LaDoris Cordell: My name is LaDoris Cordell. I’m a resident of Palo Alto. I’m a retired superior court judge from Santa Clara County, [having] presided in San Jose. And I’m the retired and former independent police auditor for the city of San Jose.
Finn (from the Smoke Signal): My first question is, what brings you out to this event? Were there any specific occurrences recently that made you want to come out here?
L: I have been out here — and here is El Camino Real in Palo Alto, we are within a block of the very first Tesla showroom — and I’ve been out here with a group of protestors on both sides of the street. I’m here at the bus stop since January 2024. Now this is month 13 [of being here], every Wednesday and every Saturday. Today is Saturday, we’re here from one to three. [On] Wednesdays, we’re here from three to five protesting. And what are we protesting? We’re protesting about the threat to democracy that the Trump administration is posing to all of us.
F: Because you have had experience in law enforcement, can you give a little insight on what has changed from when you were in office to how it is now?
L: Let me just frame it this way. In 2020, there was the George Floyd moment, and it’s where the whole country just said, what are we doing with regard to law enforcement [and] people of color — by the way, I’m African American — what are we doing here? And so there was a big nationwide effort for law enforcement reform, to do things better, to be more fair. I see the murder of Renee Good as a George Floyd moment, but in a different way. But it again involved law enforcement, in this case, a murder right before our eyes, just as George Floyd’s murder was right before our eyes. But I see this is very different in that this woman, Renee Good, well, we can all see the video. The Trump administration is telling us what they want us to see in the video, but we are smarter than that, and we see what happened, which was out-and-out murder. Her last words were, ‘I am not angry with you.’ She said [that] to the ICE officer, and then she was murdered. So that’s why we’re here. And also with regard to law enforcement, once the Trump administration came in, he has now given directions, and they have followed his directions to stop all of these and end these consent decrees. That consent decree is where the Justice Department says to a police department or a law enforcement agency, ‘You have to change your ways, you have to abide by rules, and you have to stop discriminating against people of color.’ So this is really a 180 that’s now happened under the Trump administration. With regard to law enforcement, the most recent example is militarizing our streets and cities and towns everywhere across this country, using military, using federal officers, and we end up getting exactly what everyone knew would happen: people being kidnapped off the streets and also people being killed.
F: What is your biggest concern with how immigration services are operating?
L: I worked with law enforcement in San Jose for five years, where I was the independent police auditor. And it’s very important that law enforcement, and this is true of the police department in San Jose, they have rules. They have a duty manual that says this is when you can employ force and when you cannot, and they are held accountable when they don’t follow those rules. What has changed here under the Trump administration is tha a message has gone out to law enforcement, [saying] you don’t have rules. There are no restraints. There [are] no breaks at all. So if you want to employ deadly force, you just go ahead and do it if you think that’s what you want to do. It is huge, and it’s bringing chaos to the streets, angering everybody, and just violating [the] rules of law. No one is above the law, but the administration is sending a message that they believe they are, including the federal officers in law enforcement. That’s the major change here. There’s no breaks being put on law enforcement. That’ the message coming out from Washington [DC].