NDP 2000
It's Right to Rebel Against Police Brutality
The Voices and Faces of Resistance
Revolutionary Worker #1077, November 6, 2000, posted at http://rwor.org
It was 22 months ago that they killed my son Julio, who was only 16 years old. My son was murdered by the racist, corrupt and rotten Sheriffs. I still have pain in my heart. So I say to them, 'You evil bastards.' Without feelings, I call them bastards. That night when they killed my son, I begged them not to kill him, to stop shooting him. I asked them for their mothers, for their fathers, for their children. But they didn't listen to a word. They shoved me around like I was garbage. They shoved me and roughed me up and screamed at me like I was some kind of animal... I demand justice for my son Julio. I demand justice for our loved ones who have been killed with no pity, with no remorse. I demand the maximum punishment and that their soul rot in the thousands of hells. Cowards! Assassins! Murderers!
Gloria Santos, mother of Julio Castillo
*****
I seen Tyisha Miller's body. I seen my niece's bullet-ridden body and it sickened me. I seen she had been shot through her throat and she had been shot in the eye. She had been shot in her back. All the bullets came through her back. And I said that day two years ago that I would dedicate the rest of my life to trying to get some justice. That's why I had Sunday school on Broadway. Today is Sunday. I told the church that I'm going to Sunday school, but it won't be in Riverside, it'll be in Los Angeles down Broadway.
Burnell Butler, uncle of Tyisha Miller
and spokesperson for her family*****
We are sick and tired and we're no longer allowing you to carry out your terrorizing, death squad activities against the youth of our community and always get off free and continue to go unpunished. We the parents are dedicated to a better future for our children, while you the police are dedicated to stealing the future from the youth, killing them and locking them up on fabricated charges... We the people of Pico-Union and all those who are under the boot of Rampart, will start to raise our voices so that these crimes cannot be forgotten. We, the Pico-Union community, where so many lives have been stolen and ruined-we will never forget, and we will never forgive.
From a statement from the Pico-Union Community,
the immigrant barrio occupied by cops from
the LAPD Rampart Division*****
Once, when I was 17, we were just kickin' back on the corner, and there were riot cops. They just happened to be assigned there for whatever reason. There was me and four other guys, one that was in a wheelchair. As soon as they came out of the car, they didn't say nothing to us. They came out with their guns pointed right at us. I put my hands up in the air. They hit the guy in the wheelchair. They dragged me on my knees. I thought I was gonna get shot. This is my second October 22nd. The first time, I ran into it accidentally and I joined it. This time I'm here and I brought my friends. I think this is beautiful! It's powerful! It's the people. It's not just one race but a lot of people together with one voice. People hearing what the cops do here, and it's not right, especially what happened in Rampart. But this is beautiful. This is powerful."
22-year-old youth at the L.A. NDP
*****
These are our brothers and sisters here and we're gonna back them up. The police is trying to separate us, but we ain't gonna be run off. These are the pigs who bring the Migra, they attack these sisters and brothers and deport them back to Mexico. But they ain't leavin' and we ain't leavin'. We're gonna stand with these people. These are our people. These police is trying to run us out. They're like vampires in the night. When the curtains open, you see their fangs, you see what they're really about. We ain't gonna let 'em stop us. We ain't gonna be moved!"
Black woman from L.A.
after the police attacked the crowd*****
I used to live in Pico-Union, and I've seen brutality, how they treat the youth. I've seen them handcuff them and beat them, and that's what they did to us for protesting and demanding our rights. We were also beaten. I've been arrested for protesting, for civil disobedience. I wasn't beaten, but other compañeros were, and the way that they grabbed me and put on the handcuffs - to me that was brutality. I'm a janitor, and in 1990 I was in Century City when they beat our compañeros and what's more one compañero died from the beating and another compañera, Ana Veliz, had a miscarriage because of the beating they gave her. They didn't beat me, but they beat my compañeros, and we say that an injury to one is an injury to all.
Woman with Justice for Janitors
*****
I would like to begin this statement by expressing my deepest condolences to the families gathered here today who have lost loved ones as a result of police violence. I know the pain of losing a loved one and having that pain worsen when the loss goes unrecognized and the injustice of that loss goes without reparations. I send you my love, my strength and my support. Sometimes the only way to deal with this pain is to replace it with the will to change what caused it in the first place. I want to encourage you to continue your efforts to stop police violence because your voices are critical to this struggle. Your stories have the ability to teach and to touch all kinds of people. Your stories reach far beyond barriers of class, race and political ideologies. You have the power to unite society in an effort to end police abuse and violence... I want to thank the October 22nd Coalition for their work on this important issue. I support you and your efforts and applaud your dedication to creating a society where our people do not have to live in fear and where justice is a reality for all communities.
