During October, several members of the SHP community, students and teachers alike, were pulled over and ticketed in the Woodside-Menlo Park area. The Town of Woodside’s Circulation Committee reached out to the SHP administration to report reckless driving behavior by members of the SHP community. The Committee is responsible for overseeing the traffic safety for the Town of Woodside. According to the Circulation Committee, drivers were cutting through the Woodside Heights neighborhood to get from Woodside Road to the Alameda using streets like Northgate and Stockbridge. Cameras around the neighborhood recorded drivers disrespecting stop signs, speeding, and passing around stopped school buses. The sheriff had reported to the Circulation Committee that the majority of drivers being ticketed in this area were members of the Sacred Heart community. It is unknown how this information was collected by the sheriff. According to Dr. Whitcomb, the Committee reached out to Sacred Heart to request that the community consider the impact of its actions and to alert the administration that the Sheriff’s office will have “increased zero-tolerance enforcement in the area.”
Several members of the community gave their comments on the situation and their experiences but requested to remain anonymous due to the sensitive nature of the issue. Experiences and emotions related to traffic citations range from inoffensive to hostile. One student recounted their experience with the officer as “relatively neutral.” However, tagged by an officer after a rolling stop, they were repeatedly asked why they had “run” the stop sign. An SHP teacher was similarly confronted by repetitive questions and demands during the ticketing, except with what they expressed as blatant aggression. During the 27-minute pull-over, which again addressed confusion between a rolled and run a stop sign, the teacher described the officer as forceful and “nasty.” While looking for the appropriate documentation, the officer incessantly rushed the teacher and raised his voice to yell in doing so, increasing their fear and inability to properly sort through the documents. Along with the unnecessary escalation of the situation, the duration of the ticketing was remarkably long. Conversely, another student found the officer’s behavior to be “professional”, with the entire affair ending within a few minutes and a simple warning.
Regardless of the intensity of each encounter, students and teachers have come to a consensus: the same cop has been ticketing everyone. This fact has garnered speculation that the officer is intentionally targeting Sacred Heart, though there is no solid evidence that such is true. Various members of the SHP community have detailed the officer stationing himself in odd locations in Woodside Heights–between bushes and deep into residential neighborhoods–in order to catch cars through the intersection off-guard. A teacher mentioned that they had worn formal dress the day of their ticketing and had felt profiled by the officer for their “fancy attire” as being associated with Sacred Heart. Dr. Whitcomb communicated to us that profiling and targeting can not be confirmed and additionally advised students “to follow the rules of the road and make sure you have sufficient time to arrive at your destination without needing to break those rules.”
Police Department Response: We reached out several times to the San Mateo County and Redwood City Police Departments in hopes of getting in contact with one of the officers involved in the ticketing. We were referred to other police departments outside the area where the ticketing was occurring. Thus, comments and perspectives from the police are unavailable.