Victim or victimizer? 

Man, I really feel sympathy for poor, sad Gabriel Rico Rosas, the heroic First Amendment advocate who bravely stands up for our right to behave like a petulant, immature, asshole just like him. He recently did jail time in Ventura County for protecting your right to act like a big fat baby. Martyr much, Gaby-baby? Poor kid.

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Rosas, whose "superhero" alter ego is SLO County Observer and whose YouTube channel posts videos of him baiting people into confronting him for his invasive behavior while hiding behind the First Amendment like a cowardly twee titmouse, decided the Fist Amendment wasn't enough to protect him from the ramifications of his bad behavior in Ventura, so he resorted to pepper-spraying someone who had the audacity, the unmitigated gall, to exercise his own First Amendment right by filming Rosas right back.

Rosas was livestreaming some buildings on West Lewis Street when two nearby business owners approached and asked why he was filming. In response, he acted self-righteous and indignant—and like he was in desperate need of attention.

According to Ventura County court documents, Rosas said he pepper-sprayed business owner Stephan Shay in "self-defense" because Shay was too close to him.

"I'm telling you, get out of my face, man. You want Mace, is that what you want?" Rosas said in the video before pulling out the pepper spray and aiming it at Shay. Shay called 911, and a few minutes later Rosas sprayed.

Well, sheesh, if being in someone's face was justification for pepper-spraying, you'd be dripping in the stuff every time you show up with your camera, Gaby-baby. That's your whole modus operandi: show up where you're not wanted, get in people's faces, film their reaction, and then post your video to YouTube with your snide commentary and overlayed text insults.

You can pretend to be a "citizen journalist," but what you're doing isn't journalism—it's the equivalent of a crank phone call in public. Tell me the truth. Were The Jerky Boys your teenage heroes? Because it sure wasn't Edward R. Murrow.

One of Rosas' signature moves is going to, for instance, the Santa Cruz courthouse to film until deputies show up to confront him. Then he hides behind the "freedom of the press," even though he has no intention of legitimate newsgathering. He's just a provocateur trying to generate sensational content for his YouTube channel. It's chaotic, and weirdly, he has thousands of followers who tune in to watch him "own" the police all while pretending his intentions are noble.

Some of those followers threatened the Ventura County District Attorney's Office, causing the person who was initially going to prosecute Rosas to be removed from the case due to safety concerns! Way to stick it to the man!

Apparently, Rosas' 22 days in the Ventura County Jail taught him nothing: "What I think my biggest mistake was when he touched me the first time is when I would have sprayed them," Rosas told New Times—although there's no evidence that Shay physically touched him. "If I can go back and do it over, I would have [sprayed him] sooner."

I'm all for keeping law enforcement accountable, but when you go out of your way to annoy the police just so you can say, "Gotcha," you're not a journalist. You're a jerk. You're giving SLO County a bad name, Gaby-baby. Find a new hobby.

Speaking of new hobbies and making SLO County look bad, former SLO County Clerk-Recorder Tommy Gong, who's now the Contra Costa County deputy clerk-recorder, finally has time to do more than stave off SLO County Republican election conspiracy theories. Apparently, Contra Costa has an adequate staff and budget, so Gong had time to submit written testimony to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee about what happened to him here.

"I don't usually do those sorts of things just because, frankly, we never had the time to be able to do it in SLO," Gong said. "It had been about a year since I'd been in Contra Costa, so I thought it'd give me an opportunity to put down on paper all of what went on during that time frame, because I really hadn't done that."

In case you forgot about "what went on," about four months after the 2020 election, local Republicans succumbed to Trump Derangement Syndrome and decided our local election was rigged. They demanded Gong audit the election, which was already certified, so the audit would've been illegal under state law.

Then, at a Board of Supervisors meeting in May 2021, during public comment, a speaker asked if Gong was a member of the Chinese Communist Party.

"I stopped and asked my staff if that was what was said. We were all stunned," Gong wrote in his testimony. "When I was in kindergarten, my mother warned me that others might call me names or make racist comments. Hearing this racism made me think back to that time. After hearing about some of the threats of violence toward election officials across the nation as well as the increase in violent crimes toward Asians, that comment did prompt concerns for me and my family."

Yay! SLO County's on the map again! OK, now raise your hand if you want more funding for the Clerk-Recorder's Office. Δ

The Shredder is SLO proud. Chime in at [email protected].