“Zayd and Sammie knew exactly what they were doing.”
Jillian Lloyd is an attorney and yoga instructor in Boulder, Colorado. Jillian is one of the most active and racist members of Safer Boulder.
On two separate occasions, Jillian promoted a documentary about race and homelessness in Denver called Denver In Decay by Steffan Tubbs, the fascist adjacent radio host on the right-wing 710 KNUS talk radio station.
Steffan Tubbs and 710KNUS made national news last year when news broke that Tubbs’ executive producer Kirk Widlund had neo-Nazi ties and social media posts around the same time that 710KNUS host Chuck Bonniwell wished for a “a nice school shooting” to interrupt the monotony of covering Donald Trump’s impeachment hearings.
To date, Steffan Tubbs has not denounced nor acknowledged his producer’s neo-Nazi ties, chalking it up to an elaborate hoax to manufacture two years worth of social media posts by Colorado Springs Anti-Fascists, despite the posts being verified by Westword and 9News.
Steffan Tubbs continues to regularly feature guests from SPLC and ADL designated hate groups like Louie Huey of the Proud Boys and Michelle Malkin of the white nationalist publication VDARE.
Thanks to @710KNUS and @michellemalkin, @TubbsShow for making a dream come true! pic.twitter.com/C4Dh5ZGIC5
— Louie (fiery but mostly peaceful) Huey (@reallouiehuey) September 24, 2019
Judging by Jillian’s posts on race in Safer Boulder, it is no coincidence that she is drawn to media produced by a man who surrounds himself with white nationalists.
Here is Jillian Lloyd stating that Zayd Atkinson and Sammie Lawrence, two Black men who were subject to racist treatment by Boulder PD, “knew what they were doing.”
Zayd Atkinson was the subject of a viral video in which he was surrounded by 8 Boulder Police officers, some of them brandishing firearms, as he was picking up garbage outside of his home. Mr. Atkinson was repeatedly ordered to put down his “weapon” which was a trash grabber and plastic bucket. The City of Boulder settled with Mr. Atkinson and the officer who initially instigated this harassment resigned before being disciplined.
Sammie Lawrence was tackled to the ground for refusing to put down his cane while he filmed an interaction between two Boulder Police officers (one of whom participated in Mr. Atkinson’s harassment) and a group of people experiencing homelessness.
In a hypothetical example identical to Sammie Lawrence’s case, Todd Root proposed duct taping someone practicing their First Amendment right to film the police and placing them next to a five gallon bucket of feces. Jillian gave this suggestion a Thumbs Up reaction.
While the City of Boulder found no wrongdoing in Mr. Lawrence’s case, the officer who pushed him to the ground and arrested him recently resigned amid controversy about social media posts glorifying police violence.
Surveillance, Brutality, & Imprisonment
Frustrated that frequent homeless sweeps haven’t reduced poverty in Boulder, Jillian has proposed surveillance cameras around Boulder in Safer Boulder’s “war” on people experiencing homelessness.
Jillian even proposed Safer Boulder providing security for what sounds like a concentration camp for people experiencing homelessness.
She has also said she would order police to tear gas a homeless encampment downtown if she was the chief of police.
Racism and Policing
Black Americans are disproportionately stopped and killed by police than White Americans. A study from researchers from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health published in PLOS One found that Black Americans are up to six times more likely to be killed by police than White Americans depending on their geographic location.
According to the Boulder Police Department, Black people in Boulder are twice as likely to be pulled over than white people, and twice as likely to be arrested after being pulled over.
Ableism
Responding to a homeless Boulder resident requesting marijuana to calm seizures, Jillian suggests they may be lying, despite the fact the people experiencing homelessness are 8 times more likely to suffer from epilepsy.
Jillian regularly doubts and mocks poor people’s ability status. Here she is with Todd mocking (and misgendering) a transgender homeless person named Dan, suggesting that Dan is pretending to have epilepsy to get away with… not having anywhere to live.
Polite Bigotry
Safer Boulder is very concerned about appearing and believing that they are good and decent people. Here is Jillian asking everyone not to use the term “sweep” to refer to homeless sweeps because she thinks it makes them sound cruel.
This is all unsurprising, coming from someone who believes that the majority of people experiencing homelessness don’t “care about themselves or others.”
