The Journey of Kevin Ortiz: From Punishment to Politics

Sea Change Radio

How do you think your life would be different if you had spent your first five years as an adult incarcerated? This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak to Kevin Ortiz, a progressive political activist in San Francisco whose life was very nearly derailed by a run-in with the police when he was 19 years old. We hear Kevin’s story, learn how the nonprofit SF Pretrial helped him out, and get some first-hand insight into a legal system that is tilted against young men of color. Then, we hear an excerpt from our 2022 discussion with San Francisco Public Defender Peter Calloway.

Narrator | 00:02 – This is Sea Change Radio covering the shift to sustainability. I’m Alex Wise.

Kevin Ortiz | 00:14 – No system’s perfect, right? But if we’re going to look at the overall successes of people being able to get connected, and through SF Pretrial, able to come out of it with secure jobs, housing, drug rehabilitative services, and then social emotional supports, right? And then being able to go back into being successful citizens, then that’s a model that we should be actually continuing to expand funding for and not underfunding it or cutting funding to it.

Narrator | 00:40 – How do you think your life would be different if you had spent your first five years as an adult incarcerated? This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak to Kevin Ortiz, a progressive political activist in San Francisco whose life was very nearly derailed by a run-in with the police when he was 19 years old. We hear Kevin’s story, learn how the nonprofit SF Pretrial helped him out, and get some first-hand insight into a legal system that is tilted against young men of color. Then, we hear an excerpt from our 2022 discussion with San Francisco Public Defender Peter Calloway.

Alex Wise (AW) | 01:30 – I’m joined on Sea Change Radio by Kevin Ortiz. Kevin is the president of the San Francisco Latino Democratic Club. Kevin, welcome to Sea. Change Radio.

Kevin Ortiz (KO) | 01:42 – Hey, thanks for having me on.

Alex Wise (AW) | 01:44 – Why don’t you start us off, Kevin, by giving us your backstory and how you encountered legal troubles as a younger man.

Kevin Ortiz (KO) | 01:53 – Yeah, definitely. So maybe diving a little bit backwards, um, so I, I just turned 30 when I was 19 years old. I was in a much different place than I’m at now, and so I, you know, was kind of in the party scene drinking a lot more than I should have been. I think, you know, at the time I was also doing drugs, and so it was a different kind of lifestyle that I was living to where I currently am. And so I went out to a club event when I was like 19. I think I was 19 and a half when the incident happened. And so, you know, on 22nd admission for an 18 plus event at that time. And, um, you know, I stumbled out of the bar, right? And, you know, intoxicated, being underage, um, there was already a situation that was going on at that time. And so, you know, I kind of stumbled into it as I was trying to jaywalk across the street. Police stopped me, immediately arrested me because they had so seen that I was intoxicated. And from there I got slammed on the back of a police car. And, um, at that time, you know, I had a little bit of a motor mouth . And so, um, you know, I got into a verbal altercation with the police while I was basically getting handcuffed and arrested. And so I got hogtied thrown right back in the, the back of a police vehicle. Uh, you know, it got taken back to the Mission police station, which is about, it’s five blocks away from, um, you know, where the incident happened, about actually a block away from where I lived at the time. And so I experienced what we would now describe as police brutality. I was, you know, basically, you know, as I was getting taken outta the car, hogtied talking a lot of smack. And so from there I basically, you know, ended up getting, you know, like I got beat up on.

AW | 03:31 – And you were initially just arrested for jaywalking?

KO | 03:34 – Jaywalking. And at that time, then they saw that I was already at that time basically intoxicated. Right. So they basically arrested me, from that time. Right. Um, you know, and then they found out I was underage. So it basically justified the warrant, right? Or not the warrant, the, the arrest. But, you know, I at that time basically ended up getting a pretty big case. I was talking a lot of mess to the police, you know, at that time they basically ended up hitting me with nine different charges, right. Resisting arrest, and, you know, kind of throwing the whole book at it. Right? And so I ended up getting connected to SF Pretrial. It was my first offense, and it would be my only offense, but I was looking at something like, you know, potentially five years in prison time.

AW | 04:17 – Based on public intoxication or because it, it elevated to resisting arrest?

KO | 04:22 – Resisting arrest. Yeah. So there was like three different charges of resisting arrest.

AW | 04:26 – And how long were you in jail before you connected with SF Pretrial?

KO | 04:32 – So I was in jail for about a week. And so, you know, I ended up, you know, getting released pretty early on after a week because, uh, you know, I had not had any, uh, previous, like, charges right at the timing was really rough because I was supposed to start a job the, the Monday after, right. And the incident happened on a Thursday, right? So I missed that job interview. And so at that time, you know, I ended up going through the first court case. They, they ended up seeing me on the Monday after that Thursday incident basically went down. So I spent the weekend in jail, and then I was released the following week after that.

