Last week, a report filed with election officials revealed that the campaign seeking to recall District Attorney Pamela Price paid thousands of dollars to a security company recently founded by Brenda Grisham, one of the recall’s main organizers.
The payment, first reported by the The Oakland Observer and East Bay Times, raised questions about why the campaign paid a company run by one of its leaders and whether or not the security guards in question, some of whom have carried firearms in public, are properly licensed.
California requires anyone who is paid to work as a security guard to obtain a license from the state. This ensures they are properly trained and understand the laws they have to follow when protecting people and property, carrying weapons, using force, and more.
Grisham has played an active role in advocating for victims of violent crime in Oakland since her son Christopher Jones was shot to death in front of their family home in Oakland’s Eastmont neighborhood in 2010. She began meeting with other victims’ families at courthouses and supporting them during court trials. “That’s really important to me because they really don’t have people who actually have their back,” she said.
When Price took office in 2023, Grisham said she was in contact with the new DA’s team. “I did meet with Cynthia Chandler, and I met with Ms. [Kristina] Molina,” she said, referring to key members of Price’s leadership team. Grisham wanted to “give them ideas on what the victim advocates program was with the previous administration and how things could be improved.”
This was her effort to “bridge the gap” and work with Price, said Grisham. “She’s the first African American DA. Who would not want to see that?”
Over time, Grisham came to feel that her efforts and advice, based on her many years of work as a victims’ advocate in Oakland, were not being appreciated or taken up by Price. “I extended the olive branch but it was slapped back in my face,” Grisham said. She also came to feel that Price’s approach as a district attorney—which does not always seek maximum punishment for perpetrators of violent crimes, for example—was disrespectful to victims and their families.
Grisham says that at some point, she and Carl Chan, a vocal critic of Price’s philosophies on criminal justice reform and a longtime Chinatown business advocate, got in touch about launching a recall effort to remove Price from office. Chan now serves as an officer of the recall’s campaign committee.
Since then, the recall effort against Price has captured national and even international attention, with frequent coverage on Fox News, the UK’s Daily Mail, and other news outlets with enormous audiences. Millions have been spent on this effort to date, and fundraising and campaign spending continue.
On Tuesday, Grisham held a press conference at her office on International Boulevard to explain the payments and her use of private security—and to accuse District Attorney Price of intimidation, which Grisham says is the reason she’s had to hire bodyguards.
For over an hour, Grisham and two colleagues shared emails, bank records, invoices, photographs, and other documents with reporters to explain how her security arrangement works in connection with the recall campaign. Grisham was transparent about some issues, such as how the recall campaign came to pay her company for security services, but refused to answer other questions, including about her employment of armed security guards.
Grisham said she has spent approximately $15,000 on guards since last July, paying them mostly out of her own pocket. She said she didn’t initially intend for the campaign to pay for these contractors. She said she sought reimbursement from the campaign’s official funds only after Chan recently suggested she do so. (Chan did not respond to a request for an interview for this story.)
Grisham said that any confusion or errors she made in reporting the security payments stemmed from the fact that she’s a grassroots activist, not a politician. Grisham also denied that she or anyone else violated state rules that require security employers and guards to have a state license.
Grisham said she needed to hire security due to threats she’s gotten since launching the recall last year. She and her colleagues provided some examples of what they allege are significant threats and retaliation they’ve faced. They declined to answer other questions about the nature of these threats and their connections to the recall effort. They repeatedly stated that the “word on the street” is that Pamela Price and her supporters will try to harm people affiliated with the recall, including the security guards Grisham employs.
Some of Grisham’s evidence of such intimidation is contradictory. In one instance, Grisham provided The Oaklandside with a letter from an activist who is helping organize recall campaigns against Price and Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao. The author of the letter claimed that supporters of Price and Thao “attempted to physically intimidate” and even punched a recall supporter at a recent rally in downtown Oakland.
