Kevin Jones and I have hosted the Doomloop Dispatch podcast for nearly a year now. Last week, we reached our 50th episode, with an interview with journalist Eric K. Arnold. Our episodes generally focus on being counter-narratives to what has been termed “the doom loop,” a catch-all phrase for a consistent campaign on social media and some legacy news outlets that focuses on what they interpret as a decline of a quality of life in Oakland and San Francisco.
While those outlets draw attention to often-exaggerated stories about crime, drug addiction and homelessness, Jones and I report on and interview activists, organizations and public figures who contribute positive actions to address those issues and ways our listeners can engage with them to help everyone in our communities thrive and prosper.
The Doomloop Dispatch hosts are not “shock jocks” in the tradition of Joe Rogan or Howard Stern. The primary focuses of our podcast are education and hyper-local community engagement, not confrontation. Which is why we were both surprised to find ourselves at the center of a controversial, and often frightening, campaign of terror and intimidation that made several headlines in the local press.
In late February of this year, Jones, a veteran Oakland journalist who has worked and written for KPIX, KTVU and the San Francisco Chronicle used his journalistic skills to help an ally with a restraining order against Omar Ward, also known as “JJ Smith” on X/Twitter. Through a public records search, Jones found Ward’s criminal record, which turned out to be extensive, and shared it on the social media platform. Ward was somehow notified of Jones’ findings, and though the records were public, objected to their disclosure.
According to a March 7 article by The San Francisco Standard, Ward is “a felon, convicted in a 2006 federal case for possession of cocaine with intent to distribute. Although some two dozen documents pertaining to the case have been sealed, his criminal record earned him the designation of ‘career offender,’ according to records that remain public. The court determined that Ward fell into ‘Criminal History Category VI,’ the highest category, and had an offense level of 34 (the highest possible is 43), indicating that he had numerous prior convictions. Ward was also arrested in 1998 during a domestic disturbance call, according to court records, and was convicted of possession of a controlled substance.” Though Jones told the person on whose behalf he was researching to proceed with caution, he thought his reporting would be the end of his involvement.
On March 1, Jones, also a musician, while waiting for a parking space and leaning on his Toyota Sienna in front of Oakland’s Thee Stork Club in order to unload his equipment, received a strange text message from a friend. The text included a video of him leaning against his van only a few minutes prior. When he saw that the video was posted under the “JJ Smith” handle on Twitter/X, Jones became concerned.
According to San Francisco’s The Phoenix Project in the article “JJ Smith and the Astroturf Network,” “JJ Smith became a local internet star by posting videos of drug users in the city’s long-troubled Tenderloin neighborhood. Smith’s videos became fodder for members of the Astroturf Network as it attacked progressive elected officials including former District Attorney Chesa Boudin and Supervisors Connie Chan, Aaron Peskin and Dean Preston.”
The article goes on to say that, “Smith liked to think of himself as a political activist, a truth-teller shining a light on human misery to grab the attention of elected officials.” However, his doom loop “porn” videos have been criticized by long-time homeless activists like Sara Shortt. “Even if you believe this is a means to an end, using vulnerable people as fodder in that battle is inexcusable, frankly,” Shortt said.
Smith has been a willing tool for the Astroturf Network. Susan Dyer Reynolds, former Marina Times editor, featured Smith in a YouTube series in 2021 designed to “hold the District Attorney accountable.” Part of the money for the series came from the $200,000 Neighbors for a Better San Francisco, the political organization founded by right-wing Republican William Oberndorf, paid to Reynolds and her colleague Stanley Roberts in 2021.
As of March 1, Jones wasn’t aware of Smith’s involvement with the very narrative our podcast was dedicated to countering.
“Omar started threatening me, so I blocked him on X and put him out of my memory,” Jones told The Standard, “but apparently he posted a video of me just leaning on my van, looking at my phone for 19 seconds.” Due to his lack of awareness of Ward’s involvement with the doom loop campaigns in SF, Jones dismissed the video and went inside for his gig. Around midnight, as he tells it, he returned to his van and found all of his tires slashed, a threatening note on his windshield and a sock stuffed into the gas tank. The sock appeared burned, as if someone had tried to light it on fire.
On March 2, I woke up to a text from Jones telling me about the vandalism. Having had similar experiences, though not as extreme, as a veteran journalist myself, I told him to preserve and record everything and contact the police as soon as possible. I also said it was fortunate that a note had been left behind because handwriting analysis could help confirm the identity of the responsible party. He sent me a photo of the note, which read:
“Have you ever seen a cheetah hunt it’s [sic] prey a cheetah is camouflage by there [sic] spots so there [sic] prey don’t see them then they move in at the right time.”
After we covered the incident in an episode of our podcast, citizen journalists like Sad Francisco and the nonprofit The Phoenix Project did small pieces on it, but it wasn’t until The Standard and SFist covered it that Ward admitted to writing the note that Jones found on his windshield but denied slashing his tires.
Before Jones and I became aware of Ward’s involvement with the doom loop and what The Phoenix Project has dubbed the Astroturf Network, which can be defined as organized activity intended to create a false impression of a widespread, spontaneously arising, grassroots political movement, we both assumed Ward had a personal vendetta against Jones for sharing his information. But when we learned of possible ideological intent behind the actions, the implications became more stark.
In the time since the publication of these articles, several other people have reached out to us saying they’ve experienced similar harassment and intimidation due to their activism and journalism. The investigation is ongoing, and there’s still time for more voices to tell their stories.
