Justice for the Custodio Family Now

Speakers at the press conference included Marlo himself, an attorney working with the family (Richard Honda), an uncle, and members of MALAYA, Silicon Valley DeBug, MAIZ, the Filipino Youth Coalition, the National Hip Hop Congress, and other organizations. Their statements are below, in MP3 format.

"Eight police officers participated in the beatings and two officers observed. Examples of use of excessive force include: One officer slammed Marilou's head against a police car three times. Marilou suffers post-traumatic anxiety due to the police beating. She is a single mother. Five officers swarmed, tackled, and brutalized Romel. Already pacified, Romel was still tasered with three weapons for 40 seconds (over the usual time limit) and had to seek medical treatment for physical injury and taser burns. One officer choked and tasered Marlo even while he was following police orders; afterwards, another officer kneed Marlo in the face" (from a flier circulated at the press conference).

San Jose's police force has been under the spotlight lately--with major news media stories on racial profiling of the Latino population, a well-publicized and successful Copwatch on Cinco de Mayo, and a strong effort to survive the painfully-slow process of the Human Relations Commission in order to institutionalize *some* kind of oversight for the SJPD.