OIG Hotline, please be aware that my husband sent me a text notification of a message he received from the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office with a portion of the content included in his message as follows:
What is unusual about this communication from the SMC Sheriff's Department?
Several things:
1. Portola Valley tends not to experience this type of crime, as there are license plate cameras that document all vehicles entering and leaving the town.
2. There is no description of the 3-4 persons of interest in the material forwarded to me. Basic law enforcement protocol would attempt to define age, gender, clothing -- any identifying factors to assist neighbors in responding to such a threat.
3. I myself am registered for San Mateo County Emergency alerts. Yet when I looked for this notification in my email inbox, the following screenshot is what I found:
The entire substance of this emergency communication consists of the following truncated line:
SMC Alert: Residents in Portola Valley and the Town of Woodside, please be on the lookout for a black sedan with 3-4 subjects. Sheriff's Deputies are investiga...
I have never before received an incomplete San Mateo County Sheriff's Office communication of this kind. There is no link included to a more detailed alert notification, even though this is standard practice.
What is my sense about this "alert'?
I would be interested in assessing the possibility that the SMC Sheriff's Department knows exactly who these "subjects" are. Note that they are not "suspects." Nor are they "persons of interest." They are simply 3-4 people in a black sedan. They are "subjects," which tells us nothing.
It is entirely possible that these burglaries occurred, especially given that FBI monitoring through NSO software and other means let law enforcement know exactly who is at home at what time, what their schedule is, when they will return, etc.
The existence of these burglaries must not be viewed as a foregone conclusion, however,
The law enforcement reporting about these incidents is notably substandard.
We don't know much about the 3-4 "subjects." We may never know much about the 3-4 "subjects."
Is it a coincidence that the one and only time I have received an incomplete emergency alert notification from the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office relates to 3-4 "subjects" who are breaking and entering private homes in my extremely safe neighborhood?
I would simply wonder whether the "subjects" plan to break into the Portola Valley home of a whistleblower of FBI malfeasance in the upcoming hours or days.
If so, I would wonder whether the "subjects" might be Special Forces personnel in another guise -- Rangers, specifically, since they have been mentioned to me several times.
Beyond this, I would wonder whether these "subjects" might be most interested in "liberating" two Phoenix personnel from their locked enclosures within my home -- attic and crawl space, respectively.
And finally, I would wonder whether these "subjects" might have a plan to become violent without warning toward a whistleblower and her family, who, it might be later reported, attempted unwisely to defend themselves.
OIG Hotline, I have lived in our current home in Portola Valley for seven-and-one-half years.
It is an astonishingly safe town.
Accordingly, I have never received an emergency alert like that included herewith.
My strong suspicion about this situation is that my town of Portola Valley is still safe. But the presence of FBI personnel, Special Forces personnel, and Phoenix Program personnel is decidedly not.
I am once again reminded of the Latin quote, Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Who will watch the watchmen?)
In a democracy, that task falls to all of us.
And if ever law enforcement personnel contemplate first-degree murder as a means of escaping accountability for -- attempted first-degree murder -- all of us must respond by telling them no.
Perhaps that moment has now arrived.
Most sincerely,
Lane MacWilliams
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