AW | 05:03 – And so you missed out on that job opportunity?

KO | 05:05 – I did, yep. And I had just recently transitioned from a, like a retail job into doing more of a sales job at that time. So it was a little bit of a tumultuous time in my life because, you know, I, I didn’t have a job. I was facing, you know, multiple charges and, you know, I was, you know, dealing with a substance abuse problem. And so I had, you know, family support, right? But it’s also tough navigating the legal system for the first time, right? And so getting connected, uh, through the public defender’s office, who recommended that we should do, uh, pretrial, right? Because there was no previous issues, um, at that time, right? And so I, I got connected with Pretrial, um, and I think it honestly, uh, really changed my life and also, um, really redirected me into a much different place than where I was at.

AW | 05:52 – So why don’t you explain what SF Pretrial is and how it helped you in terms of your pretrial process?

KO | 05:59 – Yep. So, you know, normally when you’re like going through a case, you’ll, you’ll get arraigned, right? You’ll, you know, um, a judge will basically, Hey, you know, here are the sentences, right? Like the, the people versus, you know, me as the defendant, right? And so the district attorney is bringing cases forward. The judge is basically weighing in about, you know, what is the validity of these cases, kind of going back and forth. And, you know, I will say that I think I could have fought it all the way to trial, and I, I would’ve been okay. Um, but it’s also looking at something like, is this the best approach, right? To go through a major legal fight that could have more risk in the long run, right? Um, even though, you know, like there was pixelated photos from me, um, you know, like my eyes being swollen red from being hit in the face, uh, by the police, right? Um, it was one of those things where it’s like, is this the best approach on this or is this something that, you know, I could look at, you know, like we could take the path of least resistance, right? And so my public defender had, you know, talked to me at that time about, let’s look into SF Pretrial, um, we can get you the help and support that, you know, like, you know, um, you know, that might be needed at that time. And so SF Pretrial, basically, they connect folks with the resources that they need prior to going to a trial, right? And so, you know, depending on, you know, they’ll come up with kind of a comprehensive, you know, individualized plan based off the individual that’s facing it, right? So for certain folks it might be drug services, right? Like, and so, you know, being able to get connected that way. For me, I, I think I was recommended at the time, 12 weeks of group therapy. And so, um, you know, for privacy sake, I’ll, I’ll mention it was like, you know, I got connected with a group therapist by the name of Terry, right? Um, and so, and Terry, I think, you know, I would go in every Tuesday I’d, I go and we’d basically just talk, we talked about our issues that were going on at that time, you know, what, um, you know, what things we were struggling with on the individual level, right? So getting a lot of the social emotional support. Um, and so for me it was tough because you have an open pending case and you’re not really allowed to apply. Like when you’re doing a background check, um, you’ll have a pending case that pops up on that, right? And so it was, I, at that time, I was struggling because even though I wanted to apply for, you know, high level tech jobs to do sales and things like that, because at that time I was doing a lot of sales work, I, I was getting a lot of those entry barriers because of the fact that I couldn’t pass a, a background check. And so it was a really tough time, but I was still doing kind of like the outside street sales and before making that actual transition to corporate sales. Um, and so pretrial was helpful in the sense of being able to get me to understand kind of like my awareness about where things were, like being really like, you know, tough, right? Uh, in the sense of why was I drinking so much? Why was I going out partying so much? Right? Um, you know, why is it that, you know, like, you know what, what things I’m struggling with, right? So the individual like therapy, I think really helped out a lot, um, because there was the group therapy, but also the individual therapy.

AW | 08:56 – And all of these services were free? And you happen to be introduced to SF Pretrial by your public defender, as you mentioned, but prosecutors also would potentially, or the sheriff’s department, there’s many different wings that SF Pretrial partners with in order to, to introduce people into the system. Is that right?

KO | 09:20 – Think of pretrial as a prerequisite of catching folks in a way that we, if we can, it’s, I see it in a lot of ways as being a preventative model, right? If you catch someone once, um, before they go into a full, kind of like the incarceral system, right? And being caught up into the full legal, all the issues that come with being connected with the legal system for the first time, right? It’s one of those things where like, if they’re able to catch you and help support you, then, you know, the, you know, it really, I think prevents a lot of other issues from being able to spring out later on. Right? And so I think, the recidivism rate for, um, as of pretrial is actually pretty low comparatively to other programs that are around.

