Feature Archives

Andy Lopez was killed by Sonoma County Sheriff's deputy Erick Gelhaus on October 22, 2013. Five years later, on December 18, 2018, the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors reached a settlement with Andy's parents for $3 million. Earlier in the year, a $3.5 million park was built in Andy’s honor in his Santa Rosa neighborhood. Activists, the community, and his family and friends never stopped demanding justice for Andy Lopez.

Kevin Cooper is an African-American man who was wrongly convicted of murder in 1985. He has been on death row at San Quentin for decades. On December 24, 2018, Governor Jerry Brown ordered new DNA testing. Kevin Cooper responds: I am happy that we have finally “won” something from some entity in this state. But after learning what exactly outgoing Gov. Brown wrote... I am not as excited as I was at first, or should be.

On January 1, 2009, 22-year-old Oscar Grant was shot in the back by BART Officer Johannes Mehserle while he lay face down. In response to angry street rebellions and years of protest, Mehserle was charged with murder and ultimately convicted of involuntary manslaughter. On the first day of January ten years after his murder, Oscar's mother, friends, and supporters gathered for a vigil at Fruitvale BART station where he died.

January 1, 2019, marked ten years since the murder of Oscar Grant by BART police officer Johannes Mehserle. A number of news pieces have been produced to commemorate the anniversary, but it's rare to see significant tribute paid to the fact that were it not for efforts of protesters and activists, Oscar Grant would have received little to no justice. Thousands of people raised their voices for justice for Oscar Grant.

Kwanzaa is a cultural holiday, celebrated from December 26 to January 1, that reclaims what was lost during the African holocaust, the sense of an African connection. In California's Central Valley, Kwanzaa takes on special significance in the long standing African American farming community's journey to reestablish agriculture as the foundation of culture in the farm to fork capital of America.

The Alameda County Sheriff’s Office had drones on the scene for many high-profile protests in Berkeley and on the University of California Berkeley campus throughout 2017, at the request of the Berkeley and UC police departments. The Contra Costa County Sheriff deployed drones over immigrant rights rallies outside the West County Detention Facility in Richmond, which houses detainees for ICE.

The polling place at the Unitarian Universalist church was eliminated in November because of a “Black Lives Matter” sign. It was moved to the Cross City evangelical Christian mega church with three huge crosses out front. The 25,000 students of CSU-Fresno do not have a polling place on campus. Two thirds of the 3,000 inmates at the Fresno County Jail have not been convicted of a crime, yet are not provided a polling booth either.