This is a poem I wrote in memory of some of the stolen lives due to police brutality:

Jan 1, 2009. It’s new years and I guess everyone should be celebrating but I am laying face down on the ground. I can taste the concrete, rock, spit, and urine. Treating me as if I was an animal. Shit I think even animals have more rights than me. At least people fight for them while I get neglected because of the color of my skin. I am handcuffed and that might as well have been the rope over my neck cause this is lynching. I’m not even resisting. His knee is on my head and I’m choking on my blood. Why are there two cops on me?

Lord forgive me for I have sinned I was born with darker pigmentation than these pigs. Now I am a victim of the swine, but these pigs are much more deadly and their target is us. I was shot point blank at the BART station. I didn’t even get to see my killer, coward, cause he shot me in the back. I guess they are the only ones celebrating now. All I wanted to do is go home to my family, to my wife, and my child. Cold blooded murder. My life was stolen. I AM OSCAR GRANT!

Jul 25 2008 Oakland. Why is he stopping me? My instinct is to run. My heart is pulsing heavy. I’m scared. I was right to run because he is a murderer! He was acquitted last year from killing another man on Jan 1 2008, but remains a cop. Just another fucking trigger happy pig. I stop to pull out my….phone. He shot me eight times in the back. No more need to sugarcoat this epidemic of police brutality. It’s our extermination. My life was stolen. I AM JODY WOODFOX! I AM ANDREW MOPPIN!

Nov 26, 2006 New York. I could be the happiest man on the planet about to embark into my new life with my fiancée and daughter. Tomorrow is my wedding day, but never realized this is my last second. I got into the car and I accidentally hit the car next to me. They surround my car, but I didn’t know who they were. Undercover cops. I am unarmed please don’t shoot.

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8. Just another victim the irony is the police murdered my brother, too. 22,23,24,25,26,27. Cock back and reload, it’s not over, bullet shells after bullet shells hitting the earth are symphonies, the national anthem for the police. My overflowing blood is worse than when the levees broke. I’m leaving my wife at the altar, but it wasn’t my choice. I’m sorry. 45,46,47,48,49,50. 50 SHOTS LATER. I’m only a memory in the distant winds howling. Officers were acquitted. My life was stolen. I AM SEAN BELL!

April 6, 1996 SF. I have been robbed! Help! Help! I was robbed! The only help that I received was pepper spray in my face. It burns. You cannot even see the tears running down my face cause of the acid in my eyes. Why are they handcuffing me? I was robbed. He shoved my face into the ground, the blood is oozing out of my mouth, as if the sewers are over flowing from a storm the garbage overflowed. The police’s garbage is revealed. He’s foot is on my back, you can hear the cracks, his imprint my back so that I will never forgot who killed me while I’m watching from the skies. I never received immediate medical attention and I died on the way to the hospital after 35 minutes when it only takes 3, suffocating off my own spit, vomit, and blood. My life was stolen. I AM MARK GARCIA!

Police brutality is the swine disease going around our inner cities and taking over. See, this is our own version of the holocaust. This is genocide. Just because we have a black president does not change anything. It didn’t change when we had the first black cop, it didn’t change when we had the first black DA, it didn’t change when we had the first black judge, and it is not going to change now! The system has not changed. See, we still have cold-blooded murders and cold-blooded cover-ups.

See, we’re conditioned to dread our own skin. Driving while black. Talking while brown. Breathing while poor. It’s never ending. My fears one on top of another. Excessive force is just another word sorry, my bad. Next time I won’t shove your face into the ground and shoot bullets after bullets, but there isn’t a next time, so it doesn’t matter. I’M SEAN BELL, I’M JODY WOODFOX, I’M ANDREW MOPPIN, I’M MARK GARCIA, I’M OSCAR GRANT. And our lives were stolen. I am all those falling souls from the streets.

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