Did COVID kill the San Diego Police Museum?

Probably not, but if San Diego’s most nonessential museum doesn’t bounce back, at least we still have its beautiful [‘90s voice] Web site

A lot of people think working for Antifa is all fun and games and cashing personal checks from George Soros. For the most part, this is true. The benefits are great, and our Antifa bosses bring in donuts to prevent us from getting a case or cases of the Mondays. I mean, just like with any job, there are drawbacks. For one, the office coffee isn’t the best. I can tell it’s not fair trade, single origin, which... ugh, but it’s free, so it would be a jerk move to complain.

So it’s with due diligence to my job at Antifa that I decide to check out the San Diego Police Museum. I figure it’ll make the bosses happy, which they’ll consider when my performance review comes up.

As far as San Diego tourist destinations go, I don’t think the Police Museum ranks high on the list. In fact, I’m not too sure many people who live outside College Area San Diego even know that it exists, but head north on College Ave toward SDSU, and you’ll see a distinctive stone building with a blue roof — which looks a little like if Blue Lives Matter designed a building.

I’ve driven past the SD Police Museum many times, and it always instills in me a deeply stupid sense of wonder. What, exactly, goes on in a police museum? Why would anyone want to go in there? In my rankings of “Museums that I would hate” the Police Museum is probably only second to the Creationism Museum out in El Cajon. So obviously, I must check it out. I don’t know if this is a sadomasochism thing, a psychological attraction/repulsion fetish, or just the fact that I like to stare into the void.

Why is it located so close to San Diego State University? Who would’ve thought it would be a good idea to put a police museum right on top of a college campus — traditionally a hotbed for countercultural thought and freedom of expression, which are two things that, if you’ve been paying attention to the news for the past forever, police seem to hate!

The museum is closed when I arrive. I should’ve known. Not only that, but the entire signage has been scraped off. COVID has been hell on museums in San Diego, and while some are bouncing back with appointment-only exhibits, many have ceased operation until 2021.

So why was I expecting the San Diego Police Museum to be open? I just sort of figured they’d be above the law.

Forgive me if this expectation seems cynical, it’s just, well, this year has not been... how should we say... good? for the law enforcement's public image. Since May, we’ve witnessed George Floyd’s, Breonna Taylor’s deaths — as well as Jacob Blake’s shooting — at the hands of police, and during the ensuing protests we’ve seen unhinged and vindictive retaliation after retaliation after retaliation after retaliation from those that have sworn oaths to protect us.

I try to peer into the closed police museum, but everything’s covered from the inside with paper. I take a step back and realize that all traces of signage have been scraped off the building as well. There’s nothing to indicate that there was ever a police museum here. The only thing missing from this moment is a creepy old guy saying, “why, that police museum burned down forty years ago!”

When I get home, I visit the museum’s website, and am greeted with this very severe and stern message: “DUE TO INTERNATIONAL EVENTS THE MUSEUM IS CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.”

I reach out to SDPD spokesperson Shawn Takeuchi about the museum’s closure, who responds: “I just heard back from a member and was told the museum is temporarily closed due to Covid. The closure is not permanent.”

It’s not that I don’t believe Takeuchi, but the scrubbed signage still lingers in my mind. The reason could be something as simple as prepping for a new paint job, but I can’t help my brain from veering into conspiracy theories. Did the police museum fear vandalism in light of the property damage that occurred in La Mesa after the George Floyd protests, and therefore try to hide?

(Side note: I write to Takeuchi on a Friday evening, the same night that he’s probably fielding questions about a downtown protest that turns chaotic. Just imagine all the reporters asking about violence in the streets and I’m like ‘wHaT aBoUt ThE mUsEuM?”)

Before (Google Streetview) / After

I reach out to the San Diego Police Historical Association — the organization that funds and oversees the museum — if they have further comment regarding the scrubbed signage. No one responds to calls or emails.

Which brings us back to the original question: Will the San Diego Police Museum come back?

Admittedly, I’ve spent a lot of words making conjecture and taking huge, wishful leaps, but despite whether the museum comes back or not, out of its ashes rises a truly beautiful phoenix: The San Diego Police Museum website.

Or should I say Web site, because this thing is straight out of the modem-and-dancing-baby-gif-era. The design is a literal nightmare, complete with clashing colors, mismatched fonts, Minesweeper-esque graphics and low-res stock imagery. And the best part is that it’s still being updated, complete with a Virtual Museum exhibit that astoundingly predates COVID (way to be a trailblazer, Police Museum Web site)! Frankly, there’s so much information inside this digital labyrinth that I imagine any redesign would be a logistical hell. It’s sort of like if someone just spent their lifetime souping up a ‘94 Mercury Tracer. The charmingly anachronistic design is almost enough to look past the fact that it’s blatant copaganda — a landfill brimming with the mostly-white and mostly-male faces that have policed this city since its inception.

