Tag: Lovelle Mixon

A time bomb is ticking, waiting to explode in communities of color across the nation. Law enforcement officers have become an occupation force. If we are to have peace, we first must place economic justice at the top of our agenda. The day Lovelle Mixon died, those close to him mentioned two explanations: He dreaded being sent back to prison yet he couldn't find a job.

Police are virtually an occupying military force in Black urban centers. Their presence will neither eliminate the plague of rampant crime nor address the underlying disease of extreme impoverishment.

The reason why so many people may have appeared gleeful at the killing by Lovelle Mixon of four Oakland cops is that the police have for so long looked at various communities as less than human.

Lovelle Mixon - the suspected shooter behind the deaths of four Oakland police officers on Saturday - has joined the pantheon of Black men who have conducted deadly rebellions: Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner, Huey Newton, Jonathan Jackson and Larry Davis.

On March 21, Lovelle Mixon, 26, was murdered by Oakland police after allegedly killing four of them on MacArthur Blvd off of 73rd Avenue in East Oakland. Listen to JR's Block Report interview with his family - his mother, Athena, his wife, Amara, and her sister, Alicia - broadcast March 30 on KPFA's Flashpoints at http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/49609.

When the full story is finally told and, though not likely freely admitted by many, deep within the spiritual thinking of numerous African Americans, an emotional candle will be lit in memory of Lovelle Mixon.