However, video footage from that event shows that Grisham’s own bodyguard was one of the people allegedly attacking recall supporters. Grisham and the bodyguard acknowledged this was true, and Grisham said she is no longer employing him because of the scuffle.
We examined this and several other incidents or pieces of evidence shared by Grisham to support her claims that she has been threatened by Pamela Price and her supporters and spoke to several people who, according to Grisham, had further evidence of such threats.
The materials Grisham provided showed instances of angry remarks and insults, heated debates, and uncomfortable exchanges, but we did not encounter firsthand evidence of unwanted or harmful physical contact between anyone, other than the incident in which Grisham’s bodyguard allegedly punched a recall organizer.
We also looked further into the recall campaign’s use of armed and unarmed security guards and whether they are following state licensing rules.
Cruel remarks and pointed questions in recall’s early days
When asked by The Oaklandside to describe and substantiate specific instances of intimidation and threats she and others involved with the recall campaign have faced, Grisham readily shared a slew of video recordings, screenshots, emails, letters, photographs, and names of people to contact.
Among them were two screenshots of comments responding to posts she shared on Instagram. One of the comments was left on a post that Grisham shared on Aug. 19, soon after the recall effort officially kicked off. A week earlier, Grisham had shared a post advertising a rally to support the Price recall at the courthouse.
In the picture accompanying the Aug. 19 post, captioned “Alameda County Courthouse,” Grisham stands outside with two people. In response, a user called “keep_it_real1993” wrote, “They say ur son cried like a girl when he got smoked.” The response appears to have been removed from the post since then but was captured in a screenshot by Grisham.
It wasn’t the first time that this Instagram user had interacted with Grisham on that platform. Back in April, a few months before the recall campaign against Price was launched, Grisham shared a selfie on Instagram of herself and two acquaintances. That same day, Grisham organized an event to support families of homicide victims and push for the rehiring of former Oakland Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong, who was fired by Mayor Thao in February 2023.
The same user, “keep_it_real1993,” responded to that post, saying, “May your son rest in piss” and “He got what he deserved.” That Instagram user’s account is private, and we couldn’t identify its owner. This comment also appears to have been removed.
Grisham said her concerns continued to mount after she and others filed a notice of intent to recall Pamela Price in August. A notice of intent is a form that recall supporters must serve to the official they’re seeking to recall. It’s a mandatory first step in any recall process. That day, Grisham and Chan organized a press conference in front of the Oakland courthouse, inviting the parents of a homicide victim to talk about why they were unhappy with Price’s approach to her work as district attorney.
After the press conference wound down, “a dude about seven feet tall walked up on me and was hollering and screaming at me,” Grisham said. She said the man called her a racist, and someone escorted her past him into the courthouse. She described the man’s actions as intimidating but did not say he made physical contact with her or threatened to do so.
Grisham didn’t know the man’s name, but she later spotted him in an unrelated video uploaded to YouTube and shared it with The Oaklandside this week. The Oaklandside identified the man and got in touch. He requested anonymity because he was concerned that what he saw as Grisham’s mischaracterization of events would harm his credibility and reputation.
He shared a roughly 23-minute video he filmed on his phone of the press conference and his interaction with Grisham afterward. During the press conference, the man points out that Grisham and Chan are attempting to recall the first black district attorney elected in Alameda County. He continues to ask questions after the press conference ends. In the video, he does not call Grisham a racist, yell at her, or make physical contact with her. After several minutes of answering his questions, Grisham excuses herself and walks into the courthouse with the parents of the homicide victim.
Conflicting stories about who was harassed at a signature drive
Grisham said that another instance of intimidation occurred in October when she hosted a petition-signing event for the recall campaign at her office on International Boulevard. She hired three men to provide security for the event. Grisham refused to identify these individuals, state whether they were licensed by the state to work as guards, or state whether they were employed by a company that is licensed to provide security guards on a contract basis.
She did provide a photograph of the men. They do not appear to be wearing security uniforms or any displays identifying them as security personnel. Grisham said these guards were not carrying firearms.
