Twist Added to Violence Protest : Black Leaders Include Killing by Officer in Focus of March

As they have in the past, black leaders in Southeast San Diego will march down Market Street on Saturday morning to protest the lawlessness of continuing gang and drug violence in their community.

But this time there will be a difference because the protesters will be marking the fatal shooting last week of a man by a San Diego police officer.

“This is a much more intense situation,” Leah Goodwin-Carter, executive assistant to the president of the Urban League of San Diego, said Thursday.

“The police gang unit that we encouraged the mobilization of has now caused this particular death, and we are just as much opposed to this death as we are to gang members shooting innocent people.”

Although Goodwin-Carter said the group is inviting the mayor, a councilman and the chief of police to march with it, the protesters may find many of the city officials who have supported them in the past absent.

Pratt Won’t Attend

Councilman Wes Pratt, who has participated in previous marches, said he will not attend the Saturday protest because the shooting of Stanley P. Buchanan by Police Officer Timothy Fay is still under investigation.

“In my own mind, I think the shooting was a questionable one, and I fully expect the Police Department to take the appropriate action and refer it to the district attorney,” the councilman said. “But, until all the facts are out, I’m not going to participate in anything that might lambaste the police.”

For Police Chief Bob Burgreen, the decision on whether to join the protesters may not be as easy. He has marched with them in the past, and Southeast community leaders have lauded his involvement in their efforts to combat drugs and gangs.

But several police sources said Thursday that, if Burgreen attends the march this Saturday, he runs the risk of alienating the rank-and-file officers who often find themselves in dangerous confrontations similar to the one between Fay and Buchanan.

“It’s really a no-win situation for the chief,” said one high-ranking police official.

Burgreen was out of town Thursday and could not be reached for comment, but his secretary said the chief will probably decide today whether to participate.

Also being asked to march is Mayor Maureen O’Connor, who also is undecided.

“It’s a little bit up in the air,” said the mayor’s spokesman, Paul Downey. “At this point, the Police Department’s looking into the matter and, before she says anything regarding the shooting, she’d want to see the results of the investigation. And how that affects the march coming up, I really don’t know.”

Police officials said they hope to turn the case over to the district attorney’s office by early next week. That office then will review the case to determine whether criminal charges should be filed.

The shooting last Saturday has prompted the Urban League and other Southeast community leaders to worry that cooperative police-community efforts to fight drugs and gangs have been damaged.

“We are marching whenever there is a death due to the senseless gang and drug-related violence,” said Goodwin-Carter, adding that she hopes the city officials and Burgreen will attend the event. “Our slogan is, ‘Enough is Enough.’ Stanley Buchanan is dead, and the only difference is that his death was at the hands of police.”

According to police, Fay, an 11-year police veteran, and two policewomen entered Buchanan’s apartment in the 4900 block of Logan Avenue about 8 p.m. Saturday. Buchanan was patted down and found to have rock cocaine in his possession, police said.

During the arrest, Buchanan reportedly grabbed a flashlight. Fay then fired his service revolver, striking Buchanan six times.

Buchanan, 32, had a lengthy arrest record, including convictions for possessing drugs for sale.

Fay, 37, a member of the department’s new Special Enforcement Division, has been named in four previous lawsuits alleging excessive force and false arrest.

But, in one of those suits, Fay’s involvement was only in stopping a man in a detention that a jury later ruled was appropriate, Gene Gordon, chief deputy city attorney, said Thursday.

That same case, however, ended in a $15,000 settlement against the city for the actions of other officers in mistakenly arresting the man a second time as a rape suspect. But Gordon said Fay was not involved in that arrest.