by Tiny, Poor News Network
“He was a loving young father, he was sharp, he was respectful to everyone and loved by his family. He loved life; he had that New York swag. This killing has to stop,” Jasmine, one of several loving family members of 24-year-old Nathaniel Wilks, cried out to the crowd of over 110 people who billowed out of the tiny corner at 27th and Martin Luther King Boulevard in North Oakland to hold space for another Afrikan mama’s son, a young father and brother stolen from us all by the Oakland police.
On Aug. 12, 2015, Nathaniel Wilks, 24, born Aug. 26 in New York City and father to a tiny beautiful baby girl named Kai’lei, was fatally shot in the back of his head as he slowed down with his hands up, back to the pigs, saying, “OK, OK, OK”! His girlfriend’s family and community resides in the Hunters Point district of San Francisco.
“This is fourth shooting of a Black man in Oakland this year, and justice still hasn’t been served for any of them,” Cat Brooks, leader with Onyx and the Anti-Police Terror Project stated after launching the day with the pouring of libations for ancestors lost to Amerikkklan violence. Cat chronicled the last 72 hours of Oakland police lies:
“We talked to 12 witnesses within the hour of the police murder and one thing that was a constant in each person’s account was that this young man was running away, his back was to the cops and they still shot him.” Cat went on to paraphrase the gentrifier Mayor Shaaf’s assertion that Nate’s murder was ok because he was “suspected” of a crime.
The huge crowd that gathered on Friday, the 14th of Black August, at the police murder scene at 27th and MLK, where bullet holes had penetrated the gray fence behind us, were directed to just “hold space” and it seemed that the crowd, which grew with every minute, could not do much more. Our collective hearts were too heavy to keep in our chests.
For me it was not just a murder of another young son but the outright and almost arrogant way that these 21st century slave-catchers and stolen land protectors are picking off our people. African people, Native people, poor people are being killed by both private and governmental agents of the Amerikkklan state with impunity. Extra-judicial killing is what comrade and fellow truth warrior Jeremy Miller from Idriss Stelly Foundation calls it.
It seems like we were just at the protest for young brother Demourria Hogg a few months back, killed for sleeping while Black in Amerikkklan, and then less than a month ago Richard Linyard, chased down by Oakland police and killed.
The flagrantly bullshit filled statements by police and their corporate media enablers stated that he ran after being stopped, and then the police found him already dead “wedged between two structures” – police telling his family that he died from choking on vomit. All of us who have seen these lies before know they sound like bullshit, as revolutionary soldier and mama of murdered African son Idriss Stelley stated on the Facebook page Justice4Richard.
“How is it a lawyer for the Police Officers Association (POA) came out within 24 hours with an autopsy for Nate and was speaking on behalf of the police?” said an elder brother about the weird cover-up that is already gathering around the Nate Wilks case. “Something isn’t right,” he concluded.
“This family needs an independent autopsy. This is one of the only ways we will get justice,” Cat Brooks concluded.
“We are here for justice, not just for our family, but for everyone. Please help us get justice for us all.” The powerful words of Nate’s girlfriend Chemika whispered to the crowd while holding our future, little Kai’lei.
For more information, go to the Facebook Justice 4 Nate Wilks page. To donate to the family for funeral expenses and to get an independent autopsy, go to http://www.gofundme.com/justice4natewilks.
Tiny – or Lisa Garcia – is co-founder with her Mama Dee and co-editor with Tony Robles of POOR Magazine and its many projects and author of “Criminal of Poverty: Growing Up Homeless in America,” published by City Lights. She can be reached at deeandtiny@poormagazine.org. Visit POOR at www.poormagazine.org.