Demand end of police brutality in Richmond, CA

What follows is a detailed description of events as described by
Andres Soto, a 20 years activist against violence.
COME TO RICHMOND ON JUNE 5TH, 7:00 PM TO DEMAND JUSTICE.
Juan
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Mil gracias for the messages and sentiments of support.

The incident that occurred the late afternoon of Sunday, el Cinco De Mayo, to me and my family, and our friends and
neighbors, was part of a larger para-military operation carried out by the Richmond Police Department and four other police
agencies against the Latino community, specifically, and the greater Richmond community at large, in general. The action to
close down 23rd St. on Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon was a premeditated action orquestrated as an at least four
agency operation (RPD, SPPD, CCCCSD and CHP, with backup from Berkeley and Oakland PDs).

Not only was 23rd St. closed, but 13th and Rumrill in San Pablo was also closed. So this is not isolated to just Richmond. The
fact that the RPD abused me, my family and my neighbors, including women and children is just the latest outrage in a history of abuse by this department against its people. Me and my sons were not the only victims off the police dragnet either. During the course of the evening, the Richmond jail filled with nothing but Latino males, about twenty of us, except for one drunk Euro-American Texan. So far none of the other men jailed that night have spoken out, which is understandable given that al except for myself and my sons, were Spanish speaking Mexicanos and are rightfully fearful of any consequences. There are more stories out there to be told and as a community we need to record them. Similarly, we don't know what happened in San Pablo, but we need to find out if there were similar cases of abuse over there.

Our story, in short, is as follows:

Around 6:45 p.m. I returned home after performing in a Latin-Jazz group at the alcohol free Berkeley Cinco De Mayo. On the
way home, I had gone shopping for groceries in preparation of making dinner. When I pulled into my drive way I could see
there was a police action down on 23rd St. and Lowell.

Me and my two sons, Ché, 24, and Alejandro, 23, went down to see what was happening and along the way we ran into
Annette Lerma, her sister Gina and four children Carlos, 16, Junior, 10, Felipe, my nephew, 8, and Gina's daughter, Alexis, 5.
They all joined us to get some explanations as what was occurring since they had already been forced away from 23rd St.,
suffering terrible verbal abuse, by the RPD.

When we arrived at the corner of 23rd and Lowell we could see there was nothing occurring on our corner except that an
RPD patrol unit was blocking the intersection not permitting west bound traffic on Lowell to proceed. We could also see that
23rd was blocked across Rheem and there was some other police action further down south on 23rd. We attempted to walk
down the sidewalk on the east side of 23rd St. to get a closer look as to what was occurring.

An RPD officer, who was part of a group of four or five officers, yelled at us from the middle of the street to tell us that we
could not walk down the street, but had to turn around and return to our houses. I asked why we could not walk down the
street - he responded the street was closed. I told him we didn't want to walk down the street., but down the sidewalk - he
said the sidewalk was closed too. I asked why the street was closed - he said they had orders to close it down. I asked again why was it being closed down and he again said it was his orders. I asked who had given the order and specifically asked if Chief Samuels had given the order. The officer responded "No, it was Lt. Zanotelli."

During the course of this conversation another group of about five RPD, including a canine officer, Peixoto, approached from
across the street. When they arrived at our group one tall Euro-American shaven head RPD officer came directly over to me
and put his chest directly up against mine and shoved me back. At the same time another Euro-American officer shoved my
son Alejandro in the chest with his hand. Alejandro raised his hands and said "You can't touch me." An African-American
officer then pulled out his black steel flashlight and appeared to be ready to strike Alejandro with it. Me and my other son,
Ché, raised our hands and yelled at the African-American officer, "No Violence, No Violence."

With that the next thing I know is I am being pepper sprayed directly in my face and I turn to run home and away from the
police. The tall Euro-American officer grabbed my shirts and ripped them completely off of my torso as I attempted to run. I
got about 15-20 steps when I heard from behind, "Stop or I'll dog ya', I'll dog ya'." With that I stopped and raised my hands
above my head to surrender. I was grabbed from behind and thrown to the ground, face down. The next thing I felt was a
heavy deep blow to my back, which I originally thought was a knee to the back. Our witnesses said it was the African-American officer striking me in the back with the steel flashlight. He fractured my left ribs and left a distinctive
contusion on my back. They put the cuffs on me, refused to give me my glasses which had fallen off in the attack, and pulled
me up by the arms and lined me up, bare chested, against the wall along with my two sons.

While they were pepper spraying me, some of the remaining officers shoved Alejandro to the ground on top of Gina and her 5 year old daughter, Alexis. He picked the little girl up and returned her to her mother and then was hit in the face with the
pepper spray. They then threw him down on the pavement causing numerous abrasions and cuffed him and threw him against the wall with me.