Here are some of my favorite parts:

The first thing visitors see is this image of shadowy police coming at you with their weapons drawn. Badass! The little flashing siren graphics “America’s Finest Since 1889” actually flash too, which is a nice touch.

Click on the “Virtual Museum” link and it takes you to this page. I remember when I first got Tomb Raider 2 and quickly realized that I was no good at it, so I would mostly just run around Lara Croft’s mansion and get lost in the maze. The virtual museum is the aesthetic and intellectual equivalent of that. Once you’re in, you’re stuck in there forever. The stone masonry and link boxes also give me heavy mausoleum/tomb vibes. When I die, I just know my soul will end up in this San Diego Police Virtual Museum.

Lol, BARF Team Training — you just gotta eat at Del Taco, amirite?

B.A.R.F. stands for Border Alien Robbery Force. Back in the ‘70s, a group of cops went undercover as migrants to try and capture gangs that were killing, robbing and assaulting real migrants who were trying to cross into the United States. In what appears to be a rare spark of human insight, the site states: “Navigating a rattlesnake infested path of hope toward a better life in the City of San Diego and beyond, many found rape, robbery and death at the merciless hands of bandit gangs that roamed the desolate chasm preying on the desperate, impoverished migrants.”

Alas, the BARF program lasted less than two years. Fare thee well, BARF.

Spooky!

My favorite thing about the SDPD Mysteries page is that there are two (2) mysteries.

The first is “What does Richard Freeman look like?” which, yes, is a question that has kept me up through many nights. Freeman, a deputy city marshal, was supposedly the first Black lawman west of the Mississippi, but without any pictorial evidence, our brains are forced into a hot delirium of imagining what this man could possibly look like.

The second mystery is, “What was the meaning of the Traffic Shoulder Patch?” And, again, there is no answer. Will our minds ever know true peace? Who among us will step forth and solve these mysteries so that our collective mental torment can thus be extinguished??

Yeesh, this In Memory graphic. It’s like a MagicEye that gets creepier the longer you stare at it. There’s no convincing me that this isn’t where Slenderman lives.

The font on HOT NEWS ON UPCOMING EVENTS is literally on fire. Like, the flames move. Hope you’re ready for a hot time at [checks notes] Holy Trinity Church in [checks notes] 2021. FUCK YEAH!

The site also contains some cool historic mugshots (aka the Rouges Gallery). I wish I had known Blanche Trenholm Marquez. Weedheads know how to party.

And finally, I just really love this pic of Director Steve Willard looking frightened and eating cake.

There are many, many more delightful nuggets in this site, and I highly recommend you go check it out. If the physical San Diego Police Museum does eventually come back from COVID, I can’t imagine it’s anything near as beautiful as this.

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VOTE FOR THE BEST IN SAN DIEGO

You still have one week to vote for your favorite things in the first ever AWKWIES awards. I’ve been monitoring the polling results like a hawk and some of the races are neck and neck. It’s so nerve-wracking that my desk is covered in bitten-off nails (which I’ve named and given backstories to [pandemic has made me weird]) .

So what do you say? What’s the best pizza in town? The best burrito? Best politician? If there’s one thing that’s not missing online these days, it’s opinions! Go make yours known and vote in the AWKWIES.

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THE WEEKLY GOODS

Buy this

My good friend and artist Carolyn Ramos has spent the past few months illustrating every single Seinfeld girlfriend to appear in the show. Considering that Jerry has a new girlfriend nearly every episode... well, that’s a lot of fucking work. Last week, she completed the series, and it’s a feat that’s both staggering and beautiful. Carolyn is now selling prints, so you should go buy one. Or a few.

Hear this

Dear friends, spooky music season is upon us. As much as I support busting out the Oingo Boingo and Misfits every year, even a haggard ghoul like me needs some variety once in a while. This is why Strange Ages new four-song EP feels so good right now. Not that the San Diego three-piece is a spooky band per se, but their music has enough dark theatrics that I think it works. The first song “Post Now” — with its slippery bass and haunting vocals — feels like it belongs at the roadhouse in Twin Peaks. And then at the three-minute mark, the song shifts into what sounds like the title music to a ‘70s Dario Argento film. While not an overtly creepy band, this new EP feels like a warm-up to a welcomingly-bleak October.

Do this

If the first presidential debate was any indication, it’s clear that we’re in deep as a nation. Frankly, it’s going to require a lot of civic engagement to get us back on track, and Voice of San Diego’s Politifestcould just be the ticket for anyone who’s feeling untethered right now. The four-day online festival (it started on Tuesday and goes until Saturday) provides panels and insight about the political issues that are most affecting San Diegans right now, including discussions about how our city will recover from COVID and local elections. Don’t spend the rest of 2020 feeling hopeless; get engaged. And Politifest is a good way of doing so.

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Julia Dixon Evans edited this post. Thanks, Julia. Go follow her on Twitter.