-------------------------------- Reprinted from the June 10, 1999 issue of Workers World newspaper --------------------------------
LOS ANGELES: PROTESTS GROW AS COPS KILL AGAIN
By John Parker Los Angeles
Outraged Los Angeles residents marched twice at the end of May in an effort to fight an epidemic of police killings against African Americans.
On May 25 the Service Employees union, the Nation of Islam, the NAACP, the Congress of Racial Equality and others organized a militant demonstration blasting a recent ruling by Riverside District Attorney Grover Trask clearing four killer cops.
Tyisha Miller, a 19-year-old African American woman, was asleep in a car
last December when the cops shot her, witnesses say. Riverside officials
and cops dispute that claim, but admit Miller was shot 26 times and that
police were seen "slapping five" and using racial slurs immediately after they killed her.
Yet again, on May 21, another person lay dead from police bullets.
Margaret Mitchell, a former bank employee who became homeless, was approached by two cops on bicycles. They questioned her about her shopping cart. Police said she tried to stab them with a screwdriver. Mitchell weighed about 105 pounds and stood a little over five feet. Although the
police are equipped with pepper spray and supposedly trained to use nonlethal force, one cop instead chose to shoot her to death.
That was the police account of the incident.
Two witnesses have come forward saying Mitchell was trying to get away from the cops, who pursued and shot her. These discrepancies are taken seriously by many in the community, since police accounts of shootings have been proved to be untrue.
On May 27, at the Parker Center in front of Los Angeles police headquarters, community activists, including many homeless people, came out to protest the fatal police shooting.
In the Tyisha Miller case, all four cops first claimed that she fired at
them. They took a whole day to recant their statement after it was found
that a gun she had in her possession had not been fired. Likewise, many are skeptical about the facts presented by the media in this most recent
shooting.
"One way to stop someone from giving another side to the story is by killing them. When the police shot Mitchell, no other version of what happened could come out," said Melvin Former, an organizer of the May 27
protest.
"We have to first ask why these cops were asking her about the shopping cart in the first place. Were they going to take it back to the store if
it wasn't hers? Is that their job?"
When asked why he thought police shootings were increasing, Former said:
"Basically because police don't have any deterrence to stop. Anything someone has that can be called a weapon gives them license to kill."
Former mentioned an incident the same week when a bear escaped from captivity. "It's ironic that in the same week of this shooting, the police--after being called like they were in the Tyisha Miller case--came with tranquilizer guns. So they save the bear and slay this woman."
Former leads the California Coalition in Opposition to Three Strikes, an
organization fighting the three-strikes law--which mainly targets oppressed communities. He said many actions are ahead.
NOT AN ABERRATION
The conservative Human Rights Watch organization recently did a study about police brutality and misconduct. It found in all the cities it researched that police brutality was not an aberration but accepted and allowed to continue by police and city officials.
But not according to Bernard Parks, head of the police here, who replaced the discredited Daryl Gates. Even before all the facts were out, Parks said he'd support the officers and that race was not an issue. He also criticized anyone linking the latest police shooting to that in Riverside.
When Parks replaced Gates, who led one of the most brutal and racist police forces in the country, some people here believed this would reduce police brutality. But, in view of Parks' statement, many are now reconsidering if the LAPD has really changed at all.
Some activists believe there is a concerted effort to terrorize the most
oppressed communities since these are the people most likely to revolt against the huge cutbacks in services that have intensified during the Clinton regime.
Money for welfare and basic services has gone to pay for foreign wars, like the tens of billions being spent on the war in Yugo slavia. And since Los Angeles has some of the poorest people in the country, is it possible that these killings are part of a deliberate terror campaign to keep people here "in line"?
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