Dear Editor,
Unless you're paying close attention, you may get confused between the two Democratic Clubs in town: the longstanding Culver City Democratic Club, and the relatively new Culver City Democrats United.
Democrats United was formed in large part as an alternative to the more progressive Culver City Democratic Club. If you oppose the city's rent control ordinance or you don't want Culver City's minimum wage to be on par with LA, then you'll find like-minded individuals in Democrats United.
But what you may not know is that while both clubs are largely member-supported, the new club Democrats United has also taken $3,000 from the Culver City Police Officers' Association.
This makes local police the single largest donor to Democrats United, after Common Sense Culver City, who gave $1,341 in startup funds when Democrats United was founded in 2023. (As an aside, it's worth noting that Common Sense Culver City itself had the developer Hackman Capital Partners as its single largest donor.)
Culver City police and Democrats United have endorsed the same set of candidates for City Council: Denise Renteria, Jeannine Wisnosky Stehlin, and Albert Vera. These same three candidates were there for a photo op with the police as they gathered to go door-to-door promoting the candidates and handing out campaign literature.
The Culver City Police Department has the distinction of having the most racist use of force record in the state, according to an analysis released in 2023 by the California State Department of Justice. In the analysis, Culver City police were twice as likely to use force against Black people than against white people.
And the city just paid out $4.5 million to the family of an unarmed man who was shot in the back by a CCPD officer wielding an assault rifle.
How can we possibly expect oversight and reform of this department when the candidates, the campaigns, and even the new club Democrats United are all taking police money?
Stephen Jones
Culver City
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