San Francisco
“Grief and remembrance to defiance”
March 28, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Revolution received the following correspondence from the San Francisco Bay Area:
Saturday, March 21 was a very moving day for people in San Francisco who are taking out April 14 Shut It Down! It was a day with activities remembering and honoring the lives of people whose lives were stolen by police violence and other violence that destines our youth to oblivion, as BA says, “even before they are born”!
The day started on the main intersection of the Mission District where a Stolen Lives banner and A14 Shut It Down! banners decorated the bus stops, and tables were set up. Different teams spread out to other busy intersections and got out thousands of fliers for A14 and palm cards for the film about the Dialogue on Revolution and Religion between Cornel West and Bob Avakian. As the sun started falling on Bernal Heights, there was a ceremony at the site where one year ago to the day, San Francisco police shot and killed a 21-year-old Latino, Alex Nieto. Fifty-nine shots were fired at him that day. Alex was a security guard and was wearing a Taser gun on a holster at his beltline the evening he was killed. That’s all the police needed to justify the murder.
People shut down street in front of police station in the Mission District to protest police killing of Alex Nieto, March 23, San Francisco. Photo above and below right: Capp Street Crap
Left photo: Sagnic the Salazar
Alex Nieto’s father spoke out and a letter was read from both his parents in which they remembered their son and talked about how before he was killed they had trusted the police, but not anymore. They spoke about how they had never been to any protests before and how strange it was at first to go out in the streets to protest, but how they have gotten a deep appreciation for how precious it is that people are standing up for justice for their son and many others.
There were Aztec dancers and a Buddhist chant that echoed through the hills of Bernal Heights, and people walked down the hill into the Mission District in what was called a Trail of Tears to place flowers at other sites where people have been killed by police and the violence that youth get caught up in. One of the shrines was the place where Amilcar Perez-Lopez, a 21-year-old Guatemalan immigrant and student at the City College of San Francisco, was unjustly shot and killed by plainclothes SFPD just a few weeks ago.
As the march proceeded, the tone at one point changed from grief and remembrance to defiance as people entered 24th Street—there began cries in Spanish of “What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? NOW!” and “Alex Nieto... PRESENTE, Amilcar Perez... PRESENTE!”
When we got to the Mission Cultural Center, the street was lined with lowrider cars that Alex had loved to parade in on special days like the Carnivale. The day ended with a beautiful cultural gathering where movie clips showed Alex Nieto alive. We hung the banner with pictures of a lot of the Stolen Lives on the outside wall of the Cultural Center and called on everyone to organize for April 14. So it was a beautiful day of tribute to the lives of people who have been so cruelly murdered by this system. It was also a day where we got out the call to stand up and say NO MORE! All in all we got out over 6,000 April 14 fliers. Everybody up and down Mission Street got it and quite a few took small bundles to get to others.
The week before, the Stop Mass Incarceration Network and the Revolution Club organized a rally and speakout at City College of San Francisco where many students came and testified. Neighbors and friends of Alex Nieto and Amilcar Perez-Lopez testified that day, as well as others who have lost loved ones to police murder.
On Monday, March 23, youths with Black Lives Matter and others, in honor of the one-year anniversary of the police murder of Alex Nieto, shut down the entire block of Valencia Street in front of the SF Mission Police Station for four hours, with creative blockades and banners, and there was a very creative mock trial of the police who killed Alex, blocking the street in front of the precinct.
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