If you live in Shasta County you are likely already familiar with this story. For those that aren't, here is the context.
Hello, my name is Nathaniel Pinkney known commonly as Nathan Blaze. I have created this fundraiser to help me fight Patrick Jones as a victim of racial discrimination within the Shasta County government. On 5/30/2023 at the Shasta County Board of Supervisor's meeting, a man named Alex Bielecki, said the N-word with a hard “R” while addressing the crowd. I am of African American descent and Alex has seen me speak many times and disagrees with me ideologically. During his speech, he had his body turned toward the crowd and was not addressing the board. This is important information when it comes to what is and isn't protected speech.
A while later Supervisor Tim Garman condemned Alex's hate speech along with Supervisor Mary Rickert. Then Patrick Jones stated that it was the speaker's right under the 1st amendment to use such speech, and then went on to say that outbursts in the chambers would go against county policy and are not tolerated, this again triggered an emotional response and I spoke again from the crowd to Patrick Jones asking "so saying the N-word is ok but what I'm currently doing is not?", he yelled at me and banged his gavel and I yelled back that "I don't care". At this point he instructed the Shasta County Sheriff's deputy to escort me out of the chambers, the Sheriff refused and stated that I had done nothing illegal.
Patrick Jones then instructed the security who is his direct employee to remove me, the security guard told me I need to leave the chamber. I initially said that I am not going anywhere and that I don't have to leave, at that point the Sheriff began to walk over as well. Soon after that the Sheriff came out and expressed his disdain for what had just happened and stated that it was wrong.
Patrick Jones has allowed many of those who support him and his ideologies to "disrupt decorum" during the meetings in the past, without ever telling them to stop or having them escorted out. Patrick has already publicly labeled me a "domestic terrorist" at these meetings and accused me of committing crimes that I did not commit and that there is no evidence of me committing.
Because of Patrick Jones taking this action, I was unable to give public comment. I had planned to bring up a recent harassment issue involving safety threats perpetrated against my fellow volunteers in the recall effort and push the supervisors on the dais to either support or rebuke that harassing behavior. This was time sensitive and important to the recall effort due to larger narratives being forwarded by different sides of the political spectrum.
I believe that Patrick's actions displayed a clear violation of not only my first amendment rights but a willingness to try and use law enforcement to keep me from speaking at the meeting. This is also a blatant abuse of his power as a Shasta County supervisor.
Unlike Patrick Jones, I do not have an out-of-town billionaire to help me fight this battle. I want to be fully transparent. In some civil rights cases, the legal fees of the victim can be paid for by the government, however, I do not fully know yet what this battle will entail and would like to have funds available for any fees that I incur.
Please help me to achieve justice for what happened and the blatant discrimination and abuse of power that I was forced to be subjected to. Thank you.
For real-time updates on this situation please follow this page on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/IStandWithNathanBlaze