(Music Break) | 10:14

AW | 11:11 – This is Alex Wise on Sea. Change Radio, and I’m speaking to Kevin Ortiz. Kevin is the president of the San Francisco Latino Democratic Club. So Kevin, you were talking about wending your way through the legal system and how SF Pretrial supported your therapy and, and got you some of the social and emotional support that helped you out. Now, walk our listeners through the legal proceedings, if you can. What was the outcome of your case?

KO | 11:39 – So after I completed my, I think 12 weeks of, um, you know, like required group therapy and then doing individual therapy on the side as well too, I ended up, um, you know, having my, my case fully dr opped. And so it was completely, um, you know, it was basically the, they dropped charges. Um, and, you know, everyone, I, I was able to walk away without having anything on my record, right? But having been exposed to the legal system of having to, you know, go through, you know, issues of potentially if you miss court, right? And then now you have a bench warden having to connect with folks, right? Um, you know, to make sure that there wasn’t anything that was outstanding or, you know, having the case that was delayed because this wasn’t a short-term process. This was like a two-and-a-half-year process right. From basically 19 and a half to, um, you know, right around 21. And so, um, it was a long kind of process to really have to navigate with the help of my public defender, but also SF Pretrial as a partner.

AW | 12:35 – So you, you were only incarcerated for that one week. You never had to go to prison?

KO | 12:42 – Yeah. Never went to prison.

AW | 12:43 – And so after that week until they dropped the case, that was a two and a half year period?

KO | 12:48 – Yep. With an open pending case.

AW | 12:50 – And is that standard, or was that particularly long?

KO | 12:54 – I mean, it’s, it’s a pretty long process in general. I mean, and it’s hard to say, depending on each case is unique in their own ways, right? Um, but you know, a lot of folks do experience that, right? Where it’s a, it’s a long time to actually deal with something that’s that open, right? Um, and you know, the opportunity, the access to opportunities becomes very limited, right? Because if you are working in a professional, like kind of setting a job where a background check is one of the main things, even though you might, might not have been convicted of something, right? Um, because the fact that you have something still pending on there, it still bars you from being able to access normal opportunities.

AW | 13:30 – If you can talk a little bit about your relationship with the public defender. We’ve had public defenders on this program before, and the work they do is very important. It’s admirable, but we also hear them talk about how they’re completely overburdened with large caseloads. What kind of interfacing did you do with that public defender and, uh, I’m assuming they were critical in having your case dropped?

KO | 13:55 – Yeah, I mean, I think luckily for me, my first public defender, um, I, he’s, I would what I would consider a pit bull. And I had two public defenders during my case, right?

AW | 14:05 – Who were they?

KO | 14:06 -Yali Correa-Levy. And then, Sylvia Lynch, Yali actually was a pretty strong litigation, um, you know, trial attorney, right? And so he was used to actually going into those cases, right? But, you know, it’s one of those things where it was his advice of if we can avoid something where we don’t have to go into it, right? That’s sometimes the path of least resistance is sometimes the better approach on it, right? And so, um, you know, I consider actually my public defenders like still like personal friends to this day, right? Um, and so, you know, still check in with them, have coffee with them. And so they, I really attribute them helping me navigate the legal system as really being able to change my life. Um, and so I went from being in, you know, in a system that, you know, potentially I could have been incarcerated for, for a while, right? That could have had, you know, things on my, like my record, right? That could have barred me from employment opportunities, right? To being able to become an activist and doing a lot of housing work, um, in like the Mission district negotiating with developers to becoming a youth organizer, to, you know, teaching young people how to organize in their own communities to working in, you know, some of the highest levels of government, um, as a congressional aid, um, you know, during a pandemic. Um, and, um, to now, you know, being able to actually, you know, work at, you know, uh, for nonprofit organizations to be able to do that while also being like a political activist, um, and the president of his own charter democratic club.

AW | 15:30 – After the process had played out, were you able to learn more about how it, things may have gone differently if you had been in a different city or a different state? How unique are SF Pretrial services, for example?

KO | 15:45 – I think it’s, it’s not something I’d heard about before actually experiencing, right? And, um, it is a truly unique model because like you do have like a case manager, right? That someone that checks in on you, um, you know, to make sure that, you know, you’re hitting all of your, um, your requirements, right? Depending on your individual case, li case, um, case plan, you know? And so, you know, you’re checking in with SF Pretrial to make sure that you’re getting your hours out of the way, right? And, uh, and to make sure that, you know, you’re getting your individual group or individual therapy, you know, um, taken care of as well as group therapy. Um, it was, you know, it was interesting because even after, um, you know, I completed SF Pretrial, there was a point in time where, um, I was going through a really rough time. My grandfather had just died. And so I actually ended up connecting back with, um, one of the therapists from SF Pretrial Terry. Um, and, you know, I was just able to connect with her, um, and, you know, she helped me for a while, you know, through that, right? So it’s one of those things where having those kind of like support systems in place, um, I think they’re really long reaching, right? And they can really change the trajectory of someone if they’re about to go down a, like a fork in the road, right? And being able to actually take ’em down a much more positive path versus, um, you know, being caught up in a system that could be really convoluted.

