Feature Archives

On March 21, 28-year-old Alejandro Nieto was in Bernal Hill Park, before leaving for his night job as a security guard. The job required that Nieto carry a Taser. A jogger who reportedly called the police told 911, “A Latin male in a bright red jacket is pacing near a fence.” When police arrived, they shot Nieto 14 times. After an FTP march that night in SF, a vigil with family and friends on March 24, and an SFPD town hall on March 26, hundreds of people marched to the top of Bernal Hill on March 29 to protest the murder by police of CCSF student Alejandro Nieto.

Donald Williams Jr., a black student at San Jose State University, filed a $5 million claim on March 19 against the institution, which alleges breach of contract, breach of duty, negligence, and violation of the Unruh Act. The claim stems from alleged hate crimes committed against Williams in his SJSU dorm room by three of his housemates in the Fall of 2013.

Hundreds of indigenous people from California and across the country gathered with a crowd of over 4,000 activists at the State Capitol in Sacramento on March 15th. They demanded that Governor Brown ban fracking, the environmentally destructive oil extraction practice that pollutes groundwater, rivers and oceans.

On March 10, Attorneys filed a class action lawsuit in U.S. District Court on behalf of Hispanic residents living in the King City area. On February 25, six King City police officers and one civilian were arrested for allegedly targeting low income Hispanic people by ordering their vehicles towed and then keeping the cars when the owners could not pay the impound fees. The police officers allegedly kept the cars for themselves or sold them for money.

On March 4, one hundred and forty-nine public speaker's cards were turned in prior to the Oakland City Council meeting. Public comment was unanimous against a city-wide Domain Awareness Center. Nevertheless, council members passed a resolution at about 1am on March 5 to proceed with a scaled-down Port-only version of the DAC. From the public galleries in council chambers, calls of "shame, shame, shame" rang out after the vote to continue development of the DAC.

The new documentary "The Ghosts Of March 21" focuses on March 21, 2009, when a shoot-out between Lovelle Mixon and members of the Oakland Police Department resulted in the death of Mixon and four police officers. The documentary examines the encounter’s underlying contradictions and challenges the mainstream narrative of the confrontation. The film opened in Oakland and Berkeley on March 20 and 21, San Francisco on March 22, and Santa Rosa on March 23.

A nine week official mourning for 13-year-old Andy Lopez has begun in the Moorland Area of Santa Rosa where Andy was shot seven times and killed by Sonoma County Sheriff Deputy Erick Gelhaus on October 22, 2013. Traditionally, a Novenario is nine days of prayer after a death. Attributed to the Catholic religion, these prayers assist the deceased in getting to Heaven, and it is the family’s way of getting some form of closure and peace over their loss.