Grisham said that an individual named Zak, who she believes is a supporter of Pamela Price, showed up to that event and tried to dissuade people from signing the petition.
The Price volunteer was Zak Samani. Samani told The Oaklandside he stood on the public sidewalk outside of the event, passed out fliers with information about Price’s accomplishments, and tried to talk to passersby. Samani said he didn’t harass anyone and claimed he was treated aggressively by one of Grisham’s masked guards.
“I remember him saying he was going to do something to me, drag me off the sidewalk, and just get me out of there,” Samani said. Samani posted about this encounter on Nextdoor later that week, accusing the security guard of threatening to beat him up.
Samani shared screenshots of direct messages he received soon after from Grisham through Nextdoor. In the messages, Grisham asked Samani to take down his post, calling it a “lie.” An extended back-and-forth ensued in direct messages on Nextdoor. Samani told Grisham that a recall supporter had witnessed the incident and physically intervened between him and the guard. Grisham told The Oaklandside she reviewed security footage and didn’t see the guard threaten Samani.
Samani said he’s faced other alleged harassment and threats from supporters of local recall efforts. In February, he recorded a video of a person gathering signatures for the recall campaign against Mayor Thao near a Whole Foods store in Oakland. In the video, the signature gatherer calls him a homophobic slur.
William Fitzgerald, a spokesperson for the campaign created to defend Price against a recall, said the campaign is “proud of the work Zak has done” in publicizing Price’s record.
Heated debate at an Emeryville town hall
On Dec. 18, the Price recall campaign held a town hall meeting in Emeryville to inform residents about the effort. At least a couple dozen people attended it. Grisham said about nine Price supporters showed up and were “unruly.” She said one of them approached the person she had hired to be her bodyguard that day, a local comedian named Jerry Law, and “was all in his face.” She didn’t identify the person who she says accosted Law.
Grisham shared several videos from the event that were recorded by recall supporters. None of them appear to show an altercation with Law. In one, a handful of people in the audience can be seen carrying pro-Price signs. A woman interrupts Grisham several times, and at one point, a man shouts at Grisham, aggrieved that she had referred to someone in the audience as “sweetheart” and “honey.” Someone off-camera encourages the man to remain quiet and be respectful.
In another clip from the event shared by Grisham, a woman carrying a “#Decline2sign” poster—a slogan Price supporters have used to urge people not to sign the recall petition—accused the recall organizers of being dishonest about Price’s record and questioned the value of spending millions on signature gathering to get the recall on the ballot. (So far, the recall campaign against Price has spent over $2.2 million.) This woman appeared to be speaking during a public comments portion of the forum.
In another video, a different woman accuses the recall organizers of spreading “misinformation” about Price. After the woman finishes talking, several speakers have a brief verbal squabble. At one point, Emeryville Councilmember Kalimah Priforce, who was in the audience at the town hall, speaks up from the crowd and asks both sides to be respectful. Grisham also asks members of the audience to be respectful.
Grisham shared an email from a woman named Tina Monaco, who attended the event that night. In the email, Monaco tells Grisham that the environment of the meeting “became increasingly threatening” when a large man began “disrespecting” Grisham and prevented her from speaking.
In an email to The Oaklandside, Monaco confirmed that she was present at the Emeryville event and the author of the note to Grisham. She said the “large man” she was referring to was Priforce, the Emeryville council member.
In a phone call with The Oaklandside, Priforce said that as a tall Black man—he is 6’4”—he’s used to people perceiving him as a threat or hostile. Priforce said opponents and proponents of the recall interrupted each other during the meeting, but no one was abusive, and there was no physical violence or aggression. Priforce said he and his staff were in the building for the entire event and didn’t witness any threats made toward Grisham or her bodyguard, Law.
“I felt like it was a rigorous town hall, but nothing that would explain [the need to employ] masked guards,” Priforce said, referring to Grisham’s more recent use of armed security at other recall events. “None of that makes sense.”
