A vigil was held Saturday April 24th 2004 in front of the Metreon in San Francisco to remember Idriss Stelley. On June 12, 2001, Idriss Stelley was shot and killed by 8 San Francisco police officers. Idriss was not carrying a gun and the police had been notified that he was having a mental crisis. Stelley's mother Mesha Monge-Irizarry requested permission from the Metreon to build a memorial altar for her son inside as part of the the Metreon's Earth Day exhibition. Dozens of community groups, racial-justice activists, and environmentalists signed a petition in her support, but she never received a response.
Many groups, including the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, the Reclaim the Commons Mobilization, and the Greenwood Earth Alliance, called for a uniting of the racial justice and ecology movements. "We cannot have one without the other-so why not work together for both?" said Mary Bull, co-director of the Greenwood Earth Alliance, and an organizer of the Reclaim the Commons Mobilization, which co-sponsored the event. Plans for the demonstration included a memorial for Stelley, construction of an altar, a seed give-away, and preparation of a bioremediation brew that will be taken back to Bayview Hunters Point, Stelley's home community, to aid in reclamation of land polluted by the naval shipyard. The shipyard has been declared a superfund site. Another aim of the demonstration was to point out the environmental racism suffered by that community, which has high rates of asthma and other acute respiratory diseases linked to PG&E's power plant, and of breast cancer, Hotchkins Lymphoma, and other cancers linked to toxins and radioactivity from the shipyard, and other pollutants.
"Care for the earth means also caring for our communities," Monge-Irizarry said. "The racism behind the shooting of my son is also responsible for the environmental assaults on our health and well being in Bayview Hunters Point. Earth healing must begin with justice." Pictures of Memorial | Press Release | Justice for Idriss | Idriss Stelley Foundation Opened 3/27/04 | Background Articles About Idriss's Death: The Tragedy of Idriss Stelley | Ode to Idriss Stelley | SFPD: Go Back to School | Some Progress on the Police Front
Video of Rally A Year After Idriss was killed - 6/12/02: 1 | 2