Ché was in between me and Alejandro. When he saw me being chased by the canine officer; he chased after the dog. When I stopped, he stopped. RPD then pummeled him, threw him to the ground, cuffed him, and when he lifted his face to see what was going on, they pepper sprayed him at point blank range and then rubbed his face into the ground. They threw him against the wall with me and Alejandro.

Carlos and Junior were so scared, that during the confusion, they ran down 23rd for a block and into Annette's house and
went into hiding from fear of being arrested. Felipe and Alexis were standing in the street crying; confused and terrified at what they had just witnessed. The RPD then ordered the witnesses to leave the area under threat of being pepper sprayed if they did not leave, which they refused to do. They wanted to serve as witnesses to what had just occurred to me and my sons. The RPD then chased the women, children and other witnesses, threatening them with pepper spray, through the parking lot of Phila Cheese Steak Station, on to 23rd St. toward Rheem and finally stopped pursuing them after they had run on to Rheem.

Me and my sons were taken to the RPD HQ to jail. The first question we were asked was, "What do you claim 13, or 14?"
My son Alejandro exclaimed, "UC Berkeley!", where he is a full time student, majoring in Political Science.

They did give us a styrofoam cup, on at a time, to get water out of a faucet to rinse the pepper spray off, which did little good. They finally told us we were being booked for being "drunk in public". We demanded to see a doctor for our injuries. We were told we would have to be transported by an RPD patrol unit and that we would have to wait until one got freed up, probably 1:00 or 2:00 a.m. We said we would wait. At about 11:00 p.m. after receiving a call from reporter Tom Lochner of the West County Times, Sgt. Bob Flores, peeked in to our cell and confirmed the "Soto Family" was in the cell and offered us a deal. If we rescinded our request for medical attention they would release us early. Of course, we refused and demanded to make a phone call, which was consistently refused.

During the course of the evening the jailed filled with Mexicanos, many of them in the same position as us, being arrested off of the sidewalk. At 1:00 a.m. we were told to come out we were being released and given a "Notice to Appear" for an
arraignment on June 27, 2002. We were now being charged with "disturbing the peace" and "resisting arrest". I asked about
our medical exam. They repeated that we were being released. We subsequently went on our own to the Doctor's Hospital,
San Pablo, Emergency Room for treatment. We were all given tetanus shots for the broken skin from the cuffs and the
pavement and I was prescribed ibuprofen for the ribs.

The next phase is several fold.

If you know of anyone else wo suffered from arrest or police abuse have them contact me at home, at 237.6866, so I
can assist them in making a complaint with the Police Commission Investigative Officer, Joan Kubota. We need to tell
the whole story not just the pack of lies that are coming out of the Police Department and its mouthpiece, Enos Johnson.
We must mobilize the public... that means YOU! We have to get as many members of the public to attend the Police
Commission meeting on Wednesday June 5, 2002, at 7:00 p.m. at City Hall, to express our outrage at this continuing
behavior from "Cowboys" like Zanotelli, Johnson and Peixoto. We want to know who planned and authorized this
concerted attack against our community Samuels, Bennett, Zanotelli? What were the protocols for engagement with the
public? Did they just expect everybody go along with the wholesale abridgment of our right to peaceably assemble as a
people?

Contact City Officials and express your outrage at the police violence on Cinco De Mayo weekend as a wholesale
attack on the Latino community. We want greater civilian over sight of the RPD. Amend the ordinance to enhance the
powers of the Police Commission to give them a broader purview and to make policy and order discipline.

Mayor Irma Anderson 510.620.6503
Vice Mayor Tom Butt 510.236.7435
Nat Bates 510.222.1101
Charles Belcher 510.215.8039
Gary Bell 510.305.7160
Richard Griffin 510.529.1645
Jim Rogers 510.867.5725
Mindell Penn 510.287.9422
Maria Theresa Viramontes 510.236.5977

Also contact:

Police Chief Joe Samuels 510.620.6655
City Attorney Malcolm Hunter 510.620.6509
Police Commission Investigator Joan Kubota 510.307.8032
Police Commission Chair, Bob Sutcliffe 510.307.8032

If we don't speak up they will just let it go away.

They can break our bones, but they can't break our spirit for "Justice on 23rd St.",
"Justicia pa' La 23." This time if enough of us put our voices together they will have to be heard.

The RPD is running scared. They lied about the pepper spray. They lied about having us in jail. They lied about the criminal
charges. They are probably going to lie about denial of medical treatment, a basic human right. Even those of you from out side of Richmond should call these numbers and register you opinion.

¡Gracias a todos por su apoyo y que sigue La Lucha!

More to follow....

Andrés