San Francisco has lost at the hands of SFPD

By Tahnee Stair

The epidemic of police brutality sweeping the nation is a threat to African American, Latino, and all communities of color. It is a threat to the Lesbian/Gay/Bi/&Transgendered communities, the young and the poor. The racist climate created by Propositions 187, 209, and 227 have are fueling more racism and police brutality. The money we need for schools and other social services is spent on oppressive police. Police abuse in San =46rancisco is an emergency situation. Recently we have lost the lives of Mark Garcia, seventeen-year-old Sheila Detoy, Aaron Williams and many others to police violence, racism, and classism. All of these victims were either from poor neighborhoods, people of color, or both. The Office of Citizen's Complaints have found Captain Suhr guilty of violating the Police Code of Conduct yet, to date, their findings have been ignored. Allowing the cops to get away with murder will only encourage them and this racist system.

The Police Commission is supposed to be independent, but it can hardly be considered independent of the S.F.P.D. when these hearings are held at 850 Bryant - police headquarters - and when police sit on the very commission itself. After two years of tireless organizing by Mark Garc=EDa's family, Police Watch, and the community, the police commission engaged in a shameful censorship of our concerns by adjourning last week's meeting. But be assured that the people will not stop until there is justice.

WHAT IS THE ROLE OF THE POLICE? The cops are always the defenders of rich, private property, and the status quo. This is shown any time there is a strike and cops serve as strike breakers, whenever the masses rebel, as they did over the brutalization of Rodney King, and martial law is imposed. It is shown by the cops being armed - and keeping the people unarmed.

Witnesses to the killing of Sheila Detoy by Police Officer Gregory Breslin have made statements that warrant the arrest of Breslin. And yet, it is one of Sheila's friends, Michael Negron, shot by the police himself, who is now being charged for the killing that Breslin committed, under the outrageous "provocative act theory."

The Police Commission and the city government have a responsibility to take swift action on the emergency of the threat of police brutality. Killer cops must be jailed! Yet every victory ever made in the people's movement for justice has been made by militant struggle in the streets and on our campuses. We must continue to build a movement against Police Brutality and all racist and homophobic attacks on our communities. The police and government officials fear a movement demanding justice, and this is exactly where our power lies.

END POLICE BRUTALITY! JAIL KILLER COPS! FIGHT RACISM, SEXISM, AND ANTI-GAY/LESBIAN/BI & TRANS BIGOTRY! RESIST 227!