Revolution #149, November 30, 2008
L.A. Area Police Kill Dantaze Storey
Twenty-nine-year-old Dantaze Storey was leaving a Rite-Aid drug store a couple of blocks from his apartment in the heart of L.A. the evening of November 11 when another customer apparently bumped into Dantaze’s girlfriend, who is two months pregnant. There was some kind of an argument, and when store security approached, Dantaze left and headed home. In no time, the nearby Ramparts Station had a helicopter flying overhead and squad cars screeching to the scene. Dantaze began to run. His girlfriend, worried about him, called on his cell phone and they were talking as she approached him. By now, four LAPD cops on foot and two squad cars were chasing him. Dantaze turned around to see his girlfriend and the cops opened fire, shooting the unarmed Dantaze five times. Dantaze’s girlfriend threw herself on him to try to protect him, but the cops dragged her off.
According to a witness in a car ten feet away, Dantaze “didn’t have a gun.” And the witness said, “Afterwards a lot of cops came, within minutes. And he just laid there, they didn’t go to his rescue.” Neighbors said police were about to put Dantaze Storey in a body bag until the paramedics looked and said he was still alive. He was put in an ambulance, but instead of going to one of the closer hospitals he was driven to County-USC Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
The cops then compounded this crime by coming to Dantaze’s apartment the next night and terrorizing his mother, other family members and friends. The police had not notified Dantaze’s mother that they’d killed her son—it wasn’t till she got back from work the next day that people were telling her they’d heard the news. Hoping it was some kind of mistake, she went straight to Dantaze’s apartment. Suddenly five or six cop cars drove up to the apartment building while a helicopter circled overhead shining its spotlight on the area. Police claimed there was a complaint that someone had knocked down Dantaze’s door, went inside and was shooting. A dozen cops marched in a line inside the apartment, handcuffing people including Dantaze’s mother. The cops took her into the laundry room and told her they weren’t going to press any charges since no one had any warrants, but because the door to Dantaze’s apartment was knocked down, she had to stay there to make sure none of the building’s property was stolen or she would be liable. And police told her if they had to come back because there was any noise, they would arrest her!
Neighbors say that for days after the shooting the police were cruising slowly up and down the street, staring at anyone that was outside. This is the way the police in L.A. “keep the peace” after they commit murder—by terrorizing the family and friends into silence.
Revolution newspaper distributors and correspondents in L.A. are calling for people to come to Libros Revolución on Sunday, December 7, at 2 p.m. “If you are outraged at this kind of police murder…if you think it is unacceptable that the police can murder more than one person a week, mostly Black and Latino, in the LA area and walk away free…. Then join with others just like you to talk about why these kinds of murders happen and how we can turn our grief and outrage into resistance.”
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