Los Angeles: Marching Against the Police Murders of Omar Abrego and Ezell Ford

January 5, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

From readers:

Saturday, January 3—About 60-70 people gathered on 65th & Broadway in Los Angeles to demand the release of Omar Abrego's autopsy, and charges be filed against police who murdered Ezell Ford and Omar Abrego. Abrego, a 37-year-old Latino, was beaten to death in August by the LAPD. Just nine days later, Ezell Ford, a 25-year-old Black man, was killed by police—at 65th and Broadway, just four blocks from where the pigs murdered Abrego. On December 29, four months after they killed Ezell Ford, the LAPD finally released the autopsy—which showed that Ford, who was unarmed, was shot three times, including once in the back. (See "Autopsy Report Released: Ezell Ford Was Shot in the Back at Close Range") The LAPD has still not released the autopsy on Omar Abrego.

At the protest, there were people who have been in the streets over the last month against police murder of Black and Latino people, as well as people for whom this was their first or second protest. There were people from the neighborhood who joined in. A rally kicked things off, with the theme of unity—unity between Black and Latino people, and unity among all those standing up to police murder. Many organizations spoke, as did the father of Carlos Oliva, murdered by police in 2013.

The march started where Ezell Ford was shot in the back and went past the spot where Omar Abrego was beaten to death by police, then continued onto a main thoroughfare and came back around to where it started. Along the route, police had pulled over a man in a car and put him in handcuffs in the back of the police car. The marchers all stopped and began chanting "let him go," pulling out their cell phones to video the police, and blowing whistles. After a standoff for several minutes, the march continued back to 65th & Broadway, where everyone was called on to continue to take to the streets, including joining and supporting the Black Lives Matter group that has been camping outside LAPD headquarters for five days demanding the cops who killed Ezell Ford be fired and charges filed. And an announcement was made about the police murder of Mayra Cornejo on New Year's Eve in Compton—family members say she was trying to protect her children at the time she was shot by LA County sheriffs, and are demanding answers about why she was killed.

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