From a statement by Leonard Peltier to NDP
*****
This police brutality that's going on here today has also gone on across this country and it takes people like ourselves to mobilize in order to stop it. A lot of people call on the federal government. I was doing that at one time also. But the federal government has closed many cases back at the end of '99, including my own. I'm not calling on the federal government or federal monitoring of the police officers. I'm calling on the people out here. I'm calling on you people to do this. This is up to us. We need to fight. We need to protest. We need to continue on rallying and organizing."
Nicholas Heyward, Sr., father of
Nicholas Heyward, Jr. who was killed
by a NY housing cop for having a toy gun*****
Recently the federal government issued a statement based on a study and investigation that the New York City Police Department does engage in the practice of racial profiling. This report was not new to us. We have long realized that to be the fact. The facts and circumstances surrounding my son's death is an indicator of racial profiling-the same issue as with beating and torturing the other victims and killing Patrick Dorismond and the others... I wish and I pray that one day the death of Amadou will be remembered as a symbol of peace, unity, justice for all people."
Saikou Amadou Diallo, father of Amadou Diallo
shot 41 times and killed by the NYPD*****
We have to let Giuliani know that when he said that these are isolated incidents, that when they murdered my son, it was isolated. We took and we made research and we came up with the Stolen Lives and look how many names, how many isolated incidents there are.
.Iris Baez, mother of Anthony Baez,
murdered by the NYPD*****
In 1993, I regret to say that I voted for Rudolph Giuliani when he was running for mayor. I believed that he was going to make the city safer, that he was going to clean the drugs out of our neighborhoods. Having three boys, I was concerned about the drugs around our neighborhood. A year later, on January 12, 1995, my son Anthony Rosario and my nephew Hilton Vega were killed in cold blood by Patrick Brosnan and James Crowe from the 46th Precinct in the Bronx, also bodyguards to Mayor Giuliani.... They shot my son 14 times in the back and my nephew eight times in the back. It makes me angry that these two detectives can live their lives with their families without paying for the crime of killing my son and nephew.
Margarita Rosario, mother of Anthony Rosario,
murdered by the NYPD*****
This will happen and it will continue to happen if we don't continue to fight and scream and kick and whatever it takes to make them stop beating our children, murdering our children.
Lucy Turull, mother of Jovan Gonzalez,
beaten by a racist gang with ties to the police*****
I ain't going with none of that bull about he was going for a gun 'cause there was no gun found. These pigs will fabricate anything just to keep theirselves a job. Meanwhile, we grievin'. Every single female and male up here grieves. I'm hurt. I'm tired of just not being able to see my brother on the corner, not being able to see him come home, not being able to see him watch TV, not being able to see him in a club with me, not being able to see him hang out with me. I lost my flesh and blood. To the younger generation, join me 'cause it's gonna be on and poppin' real soon."
James Ferguson, brother of Malcolm Ferguson
who was killed by NYPD*****
The cop shot my brother in the back of the head at close range. He was only 16 years old. But the Brooklyn D.A. did nothing to prosecute the officer. He's still working as a cop today like nothing happened. We must remember that many young people are not here today because they was killed by the police officers. We are building a movement against police brutality. I'm five years fighting for justice. We haven't got anything yet. But we are not going to give up until we get justice for all the people who have been killed by the police officers.
Qinglang Huang, sister of Yong Xin Huang
who was shot by NYPD while playing with a toy gun*****
This was clearly an attack and a tactic to divide the people from the revolutionaries and we're not going to take that shit. We're not going to be scared of their shit. Our Chairman, Bob Avakian, says fear nothing, be down for the whole thing, and that's what we're all about.
Sonya, from the RCYB, speaking about the police
raid in the South Bronx three days before 10/22
in which six RCYB members and five people
from the neighborhood were arrested*****
This cop, he was trigger happy. He killed my son. He didn't have a chance. My son had his hands in the air and, he was giving himself up. He took off his T-shirt to show them that he didn't have no weapons. And the cops and the newspapers they changed the story around. They said that my son had a knife. How can my son have a knife when he took off his T-shirt? He didn't have nothing. He was surrendering himself. For what? He didn't do no crime. My son was sick, and he needed help. That's why we called the 911. The police has to pay for the crime he did. And all of us, my daughter, my son, and my nephew, we're going to get justice for my son.
Jenny Garcia, mother of Danny Garcia,
killed by San Jose police*****
The way in which they took Alberto from us was the most cowardly of acts and they call it an accident. Please continue on with your protest. We unfortunately cannot be with you today because they still will not let my husband leave the county. I hope at the next protest that we can be with you. We need to raise all of our voices together so that the police will stop hurting and killing our children in their own homes. Our family, the Sepulveda family, we appreciate your support and please keep moving forward. Don't be afraid. They are the crazy ones not us.