In another video clip from the meeting shared by Grisham, Priforce can be seen standing before the audience. He says he previously reached out to Grisham to ask her to figure out how to work with Price. Priforce then turns to face Grisham, who is seated on an elevated stage, and says that he had asked her several times what she wanted from Price without getting an answer.
“That’s when my integrity meter went off the charts and I said something is not right here,” Priforce says in the video. “That’s when I know somebody is starting a fight to just start a fight, and you’re getting some sort of benefit from it. They don’t actually want to lay their weapons down.”
Priforce doesn’t verbally or physically abuse anyone in the video.
Continued confrontations between signature gatherers and recall detractors
Grisham told The Oaklandside that she has collected a number of police reports filed by signature gatherers who have worked or volunteered for the recall campaign and were “harassed.”
She shared a police report that was filed on Feb. 14 by a volunteer named Paula Gustafson, who was gathering signatures in Jack London Square on Feb. 11. Gustafson alleges that a man approached her table and wrote “fuck yall” on the front of the petition.
In a phone call with The Oaklandside, Gustafson confirmed that she filed the police report and said she believes this incident violated a state law that protects anyone engaged in circulating a petition for an initiative, referendum, or recall from violence. She said she was also harassed at other times when gathering signatures for the recall campaign.
Asked about state election laws that apply to gathering petition signatures, the California Secretary of State’s office pointed to a law that makes it a misdemeanor to threaten “to commit an assault or battery on a person circulating a referendum, initiative, or recall petition or on a relative of a person circulating a referendum, initiative, or recall petition or to inflict damage on the property of the circulator or the relative, with the intent to dissuade the circulator from circulating the petition or in retribution for the circulation.”
To date, no one has been charged in this incident, and it remains unclear whether writing “fuck yall” on a recall petition violates this law.
Grisham connected us with other recall organizers who shared stories of alleged harassment by recall detractors, including that of a pro-recall banner that was stolen and then taken back. None shared stories of bodily harm or threats of physical violence.
Grisham shared a video of herself and other recall supporters having a heated conversation with a man on a bicycle near Lake Merritt on Feb. 10. The man, whom Grisham did not identify and who we were unable to independently identify, insisted that the signature gatherers were being paid by unnamed “racists” and “Republicans” for their efforts and called the recall organizers “racist.” Toward the end of the video, one of the recall supporters called the man “retarded.”
Grisham shared with us a letter written on her behalf by Martin Peters, the pastor of Oakland’s Victory Baptist Church. Peters said he has been friends with Grisham for over 40 years and attended almost every public event she has held, including those involving the recall campaign. “I personally feel her life is in danger,” he said in his letter.
In a phone call with The Oaklandside, Peters said he wrote the letter after several concerning interactions he witnessed between Grisham and detractors of the Price recall campaign, including the Emeryville town hall and the February incident at Lake Merritt.
“Anything can happen when people get upset and frustrated and hollering and screaming,” Peters said. “Brenda doesn’t need to go anywhere by herself.”
An appearance by the district attorney outside Grisham’s office
One incident Grisham repeatedly mentioned during this week’s press conference involved a visit that Price and several members of the DA’s office made two months ago to the East Oakland neighborhood and strip mall where Grisham leases office space. On Jan. 10, Price, accompanied by several members of the district attorney’s staff, walked along International Boulevard. International Boulevard is a major thoroughfare in East Oakland where sex trafficking is a chronic public safety issue. Fitzgerald said Price was visiting International Boulevard to share information with residents about an anti-human-trafficking campaign her office was supporting.
As part of their itinerary that day, Price and her staff visited International Plaza, a small strip mall on International Boulevard that includes Grisham’s office and a few other businesses she is involved with.
Grisham claims there was no reason for Price to visit the strip mall and that it was an act of intimidation. “That could have turned out all wrong if I had been in the office,” Grisham said. (She wasn’t present at her office that day.) “I could have been shot and killed.”