AW | 16:59 – So you mentioned how avoiding prison time and getting the case dropped really gave you the ability to do what you do now and, and community organizing and housing activism, et cetera, having to go through the incarceral system now, how does that inform your day-to-Day Life, and how do you use that to inspire others in, in their day-to-Day lives?

KO | 17:23 – I think for me, I, I take the lessons of pretrial knowing that having been in a system that you don’t, the moment that you’re connected to it, it becomes a lot easier to become in touchpoints with it, right? So there’d be times where, um, I remember an example of when I had an open pretrial case and Right. Um, you know, my, like, I had the open pending, you know, case, and I’m still working with Pretrial, and I was with a girlfriend and she was driving, and, um, you know, we got pulled over and then next thing you know, the cops are messing with me because I have an open case, right? Uh, and so it’s one of those things where, you know, being able to be aware of, you know, how the system, the moment that you’re kind of tagged by it, right, that it can really be able to drag you in very quickly, right? And so, like I, um, you know, I take these lessons in all of my activism, in my organizing knowing that, you know, that there’s, that there are better ways to do it that could be more cost effective, right? Um, and also time, like, um, like, um, so like, it’s one of those things that informs kind of like my day-to-Day, like activism, because I know how quickly things can change.

AW | 18:31 – This is Alex Wise on Sea Change Radio, and I’m speaking to Kevin Ortiz. He is the president of the San Francisco Latino Democratic Club. So Kevin, having gone through this process, I imagine you’ve learned a little bit more about the benefits of restorative justice and these preventative measures, like the ones that you got help with via SF Pretrial. So there was this pushback about defund the police a year or two ago, and that kind of backfired on progressives a lot because, for a variety of reasons, but it did expose the idea that there are some very bloated police budgets out there, and that, that seems to be where most of our resources go. If you were setting policy for a city, I imagine it would go quite different. Why don’t you kind of expound on that if you can?

KO | 19:25 – I think I would look at, you know, I think there is a role, um, that we need to look at in terms of enforcement, right? In terms of, you know, we all want public safety right now. We’re in a time where there’s a lot of news about, you know, crime that’s rampant and, you know, um, police not having enough resources, right? And I think, you know, if we’re to equip, you know, we’re able to fully staff our departments, right? That’s one thing, right? But I think we also shouldn’t be underfunding things that we know that are proven solutions, right?

AW | 19:54 – Yeah. SF Pretrial’s been around since 1976. This is not just like some new, uh, beta tested organization. It’s, it’s tried and true and, and has had real effects. Sorry to interrupt, go on.

KO | 20:05 – No, and it’s, uh, it’s tried. It is true. It’s, um, and it’s effective, right? Because the moment that someone gets going into the pretrial system, no, no system’s perfect, right? But if we’re gonna look at the overall successes of people being able to get connected and through SF, Pretrial able to come out of it with, you know, secure jobs, housing, drug rehabilitative services, and then social emotional supports, right? And then being able to go back into being, you know, successful citizens, then that’s a model that we should be actually continuing to expand funding for and not underfunding it or cutting funding to it.

AW | 20:38 – Kevin Ortiz, thank you so much for being my guest on Sea Change Radio.

KO | 20:41 – Thank you.

AW | 20:56 – I am joined now on Sea Change Radio by Peter Calloway. Peter is a public defender in San Francisco. Peter, welcome to Sea Change. Radio.

Peter Calloway (PC) | 21:04 – Alex, thank you so much. Happy to be here. I guess I should note that I am speaking to you today, you know, in my personal capacity, not as a representative of my office, but again, thanks for inviting me on.

AW | 21:16 -First, why don’t you explain to our listeners what a public defender does and what motivates attorneys to become public defenders?

