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SF Takes to the Streets To Protest Racist Murders

by Michael Steinberg (blackrainpress [at] hotmail.com)
San Francisco, November 24—San Franciscans rallied and took to the streets in the city’s Mission District tonight to protest the murders of Michael Brown, as well as those of other young people of color in the Bay Area, by police.
The action started with a rally at Mission and 24th Streets. The sentiment that brought people together was expressed by a sign that read: The People Say GUILTY.” This referred to the popular rejection of the attempted whitewash of the murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri yesterday.

Other signs read: “Justice For Mike,” and “Jail Darren Wilson.” Wilson is the Ferguson cop who riddled Michael Brown with police bullets and left him dead in the street for four and a half hours last August.

In a tape recorded after yesterday’s fiasco, political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal called the disgraceful decision not to charge Wilson “the very epitome of racist injustice,” and predicted it “may be the turning point” in today’s civil rights movement that started in Ferguson last summer.

Richard Becker of the ANSWER Coalition, which organized tonight’s action, said Monday’s press conference that let Wilson walk was “a horrific farce.” Becker charged that the grand jury which refused to indict Wilson “did what [Prosecuting Attorney ] Bob McCulloch wanted.”

Becker also pointed out that the police murders of young unarmed people of color is a national problem, calling them “an epidemic of racist violence.”
He cited the recent shooting deaths of Andy Lopez in Santa Rosa and Alex Nieto in San Francisco.


“The only thing that will change this will come from us,” Becker concluded. “That’s the only way progressive change has ever come about.”

To the Streets

With that the crowd filed onto Mission Street and started marching towards 16th Street. Ten San Francisco cops on foot tagged along, accompanied by one motorcycle cop and another in an SFPD SUV.

With colorful signs and banners, and passionate raised voices, the procession made a fitting impression on the still bustling major thoroughfare of the Mission District.

Residents going about their business paused to look up while the marchers hustled by, and listened as the marchers chanted “Alex Nieto, Michael Brown, Fight the System, Shut It Down,” and “No Justice, No Peace, No Racist Police.”

At 16th and Mission the marchers paused to rally again, near the BART Station. The boisterous group then proceeded west, up 16th Street, until it took a sudden left turn onto Valencia Street. In no time it was in front of the Mission Police Station, where it stopped to chant ”Oink, Oink, Bang, Bang, Every Day The Same,” and “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” repeatedly.

The cops on foot lined the front of the police station while other police anxiously monitored the halted procession.

Remarks from the crowd included: “They say we riot. We don’t riot--we rebel. We’re revolutionaries.”

“We scream, we yell: ‘Police racism has got to stop.’ ”

“We’re working class. We’re all part of the same class.”

“The police represent a racist system that gives the police power to shoot to kill. No officer has the right to shoot an unarmed person.”

This nonviolent standoff went on in front of the cop shop for some time, as what was said to be a police helicopter hovered high overhead.

Finally the procession headed on, back to where it had all started.
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Michael Steinberg
Wed, Nov 26, 2014 2:01PM
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