When The Oaklandside asked if she genuinely believes the District Attorney of Alameda County might have intended to kill her during the visit, Grisham said, “I could have been harmed.”
Fitzgerald, the Price campaign’s spokesperson, denied that Price has ever intended to harm Grisham or that she would ever try to hurt Grisham or anyone else. He said the district attorney’s visit that day was wholly unrelated to Grisham. Two weeks later, Price’s office held an anti-trafficking march, rally, and resources fair in the same neighborhood.
“Brenda Grisham made that up in her head,” Fitzgerald said. “To suggest that DA Price would be involved in something like that is categorically the most insane suggestion. What are we talking about here?”
Grisham remains convinced there is something nefarious at play and sees Price behind other concerning events. She said that a day after Price’s visit, someone spray-painted the phrase “Smile Bitch” on the wall of a business across the street from the plaza. Grisham believes this vandalism was committed by someone connected to Price’s campaign but offered no proof to support this claim when asked. Fitzgerald said no one from Price or the campaign team was involved in this incident.
“The world doesn’t revolve around Brenda Grisham, despite her seemingly thinking it does,” Fitzgerald said.
In late February, Grisham and one of her employees, Nia Hughes, said they were walking along International near Grisham’s office when someone in an unmarked car splashed water on them. Grisham and Hughes believe the driver was targeting Grisham, although both acknowledged they couldn’t identify who the driver was.
In addition to running the recall campaign, Grisham explained that she also operates a nonprofit that does outreach to victims of human trafficking on International Boulevard. We asked if she thinks the person who splashed water on her or spray-painted messages on the walls near her office might be someone engaging in exploitation who doesn’t like her interfering. Grisham insisted that Price and her supporters must be responsible.
On Twitter, the Price campaign referred to recall organizers and others as “loony toons” who are spreading “conspiracy theories.” They have also referred to the recall organizers as “ghouls.”
Grisham claims that Price’s social media accounts “incite violence” against her. She said the Price campaign’s Twitter account has frequently referred to her by name, which she finds intimidating.
This week, Grisham shared an email with The Oaklandside that the Price campaign sent to its supporters on March 10. The email’s subject line was “Recallers Gone Wild.” Grisham said this email was “slander.”
Grisham says another alarming incident occurred early in the recall campaign’s unfolding. After she and Carl Chan filed the notice of intent in August, Grisham said, she received an official response from Price at her home address. Grisham said the fact that Price sent the response to her home was intimidating.
We asked Grisham about the address she wrote down on the notice of intent that was filed with election officials and served to Price. Grisham said that she had written her home address on that paperwork. State law also says that proponents of a recall have to include their “residence address” in the notice of intent.
When asked if this could be the reason Price sent her official response to the notice of intent to Grisham’s home address, she dismissed the possibility and said again that she felt it was a threat.
“The address [Grisham] put was her home address,” Price campaign spokesperson Fitzgerald said.
Grisham’s bodyguard was accused of assaulting a pro-recall activist
Edward Escobar, an activist who supports the Price and Thao recall campaigns, wrote a letter to Grisham on March 10, agreeing with her contention that Price’s supporters are dangerous.
“I have been subjected to harassment and intimidation by individuals linked to the campaigns of both Pamela Price and Mayor Thao,” Escobar wrote.
Escobar wrote that Grisham needs security to protect her from the “potential risks” of being a key figure in the Price recall. The main example he cited in his letter was an incident on Feb. 21 where members of KANO Special Services, a company that does violence prevention work in Oakland, got into an altercation with Thao recall supporters who were protesting against the mayor at a downtown Oakland press conference.
In a video of the incident, taken by KTVU reporter Henry Lee, Seneca Scott, a main organizer of the Thao recall campaign and a supporter of the Price recall, can be seen running from a man in grey sweatpants and a green hat. Scott later told the media that it was “terrifying” to be pushed and punched.