Letter from the Sepulveda family,
read at SF NDP. On September 17,
the police raided the Sepulveda home and
shot 11-year-old Alberto in the back, killing him.*****
Anywhere one looks across the country, it's not hard to find communities ravaged by the epidemic of police brutality and killings. Broken bones, devastated families whose loved ones' lives have been stolen from them by law enforcement. Innocent youth lined up, spread-eagle, and incarcerated. And time after time this system refuses to punish these brutal enforcers. The pain in these broken hearts give rise to the anger so deep! That if not contained will surely burst out and drive the people to find a real solution!
Danny Garcia, brother of Mark Garcia
who was murdered by SFPD*****
How does it stop? You have to roll out of bed every morning and say "I'm not going to give up!" And if times get hard, and you want to just tuck your head under the cover, just come out and come out fighting. My mother told me, she said, "You know what, you fight 'til your last dying breath." And she said, "When you're on the ground and with your lasting dying breath you look up in their face and you spit in it."
Glen Hull, whose son was shot in the back
by Oakland police in 1993*****
My niece, Sheila Detoy, was killed by the police a couple years ago - 17 years old. She touched many lives, and we're all still in pain and feel the loss of Sheila Detoy... It's difficult for me to speak here, there's pain involved, and I just want to thank all of you. The ILWU is here backing up Stolen Lives, and against police brutality. Sheila Detoy's father was a longshoreman, as well as myself. And we been championing human rights from the beginning.
Bob Karcey, uncle of Sheila Detoy
*****
The Oakland police department managed to destroy one-third of my family in 20 minutes. All over a dog. They claim that my son refused to surrender his dog... He failed the "attitude test." A lot of our family members fail the "attitude test" put out by the police. What that really means is that you have dignity, that you have rights. That's failing the attitude test. That will get you hurt, and that will get you killed. As long as this system remains the way it is.
Rashidah Grinage
*****
The police on our little reservation murdered our tribal member Acorn Peters. So number one I'm here out of honor and in memory of Acorn. Secondly, I'm sick of police abuse. The police treat Indian people like we are not human so how ever you treat a dog is the treatment that the Indian people receive. I know first hand.
Cora Lee Simmons,
Round Valley Indians for Justice*****
It's not just a couple of bad apples or some cops who took things too far. They ain't got nothing against locking people up. You can get life in this jail for stealing a piece of pizza. And they keep murdering our people. So why is it that time after time these pigs get off? It's because these capitalists couldn't last a day without their brutalizing enforcers to hold them up. Police brutality is part of the lifeblood of this system. It's how they enforce their class dictatorship over the people. So if we want to get rid of these brutal murdering police and every other social injustice we got to get rid of this capitalist, imperialist system. And its going to take proletarian revolution to do it.
Roberto, from the RCYB
speaking at the SF NDP*****
We're skateboarders, we're hip-hop, we're students, we're people of color. All of us are affected. Police have brutalized us many a time. Illegal searches, DWB, malicious acts like that. We've been accused of many things from robbing banks to vandalism. It feels good to be out here but also to know that it's a national day not just here but that people all over the country are taking action today so hopefully it will have some effect.
Black student from UC Berkeley
*****
I hope our voices will be heard. That the police in the city could see that the citizens of the city and the youth and everybody's just fed up with their bullshit-all these cop's fucking corruption, fucking beating people, racial profiling. That all the movements that are against police have joined together to march and let their voices be heard by the city and by the police. They could know that we're out there and we're resisting.
17-year-old youth at NDP in Chicago
*****
He was talking to his friend, with my son. I came to pick him up to come and eat dinner when the police approached us and started chasing him. The cops told him to stop. When he put his hands up in the air and he turned around the cops shot him three feet away. The police said that he had a gun in his hand-and all he had was a lighter."
Nancy Figueroa, wife of John Figueroa
who was gunned down by Chicago police
11 years ago*****
I am a professor of African American history and in particular, African American resistance; so I deal with evidence, and I can tell you, this book is EVIDENCE!"
Ella Forbes, whose son Erin was murdered by
the Lower Merion, PA police on January 10, 2000,
talking about the Stolen Lives book*****
We have a system in place where people are trained to kill, people are trained to maim. And that's what they do. And there's a whole system behind them, a judicial system that protects these people when they do that.
Raul Miranda, uncle of Robert Wayne Guy Jr.-
killed in 1997 by King County Jail guards in Seattle*****
If I die fighting for what is right, I don't care. I will die fighting for what I think is right. I believe people are dying today. It is wrong, and every time I open my mouth I'm going to say what it is and I'm going to tell the truth about it.
Ophelia Ealy, mother of Michael Ealy-
murdered by Seattle police in 1998
This article is posted in English and Spanish on Revolutionary Worker Online
rwor.org
Write: Box 3486, Merchandise Mart, Chicago, IL 60654
Phone: 773-227-4066 Fax: 773-227-4497
(The RW Online does not currently communicate via email.)