Groups Rally to Protest Police Brutality

Flanked by activists from throughout the state, a Los Angeles anti-police brutality organization rallied Saturday in an Oakland park to encourage unity against police brutality and injustice.

Groups from Los Angeles, Sacramento, Oakland, San Francisco and other cities met at the Bobby Hutton Park in downtown Oakland. The 17-year-old Hutton, a Black Panther, was killed in 1968 during a shootout with Oakland police.

Students for Justice in Palestine, the Prison Rights Union and the United Front were among the groups on a makeshift stage. More than 100 people made up the audience.

“Police are lynching people on a whim for fun and games,” said Linda Luba, a Salvadoran woman who said she was fighting for the freedom of political prisoners. “So, I have to be here, I have to stand up and say something.”

“People of color get stopped, beaten, shot,” said Meg Yarnell, a white social worker who works in the Oakland public schools. “And it’s important for white people to stand with people of color when these things happen.”

The “Stop Police Brutality Day” rally was organized by the Donovan Jackson Justice Committee, formed after an amateur videographer taped the beating of the 16-year-old Jackson at an Inglewood gas station. On the tape, Officer Jeremy J. Morse is seen punching the handcuffed Jackson and slamming him onto the trunk of a car.

Morse and his partner, Bijan Darvish, were indicted in connection with the beating. Morse has been charged with assault under the color of authority and Darvish with filing a false police report. Inglewood Police Chief Ron Banks recommended disciplining both but was blocked by a judge until further court hearings.

Talibah Shakir, Jackson’s cousin, who heads the committee, said Saturday’s event kicked off a new phase in her group’s campaign to end police abuse. Shakir said people must become politically involved and force change.

“We have to hold elected officials accountable for what’s happening,” Shakir said. “And if they don’t do what we tell them to do, then they need to go, no matter what color they are.”

About 40 members of the Donovan Jackson Justice Committee traveled to the rally from Crenshaw.

Los Angeles resident Lee Harris carried a 3-foot poster of her son, Cornelius, and the words, “Cruel and Unusual Punishment.”

Harris said her son is serving 25 years to life in prison for possession of cocaine. It was a third-strike case, said a relative, Sylvia Davis.

“He was an addict, not a criminal,” said Davis, a member of Families to Amend California’s Three-Strikes. “But the justice system didn’t care.”

Also at the rally was 34-year-old Leroy Franklin Moore, a Berkeley resident suffering from cerebral palsy. Moore said he became an outspoken critic of the way police treat the disabled after his own run-ins with officers.