FIRST RESPONDERS, SUPPORTERS RALLY AGAINST MANDATE
El Cajon mayor, police speak against vaccine, ‘acts of medical tyranny’
About 300 people, including local law enforcement officers, firefighters and their families and supporters, attended a Friday afternoon rally at Balboa Park to protest a city employee COVID-19 vaccine mandate that’s set to take effect Dec. 1.
The group ReOpen San Diego organized the gathering at the Spreckels Organ Pavilion and billed it as a rally for first responders against the mandate.
Attendees chanted “protect the protectors,” and a San Diego police sergeant told the crowd, “Today we’re at war again,” as he made reference to the Revolutionary War and to a violent Biblical struggle in opposing the mandate.
El Cajon Mayor Bill Wells gave a speech accusing those pushing for vaccine mandates of trying to tear down America and create a “Communist utopia.”
The crowd cheered speeches against the mandate, as well as those against the vaccine itself, masks, COVID-19 tests, social distancing and other public health measures aimed at controlling the virus.
Since the coronavirus pandemic began, the virus has killed at least 4,317 people in San Diego County and more than 5.1 million people worldwide.
Dec. 1 is the deadline for all city employees to be fully vaccinated. Mayor Todd Gloria on Friday reiterated the city was moving forward with the plan to make the vaccine a condition of continued employment.
“The way out of this pandemic is through vaccines — and the City of San Diego will lead by example,” Gloria said in a statement. “With City employees regularly interacting with members of the public, this vaccination mandate takes on even more necessity — not only to protect the public, but also to protect our city workers.”
As of Wednesday morning, 1,172 San Diego police officers reported being fully vaccinated, 730 reported being not fully vaccinated and 80 had not submitted a response, according to numbers provided by the mayor’s office Friday. That means that two weeks out from the mandate taking effect, 59 percent of officers are fully vaccinated while nearly 37 percent are not.
For firefighters, 81 percent — or 766 firefighters — have been fully vaccinated, while about 16 percent — or 152 firefighters — have not been fully vaccinated, according to the numbers provided by the Mayor’s Office. Another 22 had not submitted a response.
Countywide, more than 74 per
cent of eligible residents are fully vaccinated, and nearly 83 percent have received at least one dose, according to statistics provided by the county’s Health and Human Services Agency.
And though a large percentage of San Diego police officers are not yet fully vaccinated, examples from other cities have shown most ultimately comply. In Denver, fewer than 1 percent of police officers, firefighters and sheriff’s deputies resigned or retired because of the mandate, the Denver Post reported last month, citing data from the city.
Police unions in New York City warned the vaccine mandate could cost the city up to 10,000 officers, but when the Nov. 1 deadline arrived, only 34 officers were placed on unpaid leave, the Washington Post reported earlier this month. New York officials said 85 percent of officers
complied before the deadline, while the rest were still seeking exemptions.
Speakers at Friday’s rally included a woman who claimed to be “Pfizer whistleblower” and said there was no risk of COVID-19 infection to her 17year-old son, a Murrieta pastor who was cheered for keeping his church open with no masks and no social distancing during the height of the pandemic, and two men who claimed to be current police officers in San Diego County, but declined to give their last names or the agencies for which they work.
“Everyone here understands that the masks, tests and vaccine mandates are unconstitutional and are acts of medical tyranny,” San Diego police Sgt. Matt Randolph told the crowd. “... The primary goal of these mandates was never about our health, but rather control and the stripping away of our constitutional rights.”
Randolph said, “We are
experiencing 1776 all over again” and referenced the biblical David who slayed Goliath, telling the crowd to
“stay in prayer, but also understand that prayer is not enough, as even David had to pick up a rock.”
Wells, the El Cajon mayor, referenced the “epic battle between good and evil”
that was forming in the 1930s ahead of World War II and said “it’s happening again.”
“The people who are pressing these vaccine mandates on us are the same people who are allowing our border to be open, that are allowing ‘Critical Race Theory’ to be taught to our children, that of course are using COVID as a reason to take away our rights, to thrust tyranny upon us, to tear America down to its studs and remake it in a Communist utopia,” he said.
In a phone call Friday evening seeking to clarify what Wells was referencing in his public speech, the mayor claimed the Biden Administration has an open border policy and that elements of American society — including journalists, corporate America and members of Congress — are the ones pushing for “cultural Marxism” and a Communist takeover.