The man who was chasing Scott in the video and allegedly involved in attacking supporters of the Thao recall campaign was Jerry Law—Grisham’s bodyguard.
Escobar told The Oaklandside that Law “threw two punches” in Scott’s face during this confrontation. Escobar claimed that Law and other members of KANO created disorder at the event by shouting at the pro-recall group.
“They were being more disruptive toward the press conference by yelling than our presence [was],” Escobar said.
Escobar said he was aware at the time that Law worked for Grisham but he did not recognize Law at the event. He was “shocked” to learn later that it was Law who allegedly attacked Scott. He noted that Grisham was furious when she learned about Law’s involvement in the alleged attack.
Law attended Grisham’s press conference at her office on Tuesday. He confirmed that Grisham hired him to protect her over the past year. But Grisham said she had to stop working with him after the altercation downtown last month with Seneca Scott.
Law claimed that Scott provoked him with verbal abuse and that he began chasing him after Scott allegedly bumped into a person at the press conference. Law said he was “going to kick [Scott’s] ass” but claims he didn’t make physical contact. Law said he doesn’t support the Thao recall, and he doesn’t have a position on the Price recall.
“I don’t have a dog in that fight,” Law said.
Are Grisham’s armed and unarmed guards licensed? She won’t say
The Oaklandside carefully reviewed the videos and documents Grisham shared with our reporters as evidence that Pamela Price and supporters of her election and continued work as district attorney for Alameda County have threatened, intimidated, or harassed her and supporters of the recall effort she leads.
We also attempted to contact individuals she encouraged us to contact who had information about alleged security issues and spoke with everyone who responded. We also attempted to get in touch with people who authored the emails, letters, or other documents Grisham provided.
In sorting through these materials, it is clear that Grisham has been the subject of hurtful ridicule, angry criticism, and cruel personal remarks, including the two replies to her Instagram posts with abusive comments about her deceased son.
To date, we have not encountered any evidence from Grisham of physical assaults or threats of physical contact issued by Pamela Price or her supporters. In a couple of cases, Grisham’s description of what happened didn’t match the footage she shared with us. Grisham claimed she has proof that District Attorney Price intended to retaliate against her guards in some fashion but refused to share it with us.
On Friday, March 15, we shared with Grisham a summary of our findings based on the records and witnesses she provided. Grisham argued that she has been subject to verbal abuse. She said a man told her to “shut your mouth” at the Dec. 18 Emeryville forum and yelled at her bodyguard, Law, “You gonna hit me?” We did not observe either of these incidents in the footage provided to us. Grisham also repeated her claim that Price’s visit to the office complex where leases space was an act of intimidation.
“You all are not in my position,” Grisham said. “I know how I feel and what I need to do for me and my children.”
As the recall’s leader, Grisham continues to believe her life is in danger and believes that the elected official in the crosshairs of this campaign wishes to retaliate against her and other recall supporters. To that end, she plans to continue to employ security as she conducts her work around Oakland.
The training, licensing, and professional record of these armed guards remains unclear.
When asked on Tuesday if he works for a security company, Jerry Law, Grisham’s former bodyguard, said he works with KANO Special Services, the company that does violence prevention work in Oakland. According to the California Bureau of Security and Investigative Services, KANO is not a licensed security firm. A search of the state security license database shows that Law is not permitted to work as a bodyguard. Grisham said she has employed Law as an individual and not through any company.
When asked if he has a license to work as a security guard, Law said, “This is how I look at it: I don’t think that a person has the right to tell a mother that they can’t protect their child, so the day that I can’t protect a Black woman, kill me.”
Law said he felt motivated to protect Grisham because he, too, has heard about threats and retaliation targeting her. He did not mention any specific threats. He also said “word on the street” is that people associated with the recall could be retaliated against by authorities.
“This is a mother that got dragged into politics,” Law said. “The security came about as things started to transpire.”
At Tuesday’s press conference, Grisham insisted that an individual doesn’t need to have a security guard license to protect people. “I could pay anybody to secure me,” she said.
