Racism disrupts Sonoma meeting

“I can’t put it into context, but I know someone dropped the nword. Obviously, it’s traumatic for anyone who watched it.”

Tom Schwedhelm, Santa Rosa mayor

At least one intruder interrupted a virtual meeting Friday between Sonoma County officials and displayed graphic images that included the lynching of Black men while yelling the nword, horrifying those who gathered online to discuss issues surrounding homelessness, officials said.

Home Sonoma County Leadership Council, the county’s decisionmaking group on homeless care, was scheduled to meet Friday afternoon after a previous meeting scheduled for

June 25 had to be canceled, said Tom Schwedhelm, the mayor of Santa Rosa and chair of the group.

But soon after they started the meeting on Zoom, an online platform that has grown in popularity during the coronavirus pandemic, Schwedhelm observed the meeting’s attendees and government officials were in the same virtual room. Government officials usually operate in a separate “room” to keep meetings orderly and allow members of the public to speak during specific moments.

As the officials prepared to approve the meeting’s agenda, an intruder took control of the meeting.

“All of a sudden, my screen is showing this inappropriate stuff and I have no control over it,” Schwedhelm told The Chronicle. “We, or the host, Sonoma County, no longer had control.”

County officials had not released an official statement as of Monday afternoon.

Santa Rosa police were conducting an investigation. A department spokesman did not return an email and phone call seeking more information.

Although the incident might be considered a hate crime, the FBI was not involved in the probe as of Monday afternoon, an agency spokesman said.

Supervisor Susan Gorin, who serves as the chair of the county’s Board of Supervisors, declined to discuss the incident.

“Sorry — COVID is much more important than a zoom bomb,” Gorin wrote in an email Monday.

Schwedhelm said he saw a video of the 9/11 terrorist attack being displayed on the call, as well as an image of a male without a shirt. The Santa Rosa mayor started making calls and ran down the hall from his office trying to find someone to stop the video.

“I can’t put it into context, but I know someone dropped the nword,” Schwedhelm said. “Obviously, it’s traumatic for anyone who watched it.”

There were approximately 40 to 50 people tuned into the meeting when the attack occurred, he said.

Michael Gause, a manager at the county’s Community Development Commission, called the incident “just a horrifying, terribly traumatic” episode. He said there were several videos played of Black men being lynched, as well as images of beheadings.

“It really felt like a hate crime,” Gause said. “An attack of hatred.”

In a statement Monday, the county’s Community Development Commission and Health Department denounced the attack. A “foundational pillar of the work” both groups do “is to address racial disparities and inequities, and it begins by calling it out openly and emphatically,” officials said.

“Black and other leaders of color in Sonoma County will not be intimidated by violent racist and sexist incidents,” the statement continued. “Unfortunately incidents this like are not isolated and have become ever more prevalent across the nation. There is no room for silence or insensitivity when it comes to responding to incidents like this and the abhorrent depictions of violent racist acts.”