UPDATE: The Santa Clara County Office of Education provided the following statement from Board president Leon Beauchman:
"The Board is aware of the incident involving Ms. Song. I understand that she has been undergoing a very difficult divorce and we respect her privacy. Ms. Song has served with distinction on this Board for more than a dozen years. Our Board of Education remains committed to serving the students, families and communities of Santa Clara County and we will continue with that commitment.”
Santa Clara County Board of Education trustee Anna Song was arrested last week on suspicion of spousal abuse.
A Santa Clara Police Department arrest log shows the four-term school board member was arrested on the misdemeanor charge just after 8pm July 7. She was released on $10,000 bail the next day, jail officials said.
Santa Clara police spokesman Lt. Kurt Clarke declined to talk about the case, but confirmed that it’s been taken up by the District Attorney’s Office.
DA spokesman Sean Webby also hesitated to provide any details because the case is still pending. The incident involves two public officials. Song's husband, Chris Stampolis, serves on the Santa Clara Unified School Board.
"We don't know at this point if we're even going to file charges," Webby said. "It's too soon to tell."
Song did not immediately return a call for comment. The Santa Clara resident was first elected to the county board in 2000 and won re-election to three successive terms.
Her bio on the county Office of Education website boasts about her decades of experience in youth education and “domestic violence intervention.” She holds a degree from the Franciscan School of Theology in Berkeley.
Stampolis made headlines in 2008 when TMZ released audio of a 9-1-1 call from a woman who claimed to have been assaulted by him a few years earlier.
Calls to the Santa Clara County Office of Education were also not immediately returned.
I spent a few hours with Chris over the weekend at a Dem caucus in Oakland. I watched him calmly and collectively invoke Roberts Rules of Order to help dissipate what I was described to as a “Dysfunctional caucus”
+100 man points for what I saw you do this weekend Chris.
Whatever is going on with Anna and Chris, I hope they can work it out. I hope the DA isn’t being overly zealous and can find a way to drop these charges. Goodwill and godspeed you two.
Good luck on your new bromance, but you should do some background checking before you wake up pregnant.
Background checking is for the past, I’d rather live in the present and plan for the future.
You live on another planet! Abuse can be physical and it can be psychological and I am surprised you are so cavalier about this situation. Size of a person does not matter when it comes to abuse. There are also people in relationships, men and women, that don’t fight back – because they are used to it. The fact that you don’t take the issue of spousal abuse seriously and want the DA to throw charges out is disturbing. Thank god you were not elected to public office because this idea of sweeping domestic violence under the rug for political expediency because that person votes the way I want him to is ridiculous and shameful. We may disagree on policy and political candidates – but everyone should agree on this issue of spousal abuse!
You live on another planet!
With people like you running around on this one;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5mLjKI968g
Amen to working things out – either together or separately, however spousal abuse is an extremely serious matter. If abuse was committed, Mrs. Song needs to be punished as spousal abuse happens all too often and no one is above the law (except maybe Steven Seagal)
I’ve met Anna too (Oddly enough, it was at an anti gun-violence rally hosted by Cindy Chavez) She’s too small to have done any real damage to Chris. It’s a shame SJI only put 1/2 the rap sheet down (Nice of you guys to include the portion with her age), because Song is about 5′, 130lbs wet. She is TINY.
Unless she was attacking him with a claw hammer, she couldn’t have caused much damage.
I’ve seen people get charged with “Assault” for spitting on someone.
Mr. Cortese, the question of whether she could have done violence is irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that she chose to resolve her marital dispute in a physical manner. Your attitude reflects a double standard which is all to common in our society and particularly among many women: namely that men are the only ones who can be guilty of domestic violence. In both my personal and professional experience, there’s a tendency among female batterers to believe that, because of their gender, they are immune to arrest for spousal battery etc, even if they are the ones who initiate the physical violence or are the only ones who have committed an act of physical violence against their spouse.
And, equally toxic, all too many of these women act as though a man who reports such violence is a weakling and a coward, using this manipulation as a means of securing a mans cooperation with ongoing victimization and abuse and using the threat of subsequent physical violence as a lever to gain unwilling compliance or submission to less physical forms of coercion.
