This story was first printed by the Post on March 17. If you missed it then, get in the habit of picking up the Post in the mornings, where you’ll find all of the local news first.
BY EMILY MIBACH AND BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writers
San Mateo County Sheriff’s Capt. Christina Corpus, who is running for sheriff in the June primary, confirmed rumors yesterday (March 16) that her husband had a tattoo of the cartoon character Yosemite Sam holding a Confederate flag.
Corpus’ husband, retired Sheriff’s Lt. John Kovach, grew up in Georgia, South Carolina and Florida and got a tattoo of the Looney Tunes character Yosemite Sam carrying a Confederate flag when he was 16, she told the Post.
A reader sent the Post an email of pictures of Kovach wearing shorts while fishing that show a tattoo on his calf. But it’s hard to see the actual tattoo in those photos.
The Confederate flag was flown by the South in the Civil War as they fought to maintain slavery in the United States. Today, the flag is a symbol of white supremacy.
Corpus says the photo must have come from someone in her opponent’s camp.
“It’s dirty politics,” she said.
She’s running against her boss, Carlos Bolanos, who has been sheriff since 2016.
Corpus said that her husband, after learning the flag has different meanings to Californians than it does to Southerners, had the flag blacked out.
To dispel the idea that her husband has any racial animus, Corpus pointed out that she’s a Latina.
She also noted that her husband has worked in the sheriff’s office for over 20 years including under Bolanos, and Bolanos promoted him to lieutenant.
At the end of the day, though, “it’s me running, and nobody else,” Corpus said.
“I am the candidate here. The voters should look at my track record versus my opponents track record,” Corpus said.
Corpus, as a captain in the sheriff’s office, runs the sheriff’s Millbrae office. The sheriff’s department provides policing services to Millbrae, Woodside, Portola Valley, San Carlos and Half Moon Bay on a contract basis.
WOW! If a powerful Latina woman who is more than qualified for public service and has a spouse who is also more than qualified to hold a public service job and have never had a moment of controversy until a perverted peeping Tom takes pictures of a man’s leg up his trousers to satisfy a sick fantasy and gets two warped reporters to actually make a story about it somehow being a negative against another person would make Karl Marx and Joseph Stalin very proud.
Where did you get the Peeping Tom part. He put the photos on social media. You’re making up facts.
“The Confederate flag was flown by the South in the Civil War as they fought to maintain slavery in the United States. Today, the flag is a symbol of white supremacy.”
This is not true. It is opinion that a great many people do not share. Shape up, Daily Post. Learn fact from opinion.
The Confederate Flag wasn’t the flag of the pro-slavery south? Thanks for setting us straight, Connie. What was the flag of the Confederate Army in the Civil War?
LOL , her opponents must be running scared over her run for office since they have to bring up a cartoon character and a political system during a few years in the 1860’s. I’m curious did the same reporting agency expose the BLM founders when they PUBLICLY state THEY were TRAINED MARXISTS? So you expose a cartoon but let a divisive political agenda run free !
The Confederate Flag has always been a symbol of white supremacy. Those who say otherwise are ignorant, racists or fellow police.
If you’ve lived in the South the Confederate flag – sewn on a baseball cap, flown at the track, etc. wasn’t that consequential. We certainly shouldn’t blame a 16 year old for using the symbol (even though tattoos are really really dumb and ugly). The symbol joined the vast collection of really awful kootie words, like racism, sexism, misogyny, transphobic, etc , the left has created in the past few years to label, abuse, and cancel people. The flag is now ordained with extended meanings and baggage it didn’t really deserve. It’s become useful to activists to be able to point to something while they are calling someone a racist. It shouldn’t be used to smear someone running for office. And, someone needs to precisely define white supremacy – another garbage term used with increasing frequency.
This attempt to normalize the Confederate Flag is disgusting! Are all cops like this?
The confederate flag was adopted as a symbol for the right of states to secede against tyrannical government, which is also what the American Revolution was about. Secession and the confederate flag had nothing to do with slavery as Lincoln himself wanted to keep slavery intact. Do you want to call the American flag a symbol of slavery as well?
Husband’s tattoo, ridiculous! I’m sure if Bill Clinton had a confederate tattoo from when he was a teenager no liberal would hold it against Hillary as long as she supported abortion and single-payer healthcare…just like how the bandwagon Ukraine supporters don’t seem to mind the Nazi Azov battalion forces of Ukraine fighting the Russians.
Were you home schooled?
Let’s see-
“Yosemite Sam” and his Confederate flag
were featured in the Looney Tunes cartoon shows…
which was produced by Warner Brothers…
which is located in…California.