Protest Over Racism in Ocean Beach Shooting Draws 200 to Rally

In response to a suspected race-related shooting Monday, more than 200 people gathered at a street corner in Ocean Beach Saturday to protest what they say is resurgent racism in the beachfront community.

Standing on top of milk crates, community leaders, residents, and some who say they have been the victims of recent racial threats and violence in Ocean Beach spoke to the crowd, while six police officers stood by.

In the only disturbances of the rally, the crowd, mainly composed of whites and about 50 blacks, unanimously shouted down two people disrupting the rally, which lasted about 75 minutes.

Frank Gormlie, the organizer, called the protest after the shooting of Philip Lewis, a 26-year-old black man. Gormlie said the shooting has elicited a strong reaction in Ocean Beach and that residents point to it as an example of racist acts in the community.

According to Lewis, four white men in a pickup truck called him a “nigger” after he left a friend’s home at the corner of Abbott Street and Brighton Avenue shortly after midnight.

The men jumped out of the truck and chased him with tire irons, he said, while he picked up a 2 by 4 and jumped for cover behind boxes in an alley.

After waiting for 10 minutes, he said, he left the alley but was shot in the lower back and left arm when he appeared on Voltaire Street.

“They were waiting for me,” he said.

At Saturday’s rally, held a short distance from where the shooting occurred in a parking lot at the corner of Voltaire Street and Cable Street, Lewis, released from UC San Diego Medical Center, was cheered as he spoke about the attack.

“I don’t know who these people are, but I’m willing to forgive them,” said Lewis, his arm wrapped in a thick bandage.

“I just wish they would go to hell or go to jail,” said Lewis, a three-year resident of Ocean Beach.

Fran Meredith, the friend Lewis visited on the night of the shooting, said Monday’s act is just the latest in a string of increasing racial threats and attacks he’s seen in the community.

“Every two or three days someone drives by flipping us off and telling us to leave,” said Meredith, 20.

According to Fran and Herb Meredith, his father, two or three acts of racism are directed at them every week.

They range from people driving by and yelling racial pejoratives to tire slashings and the Monday attack, they said.

“Some question whether they are really racially motivated,” said Herb, 54, who manages an apartment complex at the corner of Abbott Street and Brighton Avenue. “But I have no doubt they were racially motivated,” he said.

Herb said everyone he has seen threatening his family or other blacks has been under 30 years old.

About two months ago, a knife-carrying white male was arrested at Meredith’s apartment complex, said Peter Gaughen, San Diego Police Department community relations officer.

Fran, who was there at the time, said the man was yelling “kill niggers.”

Gaughen said two new witnesses to the Monday shooting came forward this week, corroborating what Lewis said about the attack. He also said they have a description of the vehicle driven in the shooting.

Gormlie, who has lived in the community for 20 years, said many of the several hundred flyers posted to draw people to the rally were ripped down earlier in the week.

“This is not the 19th Century, though evidently there are some people still with that mentality,” he said.