Needless to say, these acts – regardless of the actual violence inflicted – are hugely damaging to the psyche of the victim, regardless of the victim’s gender. And, it is important to note that, if the roles were reversed and the DA’s office were considering dropping the charges, womens’ advocacy groups would be raising twelve kinds of hell about how women continue to be victimized by a male-dominated society and a male-dominated law enforcement system.
Really, the double standard at work here is obscene.
It doesn’t have to involve Stampolis. It could have been another current cohabitant. Think Nadia Lockyer.
She is an elected public official. The police/DA have an obligation to investigate this to the fullest, if not more so, because of her standing. It calls into question her “fitness” to serve. It would be nice if the SCCOE issue a statement on whether they plan to keep her or replace her. Surely there are bylaws and statutes on conduct that trustees need to abide by. This is embarrassing for all of out here.
Story has been updated with SCCOE statement. Thanks for reading,
JK
Due to the legislature’s bow to special interests the only thing of which one can be certain in the wake of a spousal abuse charge is that the arrest will serve the financial interests of one or more groups represented by Sacramento lobbyists. In the case of this couple, the arrest — even for the most technical of violations, is virtually guaranteed to enrich one or more lawyers. Also waiting in line for their taste are the counselors: relationship, substance abuse, and anger management “experts” who, were it not for references from the court, might be forced by the free market into hanging their professional certificates from hot dog carts. And, last but not least, the county itself, eager to collect fines, court, and probations costs.
I know none of the details of this particular incident but what I fear, and is so often the case, is that a dispute that required little more than a firm “shut up” and/or “leave” from the cops on the scene has been, via a process that demands microscopic analysis of complex human interactions, elevated into a career-ruining, personal tragedy. The real question to be answered is this: were the police still empowered with discretion would an arrest have been made? If the answer is yes then spare yourself from pitying the arrested person. But if the answer is no, and whenever dueling divorce lawyers are in the mix the answer is typically no, then you can be pretty sure that someone has been unfairly stuffed into the judicial chipper. (Divorce lawyers, when learning their well-to-do clients have become anointed with victim status, often, after a morning round of telephone consultations (cha ching), vacate and restraining orders (cha ching), and a fresh demand letter or two (cha ching), soothe their concern for their victim/client by spending the rest of the day new car shopping.)
If you knew Stampolis, you’d wonder why she put up with him for so long. And no lawyers will be calling, unless they want pro bono work.
How about we leave personal business personal? I don’t think that her actions, or whatever the case may be because we don’t know (and I dont really care), will affect her job as a Trustee on the SCCOE Board. Both spouses have been charged at one point or another for abuse allegations.
You don’t think that public officials should be taken to task for battering their spouses because it’s “personal” and it ‘doesn’t affect their job’? When one of my public officials beat his wife or his husband, I won’t avert my gaze, and the fact that she is one of your political allies is all it takes for you to defend her actions is pretty disgusting.
How about we leave personal business personal?
How about you follow your own advice?
Wow — that there’s a high standard for public officials: equally guilty of assault!
Ms. Song was arrested… not convicted. She was charged with a crime where no physical evidence is even required. Battery can be a push, scratch, hair pull, etc.
Mr. Stampolis and Ms. Song are in the middle of what appears to be an ugly divorce. This may be a divorce tactic.
I hope that the entire county is not dragged into their domestic problems.
Only one thing is certain at this time–everyone who has commented so far knows few facts regarding what happened; nevertheless, they feel compelled to comment.
Their poor children.
Speaking from a person that dealt with Mr. Stampolis and has seen the type of person he is, I would not believe a damn thing that comes out of his mouth. He has history of harrasing a teenager recently, he has history of being violent (TMZ reported). I have seen how he tries to manipulate things and people. He is a horrible human being and feel sorry that his kids have him as a father. I would not be surprised if he turned all this around to make himself look like the victim when in fact his wife is the victim. He makes me sick….horrible person.
http://community.hearts2.com/profile~key-226181.html
Anyone could have made that.