Tag: Trayvon Martin

Trayvon Martin and Mumia Abu-Jamal. One is dead. One languished on death row for 30 years. They are separated in age by a generation, separated by different locations and different life-histories, but their stories of being under surveillance, watched and shot, intersect strikingly with each other and with many other people.

OPD held a town hall meeting May 23 at Acts Full Gospel Church to try and calm down residents angry about the murder of Alan Blueford. As Chief Howard Jordan rattled off lie after lie, folks turned their backs to him. The church could not contain the outrage. The argument moved outside into the bright sunlight, where the police shuffled, anxious, like so many cave dwellers. Compare the response in Hunters Point when San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr attempted to hold a townhall on July 20, 2011, four days after police murdered Kenneth Harding, 19. See the videos.

I’ve been held against my will in San Quentin for the past 20 years, awaiting my state sanctioned MURDER. I was never truly given the opportunity to prove my innocence. Because our people are still marching, standing our ground in order to let this corrupt system know that the fight will remain steadfast, this is why this T-shirt was made.

On Tuesday, May 15, the bereaved family members of Alan Dwayne Blueford eloquently addressed those members of the Oakland City Council who were present, seeking justice in a case that is looking suspiciously like a criminal assassination of the 18-year-old student in his senior year at Skyline High School. He was due to graduate in June.

Not long ago, on Feb. 26, Trayvon Martin was just another unknown African American whose young life was tragically and brutally cut short. Today Trayvon Martin’s name has become a universal rallying cry for justice in every nook and cranny of the unjust U.S.

A vigil for Alan Blueford, 18, murdered by OPD on May 6, drew a passionate crowd, including Hammer, on Friday, May 11, 5 p.m., at Oakland Police Department headquarters, 455 Seventh St. On Saturday, May 12, 3 p.m., protesters marched from 9200 Birch St., where OPD left Alan to bleed to death for four hours, to the Eastmont Mall Police Sub-Station, chanting “Jail killer cops!” and “No justice, no peace, no racist police!” All who demand justice for Alan Blueford will Occupy the Oakland City Council in City Hall, Oscar Grant Plaza, 14th & Broadway, at 6 p.m. Tuesday, May 15.

Oscar Grant. Kenneth Harding. Trayvon Martin. These are just a few names of young Black men who have yet to receive justice in the criminal justice system. Dregs One addresses the issue of police brutality and the abuses of power that have been committed by police and the justice system.

A press conference will be held Wednesday, April 18, at 3:30 p.m., on the spot where Fly Benzo (DeBray Carpenter) was arrested in October, in Mendell Plaza at Third Street and Palou in the heart of Bayview Hunters Point. Fly Benzo, resistance leader for justice for police murder victim Kenneth Harding, is campaigning against trumped up misdemeanor charges. He faces probation or up to three years in county jail at his sentencing hearing on Friday, April 20, 9 a.m., in Department 27 at 850 Bryant, San Francisco.

The Oakland International Film Festival is Friday-Sunday, April 6-8, at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Street, Oakland. Visit http://www.oiff.org/2012schedule.pdf. This year’s headliner is one of the most controversial independent films ever made, “The Spook Who Sat by the Door.” Watch it again here.

As the mother of a young Black man whom I pray for nightly and worry daily about his life being violently ended senselessly either by someone marginalized by the unjust social structure of U.S. life or by some rogue officer of the law or one pretending to be a policeman, I offer my sincerest condolences to the Martin family and friends over the loss of their son Trayvon.

Hundreds of students walked out of Mount Zion High School just after 2 p.m. on Monday in a show of solidarity with local college students and civil rights activists taking part in an ‘I Am Trayvon’ rally and march at the Georgia state capitol. We know we can be punished for “skipping school.”

Once again another young Black man has been shot and killed, under highly questionable circumstances, by a representative of law enforcement. Also once again, African Americans and our allies fear that justice will not be served on the perpetrator. Unfortunately, this fear is neither imagined nor an overreaction; it is grounded in concrete reality.

Zimmerman, who had made 46 wanna-be cop assist calls to the Sanford police during the past 14 months, had such a bad reputation among neighbors at the complex where he killed Trayvon that they had filed complaints. In fact, he was known to go door-to-door asking residents to “be on the look-out,” primarily for “young Black men.”

The U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI have opened an investigation into the killing of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed teenager shot and killed by a white Neighborhood Watch captain in an Orlando suburb. Rally Monday, March 26, 12-1 p.m., 850 Bryant, San Francisco, for justice for Trayvon Martin.