Letter from a reader
Unarmed Nationally Ranked Debate Student Murdered by the Long Beach Police
June 3, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Justice for Feras
A month after Long Beach, California police murdered Hector Morejon (“Another Police Killing of an Unarmed Youth in Los Angeles County—WTF!!" April 28, 2015), they shot and killed 20-year-old Feras Morad, who was also unarmed. Feras went to study and hang out with some friends, became unstable, jumped out a window, and was cut by the broken glass. When the cops showed up, they tasered and shot him as his friends yelled out that he was unarmed.
Ghada Morad, Feras’ sister, said the family was not notified about Feras’ death until two days later, when they called his friends, who told them what had happened. She told CBS News Los Angeles, “I am so angry no words can explain what I’m feeling.”
CBS News reported that his family said that Feras went to Long Beach to study for a debate. He ingested [hallucinogenic] mushrooms, which they say was out of character, and he had a bad reaction and jumped out of a second story window. Hurt and bleeding in an alley, his friends say they called 911 for help.
One of his friends told ABC 7 News in Los Angeles that "He [Feras] was in a state of utter distress —like he didn’t know where he was and he kept moving towards and wasn’t responding to the officer. The officer used the Taser, but it didn’t hit or wasn’t effective." His friend said that the cop shot Morad, despite their pleas. “We were saying, Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot, he’s not armed!” Feras was shirtless and covered in blood and obviously very hurt.… What they (the cops) resorted to (shooting and killing him), this is not the type of help he needed.”
Morad was a nationally ranked debate competitor, who was enrolled at a local junior college with a 3.9 GPA. One of his friends told The Long Beach Press Telegram that Morad "aspired to become a lawyer.... He got in to UCLA and UC Berkeley but decided to enroll as a transfer student to Cal State Long Beach to save money.”
The Press Telegram reported that “Morad qualified for and competed in the 2015 Phi Rho Pi National Forensic Organization parliamentary debate. Morad left the debate with gold honors — the highest level possible, according to the organization’s records online.”
Feras’ sister and friends have started a “Justice For Feras Morad” Facebook page that states that he was unarmed and in desperate need of medical attention. A post on the Facebook page says, “The Long Beach Police Department wants you to forget that Feras was already injured when he was shot. The LBPD wants you to forget the officer in question and forgo the pursuit of justice. The LBPD wants to ignore that they didn’t tell the Morad family about his death until days later. The LBPD wants you to forget that Feras had a future that was unjustly taken from him. Don’t let that happen.”
If you’re thinking that there seems to be more killings of people by the cops, you’re not imagining things. Almost every week, there is a person killed or brutalized by the pigs in the Southern California area.
The Washington Post just published a report that since the beginning of the year, police are shooting and killing people at a rate of over two a day, a total of 385 people in the first five months of this year. Yes, that is correct—on average, two people are shot and killed by the fucking pigs every fucking day in this country! According to police accounts, 43% of those who were killed did not have a gun and 20% did not have what is considered a lethal weapon (gun, knife, car, or other), and the vast majority who did not have guns and did not have a lethal weapon were Black and Latino. At the same time, only three of those pigs are facing criminal charges. Further, murders like that of Freddie Gray in Baltimore are not included as one of the 385 because he was not killed by the cops shooting him. So, if you include killings while in police custody, the number is greater than 385 in a five month period. (See “Fatal police shootings in 2015 approaching 400 nationwide”, Washington Post, May 30, 2015.)
How many more before we put a stop to this? How many more lives of our youth are going to be taken from us? How many more of these beautiful children are going to have their futures ended by the cops in this country? We have to say not one more, and we have to act on what Carl Dix said in his statement, Murder By Police Should Not Be Tolerated:
Today in America, police murder people and get away with no punishment. This happens again and again and again. But something new has also begun to happen, and people have risen up against this, in the tens of thousands, across the country. The outpourings of resistance to this wanton police murder have been beautiful, powerful, and very necessary. Our movement of resistance must broaden, becoming even more diverse, and its determination to stop police murder must be strengthened and deepened. It must continue and escalate until these horrors are really ended.
When police murder people as they did with Eric Garner and Michael Brown, it is unlawful, illegitimate and should not be tolerated in any society that anyone would want to live in.
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