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Mark Petersen-Perez is a watchdog of local governments in various cities in the greater San Francisco Bay region, political activist, financial analyst, and publisher of the online Palo Alto Free Press.
Petersen-Perez provoked the Police Chief of Palo Alto into appearing to admit to a policy of racial profiling, resulting in both widespread media coverage as well as activism in cities outside of Palo Alto, then he led a successful campaign leading to her resignation and change in police policy. [1] [2] Petersen-Perez is an outspoken opponent of police misconduct, [3] the police use of tasers, [4] [5] [6] of racial discrimination, [1] and is a local political advocate for the homeless. He has been described as "one of the most outspoken anti-taser activists". [5]
One story reported that just the mention of his name in a government meeting resulted in a shouting match and subsequent press coverage. [6] When Petersen-Perez used the internet at his employers during his breaks to petition the government, the government repeatedly petitioned his private sector employers to terminate him, resulting in loss of employment in a chain of jobs. [3] [7]
Front page image captions and news stories about Petersen-Perez have unusual characterizations of him ranging from "outspoken" and "fervent" to "maniacal". [3] [5] [8] [9] [10] He is frequent speaker at Palo Alto City Council meetings. [8] He is a financial analyst professionally, and analyses taser company finances as an activist. [4] [11]
Petersen-Perez is a resident of Palo Alto and citizen of Nicaragua. [11] He has worked with the Humane Society. [12]
Palo Alto is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto.
Menlo Park is a city at the eastern edge of San Mateo County within the San Francisco Bay Area of California, United States. It is bordered by San Francisco Bay on the north and east; East Palo Alto, Palo Alto, and Stanford to the south; and Atherton, North Fair Oaks, and Redwood City to the west. It had 33,780 residents at the 2020 United States census. It is home to the corporate headquarters of Meta, and is where Google, Roblox Corporation and Round Table Pizza were founded. The train station holds the record as the oldest continually operating train station in California. It is one of the most educated cities in California and the United States; nearly 70% of residents over 25 have earned a bachelor's degree or higher.
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Bart Lytton ( was an American business executive, Democratic Party fundraiser, writer, public relations executive and philanthropist. He was a founder of Lytton Financial Corporation, one of the five largest savings and loans in the United States with $700 million in assets.
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R. P. M. is a 1970 American drama film directed by Stanley Kramer, starring Anthony Quinn and Ann-Margret. As the film's poster notes, the title is an initialism for "revolutions per minute", which at the time was a common term for the variable speed of a record player's turntable.
The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors is the five-member elected body that supervises the operation of San Mateo County, California. Board members represent one of five districts of roughly equal population within the county, elected, since a 2012 charter change, only by voters in their own district. The current board members are Dave Pine, Noelia Corzo, Ray Mueller, Warren Slocum, and David Canepa.
Sid Espinosa is an American businessman and politician. He is the former mayor of Palo Alto, CA, notably the first Hispanic to be elected to public office in that city's history, and at 38 years old at the time he was elected, he was one of the city's youngest mayors. He is also the Director of Corporate Citizenship for Microsoft Corporation in the Silicon Valley.
Aram Byer James is a former Santa Clara County, CA Assistant Public Defender, police watchdog, social activist, and civil rights attorney. As an expert on the defense of necessity, he headed the team of attorneys defending Stanford University students and professors arrested in anti-apartheid protests in 1980’s. He is an advocate of jury nullification, educator in the use of the Marsden Motion to fire ineffective public defenders, a critic of the prison industrial complex, and critic of police use of tasers and racial profiling.
James Matthew Boyd was an American man who was fatally shot by Albuquerque Police Department officers Keith Sandy and Dominique Perez in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains in Albuquerque, New Mexico on the evening of March 16, 2014. A resident of a nearby subdivision called police at 3:28 p.m. to report that a man had been camping on the mountain behind his house for the previous month, a violation of local regulations. Two Open Space officers were the first to respond. They approached Boyd as he lay under a sheet of plastic; Boyd, mentally ill with a diagnosis of schizo-affective disorder, became irate, wanting to know why the "raid" was occurring. When an officer tried to pat him down, he produced two pocket knives, threatening the officers with them. The caller watched the confrontation from his second-story window and later testified that Boyd threatened the officers.
Richard Pérez, widely known as Richie Pérez was a Hispanic American teacher and activist.
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