On the Latest Murder by OPD-

The shooting of 20 year old Terrence Mearis last week by Oakland police officers in the room of the apartment where he was sleeping is a classic example of the war on the African community carried out under the guise of a "war on drugs and crime." It's not "police misconduct," it fits a historical pattern of terror against African people.

How else can you explain denial of basic rights for black people in Oakland, the deaths and brutality at the hands of the police, and a U.S. prison system filled with one million African men?

Certainly, we can pretend to believe all the backwards arguments about the criminality of Mearis and countless other black victims of police violence that are somehow meant to dehumanize them. "He had cocaine on him. The officers feared for their lives." But when the majority of the drug use and traffic is in the white community and when you do not see the coke and potheads in Rockridge and Montclair waking up to police guns pointed at their brains, you have to start questioning what's going on. When we use or sell drugs in the white community, we are usually treated by a twelve step program of some sort, not tried and executed on the spot as was Mearis.

All across the country, similar police operations as Officers Ryan Gill and Richard Vass' "Crime Reduction Unit" are killing African people and sweeping them up into the court systems.

Since when are parolees or individuals on probation not protected by the Fourth Amendment "unreasonable search and seizure?" And this search was unreasonable. If the police really wanted Mearis and the drugs, they seemed to know where he lived. Why did they have enter the apartment and bedroom in the middle of the night?

For myself, I don't even buy the story that Mearis had drugs in his possession. A number of witnesses stated that he was sleeping in his room. And besides, that’s what they always say about African people shot down by the police.

It's time for white people who see through the lies to take a stand for the dignity and humanity of the African community and struggle for an to the martial law that is carried out in the name of "serving and protecting."

Terrence Mearis, a former student of Castlemont High School, a son who had a mother and young person with a future was murdered by the Oakland Police Department's policies and we hold the police and the city responsible.

Stop the war on the African community!
Reparations to the family of Terrence Mearis!
White community of Oakland take a stand!

Get in touch with the African People's Solidarity Committee of Oakland

Wendy Snyder
uhurureparations [at] yahoo.com