In light of recent violent attacks in our area, a Community Update was held — hosted jointly by Color Me Human, Mayor Hilary Hodge of Grass Valley and Nevada City Councilmember Daniela Fernandez — to share information, hear directly from law enforcement, and connect with organizations and individuals who are actively responding to these events.
Lolo Stone, the Board President of Color Me Human, introduced Nevada County Sheriff Shannan Moon, District Attorney Jesse Wilson, Grass Valley Police Chief Alex Gammelgard and Nevada City Police Chief Dan Foss. Stone clarified the gathering was meant to be a community update rather than a town hall or debate, stressing the importance of coordination, accountability, and trust among community members and law enforcement. “Community safety is not built by any one institution alone. It’s built through coordination, accountability, and trust. And trust only grows when harm is named clearly and people show up together. That’s why Color Me Human is hosting this update alongside the mayor of Grass Valley, Hillary Hodge, and Nevada City Councilmember, Daniela Fernandez. Not for optics, not to check a box, but because collaboration is how communities interrupt patterns of harm instead of reacting one incident at a time.”
The presence of local leaders, including Grass Valley Mayor Hillary Hodge, Nevada County District 1 Supervisor Heidi Hall and Nevada City Councilmember Daniela Fernandez highlighted a commitment to collaboration in addressing community safety. Stone articulated a hopeful vision: to leave the gathering feeling more informed and connected.
The full video of the update is below.
To the question how law enforcement agencies coordinate with one another in response to the recent incidents, Sheriff Moon said, in part, “I think the biggest part is the day-to-day officers and deputies on the street really do work well together, and I’m proud of that. In this community, I’ve always felt very proud of the fact that we do have great working relationships, not only with the police departments, but also with the fire departments.”
Chief Gammelgard added, “A lot of the work is done through these informal and formal relationships and being able to pick up the phone when something happens is key. That’s the foundational layer. And then the operational piece is things like data systems, detective relationships, and case management, the analysts that we have working in our agencies. And just recently on some of the things that we’re talking about here this morning, an analyst in the Sheriff’s Office spent a significant amount of time linking facts and circumstances around some of these incidents to try to find the correlations and also be able to discount them where appropriate.”
DA Wilson widened the perspective, saying “This collaboration, it doesn’t have one particular look, right? It can happen in various types of ways. It can happen from the DA’s perspective. We get all the referrals so we can see if there’s a trend going on across jurisdictions so we can reach out to our law enforcement agencies if we see something that we’re trying to track and get a handle on on a regional overall level… to put a finer point on Sheriff Moon’s comment about the coordination in this community, we go to these trainings, we go to these statewide trainings, and it’s surprising in some respects, but also refreshing, to hear that we don’t have these same barriers that other communities have, and these people going in their own sound boxes and not working together, that’s not the case in Nevada County.”
Chief Foss Dan Foss highlighted the community cohesion, “Probably the biggest strength we have is we keep saying that word community. And what I have noticed coming up here is Nevada County treats itself like one community… The other thing I think that’s really important for what we’re saying here is, you probably see it, that we’re friends. We all get along up here and a big part of friendship that I think is really important is, you can disagree. I think you learn more and build more from disagreements than you do from agreeing. So if you’re comfortable in saying, hey, I think what we’re doing here is wrong, that’s how things get built and get better, right? And we discuss it and talk it through. having those strengths appear, too, is very beneficial. Again as the sheriff said that trickles down our officers, they see it, they interact well with each other, they work great together and that’s all real big strength.”
The complexities of the legal system were addressed, with law enforcement clarifying their roles in investigating incidents and the limitations on what can be shared publicly. They highlighted the importance of maintaining the principle of “innocent until proven guilty,” and the necessity of thorough investigations to ensure justice.