Grisham said she believes that it’s legal for her to hire any person to provide security, including someone who hasn’t been licensed by the State Bureau of Security and Investigative Services, as long as they are “not carrying guns.”
“If I call my sister to come sit in my office and make sure I’m safe, I could pay her,” Grisham said.
Grisham said that the recall campaign committee’s payments to her company, Efficient Private Protection and Security, LLC, were to reimburse her for the out-of-pocket costs she incurred to employ Law and other individuals as her bodyguards. Grisham said that all reimbursements went to her directly—not her company.
A disclosure form filed by the recall committee last week with election officials showed that it paid Grisham’s company $4,525. Grisham incorporated the company in January but said the payments were for services provided in October and December.
Earlier this week, the recall campaign committee filed an amended report stating that Grisham’s company was only paid about $2,500 for security services from October through December. She said another bill would be due in a future reporting period.
At her press conference this week, Grisham provided reporters with a copy of an invoice from her company, Efficient Private Protection and Security, billing the recall campaign committee for $9,050 for private security services in November, December, January, and February. The invoice lists Jerry Law as the “salesperson” and says he was paid in cash. Grisham said the recall campaign hasn’t been billed for $9,050, that the real amount is the $2,500 reflected on the campaign’s filings with election officials.
The accounting firm handling the recall campaign’s books filed these reports days after the recall’s leaders held a press conference at the Rene Davidson Courthouse in Oakland, where they submitted signed petitions to qualify the recall for an upcoming election. At that Mar. 4 event, Grisham and recall supporters were flanked by six men dressed in black wearing ski masks. Four carried handguns.
After the campaign finance reports were filed with elections officials on a website that allows the public to view these forms, Price supporters accused Grisham of enriching herself by hiring her own company to provide security at the event.
“Not only did she show up with armed and masked unlicensed ‘security’ at a courthouse, it turns out that she got paid by the recall campaign to provide this unlicensed ‘security’ for the campaign,” the Price campaign alleged in a Mar. 10 email.
At her press conference on Tuesday, Grisham said this isn’t true. Her company, Efficient Private Protection and Security, did not employ these armed guards, she said. She insisted they are all licensed private security workers, employed by a security company, and legally allowed to carry concealed firearms. However, Grisham repeatedly refused to disclose their identities, their licenses, or the company they work for.
State law requires private security guards who are armed with guns to display a patch on both shoulders that shows who employs them. Grisham argued the men were working as independent contractors and, therefore, were not breaking the law. We asked the state Bureau of Security and Investigative Service about the law and will update this story when we get a response.
Grisham says she can’t identify her security guards because they risk being retaliated against by Pamela Price and her supporters. “I’m not going to do that,” Grisham said. “Word on the street was anybody that secured the petitions, their license would be…looked at.” Grisham shared an email from Price’s campaign that criticized the courthouse event and called the guards “unlicensed.” The email doesn’t threaten the guards with retaliation.
Security licenses are granted by the state, and it’s unclear how Price could retaliate against the guards if they had appropriate licenses.
Fitzgerald, the campaign spokesperson for Price, called the allegations categorically untrue. “The DA wouldn’t retaliate against people,” Fitzgerald said.
Asked why she didn’t have the campaign begin to reimburse her for security costs in July, when the recall kicked off, Grisham said she never considered it an option until Carl Chan said the campaign wanted to reimburse her for the money spent on security.
“I don’t know anything about politics,” Grisham said. “Never thought about it.”
Grisham said she’ll continue to need security for “a while.” She plans to get reimbursed directly from the campaign for some security going forward but indicated that she needs to talk with SAFE’s accountant to figure out how this will work.
In the meantime, Grisham said, she runs several businesses and nonprofits that are suffering due to her work in the recall.
“There’s no gain in this,” Grisham said.
Clarification: we updated this story after Escobar informed us he did not recognize Jerry Law during the street altercation in downtown Oakland on Feb. 21.
