Some of these pics are from IndyMedia and friends
This year, on our 10th Anniversary March, October 22nd will be the day when families, victims, and all peoples can
come forward and demand justice for our loved ones. It is time to hold the murdering police accountable for the stolen
lives of our loved ones! We must stand up against this system’s war on the people here in Los Angeles and all over
the world! It is time to demand justice for all Stolen Lives!
Calling on all people of Los Angeles to come out and create a vision for the 10th Anniversary March against Police
Brutality!!
When: Saturday, October 22, 2005, at 1PM
Where: Broadway and Olympic in Downtown Los Angeles
This year, law enforcement in and around Los Angeles have stolen the lives of our children in outrageous manners,
including 13 year old Devin Brown, 19 year old Bassim Chmait, and baby Suzie Peña. Down south, the government is
applauding red neck vigilantes for their animal-like hunting down of immigrants struggling to feed their families.
Around the country, thousands of South Asians or Muslims are still being arrested and detained without legal
recourse. In New York, Juanita Young is persecuted by the D.A. on a bogus charge for her outspoken stance against
police brutality. Lawyer Lynne Stewart, another outspoken activist, is subject to 45 years in prison for defending her
client’s right to lawyer-client confidentiality. Even journalists are going to prison now for exposing government
corruption, a blatant violation of the so-called “freedom of the press.”
These cases are all examples of the blatant police brutality pervasive in our neighborhoods nationwide, and the
fascist repression of Bush & Company’s “Homeland Security.” This brutality happens to many of our brother and
sisters on a daily basis, and is getting worse as we speak. But there is hope, and we must begin to fight back in
defense of our families!
This year, on our 10th Anniversary March, October 22nd will be the day when families, victims, and all peoples can
come forward and demand justice for our loved ones. It is time to hold the murdering police accountable for the stolen
lives of our loved ones! We must stand up against this system’s war on the people here in Los Angeles and all over
the world! It is time to demand justice for all Stolen Lives!
Call for October 22, 2005: Tenth Annual National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the
Criminalization of a Generation
In July 2005, an 18-month old baby is killed in her father’s arms by Los Angeles police. Police justification of this – that
they were trying to “save” the baby – reminds people of the famous Vietnam era military quote – “We had to destroy
the village in order to save the village.” In Compton, police surround a truck where a man gave them the finger and
fire 100 shots. In the last two years since Cau Bich Tran (a young Vietnamese mother of two) was killed while holding
a vegetable peeler, there have been about a dozen police-involved killings in the San Jose area alone. Rudy
Cardenas was one of those stolen lives, and state drug agent Walker who shot him in the back is going to trial for
manslaughter in September. Amnesty International released a report last November documenting over 70 deaths by
tasers since 2001. The Stolen Lives Project has documented an alarming escalation nationwide in the numbers of
people killed by law enforcement agents. These killings march hand in hand with the repression, searches and
seizures legalized by today’s USA PATRIOT Act, which evoke remembrances of the COINTELPRO days of the 1960s and
70s.
Around the country, thousands of Muslim, Arab and South Asian immigrants are arrested, detained, and/or deported
without legal recourse. Two New York city officials openly call for racial profiling to be used in the bag searches in the
subways, a councilman asserting, "Plain and simply, young Arab fundamentalists are the individuals undertaking
these acts of terror” and that they are “[a] particular group of people who are engaging in these terrorist activities.
And they're not skinny, balding Italian-Americans from Staten Island."
In Minneapolis, a police consultant, proposing a racial profiling program, brands youth of color as “domestic
terrorists.” Seattle’s ex-police chief goes on a speaking tour to promote his new book in which he lies about police
“restraint” in handling the 1999 WTO protests and justifies the use of lethal force against protesters “when
necessary.” The North Carolina October 22nd Coalition website asks, “Notice how today’s police look like a member of
an urban military? They use military weapons against you, the civilian.”
In New York, Juanita Young (mother of Malcolm Ferguson, killed by NYPD in March 2000) is persecuted by the DA on a
bogus charge of criminal trespass for the “crime” of speaking out against police brutality. Her lawyer, Lynne Stewart,
another outspoken activist, is subject to 45 years in prison for defending one of her clients’ rights to lawyer-client
confidentiality. In Mississippi, people’s lawyer Chokwe Lumumba is suspended for demanding equal justice for poor
Blacks and using his 1st Amendment right to criticize judges and the legal system. On May 2nd, the U.S. and New
Jersey State governments raise the bounty on the head of the former Black Panther currently exiled in Cuba, Assata
Shakur. Attorney General Gonzales, author of the torture memo justifying Abu Ghraib prison, announces the $1 million
reward and lists her as “a domestic terrorist.”
What can we do about all this increased repression and brutality?
Nicholas Heyward, Sr. (father of Nicholas Heyward, Jr., killed by NYC housing police in 1994) says,
“Police brutality has always existed in poor and oppressed neighborhoods. But since September 11, 2001, it has
gotten much worse. In order for any justice to be done, it takes a mass number of people coming together for a
common cause. Police brutality affects everyone and has to stop. We need as many people as possible to come out
this year on October 22nd to support the families of victims of police brutality.”
Juanita Young adds that resistance is critical:
“You can’t give in. They will try to make an example out of you, try to break your spirit. If you don’t resist and keep on
fighting, they will be able to get away with what they’re trying to do to us."
Norma Martinez (mother of Gonzalo Martinez, killed with 31 shots by LAPD in 2001), writes:
“Since Gonzalo died, more than 25 people have died at the hands of police. Not too long ago, young Devin Brown (13)
was killed by LAPD. David Viera was killed by the city of El Monte, shot 11 times. Twenty-two year old Javier Quezada
was killed, shot 11 times, right in front of his mother when he was suffering an anxiety attack. No police are in jail. We
need justice.”
October 22nd is the day when people all over the country come together to STOP police violence, repression, and the
criminalization of a generation. Across the country, in different cities and through different means of expression, we
raise a resounding “NO” to their steadily increasing moves towards a police state. We resist so that we will not be
crushed. Link up to the nationwide protests through the October 22nd website, temporarily located at http:
//october22-ny.org/national.