Peter Calloway (PC) | 21:25 – So, you know, a public defender is a lawyer who is appointed by the court to represent somebody who’s been accused of a crime that could conceivably result in them being jailed and who cannot afford to hire their own attorney. They’ve existed, you know, essentially since the middle of the last century. I won’t go into the origins necessarily, but the main point is, you know, there are attorneys, there are defense attorneys, and among the defense attorneys, there are public defenders. And a lot of people who, who choose to become public defenders are doing it, you know, because they feel sort of a, a connection to the sort of disenfranchised, right? People who have been in various ways, you know, harmed by our society, cast aside, and, you know, sometimes see it as something, something of a calling. And that’s true for me. That’s sort of what drew me to this work. And in the last, I’d say maybe 10 years or so, as the country has sort of began to, to sort of awaken to what has become known as, as sort of mass incarceration or the, the human caging crisis, I think a lot more people have been drawn to public defense as a sort of part of a, you know, a new civil rights movement.

AW | 22:57 – It’s very much in line with the ideals of this country, and that everybody has a right to an attorney and a and a trial, and you’re innocent before proven guilty. That’s, that was not always the case in, and it’s still not the case in many, many countries, correct?

PC | 23:13 – The sort of lofty principles that, you know, are inscribed in the marble edifices in which this sort of system is conducted, say things like equal justice under law. The reality on the ground, of course, is, is anything but that, right? So if you ask 10 public defenders their reasons for, for, for being a public defender, you’ll get some of the same reasons, but you’ll have some different ones too, right? And some people are really motivated by those principles of justice and equality and fairness, and the, the fact that there are, you know, constitutional principles that are, that are sort of being defended when we’re in, in court, right? The right to a fair trial and the right to an attorney. Some people are motivated by, again, like sort of civil, a civil rights rationale, you know, um, the fact that if you are a person of color, particularly a, a black person in this country, you know, you’re more likely to be harmed by this system at every single step, right? More likely to be accused of crime, more likely to be stopped by the police, more likely to be searched, even though you’re less likely to be found with contraband than a white person would be. You’re, you’re more likely to be sentenced more harshly after being more likely to be convicted. It’s, it’s really disgraceful. And these statistics are true in San Francisco as well. I think there’s a fairly recent report that says, I believe the, the new statistic is someone who’s black is, is 10 times more likely to be stopped by the police, you know, despite being three to 5% of the population, the jail is more than 50% black. It’s pretty, you know, pretty shocking stuff. And again, that extends across the country, right? And it’s not just about race, right? It’s also about poverty, mental illness. We cage in this country around 2.2 million people on any given day, 500,000 or so, of those are people who are caged prior to being convicted of any crime, usually because they can’t afford to pay some money bail to secure their release. There’s another four and a half million or so on probation or parole, right? So where the state continues to exercise some constraint on their freedom, that can often be pretty extreme in, in, in the sense that a probation officer, a parole officer, can show up unannounced and search you, search your home, force you to take a drug test. And if they don’t like what they see, even if it’s what’s called a technical violation and you haven’t been accused of committing some new crime, they can take you back to jail or prison. Jail or prison is so harmful that the effects on life expectancy of people who are incarcerated are so extreme that they’ve actually reduced the overall life expectancy of, of the United States. So, again, really shocking stuff. This is what motivates a lot of people to be become public defenders.

AW | 26:32 – So as a public defender in this city, the size of San Francisco, Peter, you work with people who have crimes perpetrated against them and perpetrate them. And the idea that you would be, quote unquote soft on crime, I think is pretty preposterous. And as you mentioned, but we can’t be offended if we want to change hearts and minds, can we?

PC | 26:52 – Oh, no, certainly not. And I don’t, I, I really don’t let it bother me. I was actually somewhat pleased by the, the extent to which the responses to this thread, you know, which were, which were numerous, right? Um, you can’t prosecute or jail or imprison your way out of a mental health or poverty or trauma crisis. Almost all of the people who commit crimes as defined, right? By, again, by society, setting aside that whole conversation about who gets to call what crime, but almost everybody who, who, who, who is accused of crime, has been a victim themselves, right? It is frustrating that there are a lot of people who are really, really vocal about what they’ve identified as problems in this city and beyond it, who have not spent the time to sort of interrogate whether the things that they want to do in response to that are likely to make the problem better or worse.

AW | 27:57 – Peter Calloway, thanks so much for being my guest on Sea Change Radio.

PC | 28:01 – Thank you, Alex.

Narrator | 28:17 – You’ve been listening to Sea Change Radio. Our intro music is by Sanford Lewis, and our outro music is by Alex Wise, additional music by Manu Dibango and Betty Lavette. To read a transcript of this show, go to SeaChangeRadio.com to stream or download the show, or subscribe to our podcast on our site, or visit our archives to hear from Doris Kearns Goodwin, Gavin Newsom, Stewart Brand, and many others. And tune in to Sea Change Radio next week as we continue making connections for sustainability. For Sea Change Radio, I’m Alex Wise.