitz and Michael Williams. Lefkowitz told investigators that when Phillips rose up, he did what Nisenbaum described as a “wild chicken dance.” Nisenbaum told ChicoSol that investigators had filmed Lefkowitz demonstrating Phillips’ rapid arm and leg movements.
Lefkowitz reported seeing the piece of shattered wood in Phillips’ hand, while his other hand was empty.
Nisenbaum contends that Fliehr and Gagnebin fabricated their accounts and that Cumber changed his story in a “very serious way” between his initial statement and his deposition two years later.
Tuesday’s hearing, held on the 14th floor of the Robert T. Matsui Courthouse and Federal Building high above the state capital, was attended by about two dozen members and supporters of the Phillips family, many wearing “Justice for Desmond” T-shirts. Some cried after Mendez’s ruling.
Mendez is a former federal prosecutor and George W. Bush nominee to the federal bench who’s been tagged by some with a pro-law enforcement bias in hearing civil rights cases such as the Phillipses’.
Most of the dialogue at Tuesday’s hour-long hearing was between Mendez and Nisenbaum, a member of the John L. Burris law firm based in Oakland. At one point Mendez called Nisenbaum “cynical.”
The judge, at least initially, seemed scripted to side with the defendant, the city of Chico. Much of the hearing was spent with Mendez and Nisenbaum discussing the evidence and mostly disagreeing about how much of a threat Phillips posed to the officers.
At one point, however, Mendez acknowledged that the evidence, when viewed, as required, in a light most favorable to the plaintiffs, presents a potential violation of Desmond Phillips’ Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures.
“You’ve created enough of an argument in opposition to raise material questions, particularly on credibility as to what exactly happened,” Mendez told Nisenbaum. “I will not grant summary judgment on the excessive force claim. I think your client does have the right … to present that to a jury.”
But about 20 minutes later Mendez did what he said he wasn’t going to do: He granted summary judgment across the board.
While Mendez invoked a federal legal doctrine that generally shields police officers from being sued for on-duty actions, Nisenbaum noted that such “qualified immunity” does not apply to California’s negligent wrongful death and civil rights laws.
Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey, in a TV news interview soon after the killing, described the interaction between the officers and Phillips as “a rolling knife and gun fight.”
The state attorney general’s office took the relatively rare step of reviewing Ramsey’s decision to exonerate Fliehr and Gagnebin, deciding that Ramsey had not abused his discretion. Ramsey’s report on the Phillips killing, issued in less than one month, made no mention of the statements by sergeants Lefkowitz and Williams that conflicted with the accounts of the shooting officers.
Dave Waddell is a former journalism professor and reporter, and a contributor to ChicoSol.
A Butte County sheriff’s captain is so bothered by the Chico Police Department’s “overstated and deceptive … propaganda” following the shooting death of Desmond Phillips that he has quit the crisis intervention training academy he led for seven years.
Phillips, a 25-year-old mentally disturbed black man, was gunned down March 17 in his father’s West Fourth Avenue living room, just 21 minutes after medical aid was first called to help him. Together, Chico officers Alex Fliehr and Jeremy Gagnebin fired 16 rounds. A report on the shooting is expected next week from an investigative team headed by Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey. (See our story index in the column at right and click to read backstories.)
Since 2010, sheriff’s Capt. Andy Duch has led and taught at the annual 40-hour Butte County Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) academy, which is sponsored by Butte College with the sheriff’s office and Butte County Behavioral Health as the lead agencies.
Using unusually strong language in an e-mail exchange this week with ChicoSol, Duch wrote: “I am unsure if we will be having an 8th CIT Academy in 2017 as I have withdrawn my participation after reading and hearing the assertions made by the Chico Police Department in response to the shooting death of Desmond Phillips.
“The ‘facts,’ as reported by Chico PD and DA Mike Ramsey in the media and community conferences about Chico PD’s level of participation and perceived value in Butte County CIT were overstated and deceptive,” says Duch’s email. “Frankly, I don’t like the CIT program being used for propaganda by an agency with a dismal record of attendance and a worse record of implementation of CIT principles.”
Early in the email, Duch writes, “Since 2010, only the Sheriff’s Office and Paradise P.D., relative to department size, have consistently and strongly supported CIT by sending respectable numbers of dispatchers, deputies and officers to each yearly academy.”
In a recent Chico Enterprise-Record story that can be read here, Chico PD Training Coordinator Carolyn Pickard characterized the department’s training as: “We exceed the standard here.”
According to Pickard, 16 of Chico PD’s sworn personnel have gone to a 40-hour CIT academy, while 51 other police officers attended an eight-hour CIT session that Police Chief Mike O’Brien brought in-house at the end of 2015.
Butte College records show that a total of just 10 of the 92 current Chico police officers have participated in the 40-hour Butte County CIT academy since 2010, said Mike Maloney, Chico’s ex-police chief and the director of the college’s Public Safety Education and Training Center. Two Chico police officers attended the academy in 2015, but none from Chico was in attendance in 2013, 2014 or 2016, Maloney said.
“The two officers involved in the shooting of Desmond Phillips most assuredly had not received CIT training in Butte County,” Capt. Duch wrote in an email to ChicoSol.
Duch, who is commander of the Butte County Jail, teaches de-escalation in the Butte College law enforcement academies. He also teaches a three-hour “Tac Com” course about 70 times a year throughout California “to every conceivable type of agency.” (Duch presented to the Chico Unified School District in this 2015 video.)
Chief O’Brien said he would not respond to Duch’s criticisms “other than to provide you with facts regarding our training.”
O’Brien said the only state mandate for mental health training beyond the basic police academy are recent requirements that the department’s field training officers (FTOs) attend an eight-hour course. All of Chico PD’s 17 FTOs have been scheduled to attend such training, he said.
O’Brien noted that the Police Community Advisory Board will convene May 17 for what he hopes will become a comprehensive community-wide conversation about the mental health system.
“I believe it is an issue that encompasses more than just CIT training,” O’Brien said.
The “CIT” abbreviation is often used interchangeably for “crisis intervention team” and “crisis intervention training,” according to the web site of the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST).
“The primary goals of CIT,” says the commission, “are to reduce injuries to officers and mental health consumers during contacts, and to appropriately redirect mental health consumers from the judicial system to the services and support needed to stabilize consumers and reduce contact with police. A component of CIT is a training academy where officers learn to safely handle mental health consumers in crisis.”
