Photos from Protest on Anniversary of Cammerin Boyd's Death

Members of Cammerin Boyd's family and their supporters gathered on a cool, windy afternoon exactly one year after his shooting death at the hands of the SFPD. They spoke about the need for justice. Some sang and rapped tributes to him and others who have suffered "under the gun" of law enforcement. Police took surveillance to a new level, as they eyed a van that had Cammerin Boyd signs in its window and was parked alongside the Jefferson Square Park. At the time when the police have said that they killed Cammerin, the crowd marched to the exact location where he was shot.

Cammerin's mother, Marylon Boyd, during the course of the press conference, rally, and march, spoke about her family's need for justice. She talked about how Cammerin should have been there, and that the police who killed him should not be out on the streets with guns. She gave an update from the previous night's Police Review Commission meeting. The Office of Citizen Complaints had finished its preliminary investigation, and Chief Fong would now have 60 days to review the findings and decide what to do. Marylon Boyd said that she wanted for those officers to be removed from the force. She said that she felt that her family still had found no justice had to do with politics and reelection of the District Attorney. She told of how she had never dreamed that she would join this club, the "Mothers Club." She brought up speakers such as the parents of Julio Ayala, who was killed last month by police in South San Francisco, Elvira Pollard, whose son Gustavus Rugley was killed last summer by 35 bullets shot by the SFPD, and Mesha Monge-Irizarry, whose son Idriss Stelley was killed by SFPD 4 years ago.

Some other speakers included Malaika Parker from PoliceWatch, Cammerin's daughters and their mothers, Jeff Adachi, the Boyd family's attorneys, and Shannon Altamirano, whose friend Sheila Detoy was killed by the SFPD some 7 years ago. A young man from the neighborhood rapped about police brutality- it turned out that he had gone to school with Idriss Stelley.

A clear theme from the day was the need to keep the stories of these people who have been killed by law enforcement in the public eye. The police have dragged out the Sheila Detoy case for a very long time so that the public's outrage at her killing and posthumous criminalization would be forgotten, and the police would not be held accountable for shooting her because she was in a car with the "Wrong" element. Elvira Pollard said that her son's body was given to her 3 weeks after his death on June 29th, 2004, and she received the coroner's report about her son's death 10 months after it occurred. It is clear to her that several of the police's allegations about him are lies. There are many questions, such as: if he had crashed into police cars, why didn't his airbag deploy?, If he was posing a threat, why was a bullet lodged in his armpit, which is only accessible when the arms are in the air?, Why did the police allow him to walk two blocks before they shot and killed him?, and, Did he really pose a threat, if he was surrounded by police (he had bullet holes on all sides of his body)? The speakers whose loved ones were killed by the police vowed to keep these stories alive and to fight for justice.