SFPD gun down innocent youngsta in Hunters Point

‘They never once said freeze’

SFPD gun down innocent youngsta in Hunters Point

by Apollonia Jordan
Police question the children they beat and molested on Martin Luther King Day in 2002. Tyrell is at the right, hidden by the officer. Police said that night, “As long as you people are here, we will act like this.” And they have.

On Friday morning, Sept. 9, the San Francisco Police Department brutally terrorized and gunned down 18-year-old Tyrell Taylor. “They never once said freeze or stop,” stated Ebony, a neighbor and Hunters Point native, who watched from the top floor of her apartment on Northridge Road as the holice shot at Tyrell numerous times as he ran for safety, his shirt and jeans dripping with his own blood, into the house of Lata Price, another neighbor and close family friend.

“I saw the police pull up – it was about three police cars – and they sort of blocked in the car that Tyrell and another guy was sitting in, in the parking lot on the top of Northridge,” said Ebony. “I saw Tyrell take off running out the car with a terrified look on his face, and never once did I hear the police say freeze or stop. They just opened fire.”

Ebony continued to give me her account of what happened: “After Tyrell was hit, I saw Tyrell run into another neighbor’s house, Lata Price, yelling and pleading to her that he was in pain and could no longer run, due to the painful gunshot wounds.”

“Once the neighbor opened her door to let him in and closed it, to prevent the police from shooting him again, the police kicked down her door and forced their way into her apartment and brought both of them out, along with a male in handcuffs.”

This is not the first holice terrorist attack on Tyrell Taylor or any other youngsta growing up in the Hunters Point community. On MLK Day, Jan. 21, 2002, Tyrell was one of the five youth beaten and terrorized by police on Kiska Road, just up the hill from where he was gunned down Friday. He was only 14 then.

On that Martin Luther King Day three and a half years ago, the holice held guns to the youngstas’ heads, and while they molested the teenage girls and brutally beat the young men, they threatened to shoot their parents and other horrified residents if they dared to interfere. Again Friday, Tyrell was terrorized and stalked by holice in the neighborhood he grew up in his whole life and lays his head at – his comfort zone.

“The holice were very upset at the fact that Tyrell ran, and once they kicked down the neighbor’s door, you could hear Tyrell screaming and pleading for his life, and you could also hear the police telling him to shut the fuck up and the screams and pleas from Lata. It seemed like it took all day for the ambulance to come and help,” said Ebony

It seems as if the effects of Hurricane Katrina and the brutality and poor treatment of Black people down in New Orleans has opened the “blood gates” for every police force to treat young Black people like shit. The police are now charging Tyrell – who enrolled last winter in the Job Corps training program, gained his California driver’s license and saved money from working a part-time job to buy himself a car to get back and forth to his training – with attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon and resisting arrest.

Witnesses say that the police went around asking people to lie and be witnesses on their behalf, trying to force fear into their hearts. People in low-income Black communities are terrified of the police because they commit murders and break the law every day, yet they wear badges and can legally pack guns and “bully” clubs – murderers with a license to kill.

These people see the police literally get away with murder and attack innocent people throughout the community. They are afraid because they believe that there’s nothing they can do about it, and the police use people’s fear against them.

Amerikkka has been at war with the African American community since the beginning of slavery. Today, instead of slave masters terrorizing them, it’s the terrorist police. Instead of calling it slavery, it’s jail and prison. Instead of using whips and chains, their weapons of choice are “bully” clubs, guns, pepper spray and tasers.

We can’t allow the holice to terrorize our communities and treat us like dogs. It’s time for us to stand up and fight for our lives and the lives of our children. You may not have known Tyrell, but what happens when the holice attacks one of your children or someone close to you?

We’ve swept enough brutality under the door, but it’s time for us to take out the trash. This isn’t the first time they’ve done it and it won’t be the last if we don’t get it together as a community and do something about the way police terrorize our community and the places we call home.

Email Apollonia at apollonian [at] sfbayview.com.

Hunters Point to SFPD: ‘Hold off!’

This month marks the 39th anniversary of the Hunters Point uprising in 1966, sparked by police shooting a 16-year-old in the back. That young man died.

Today in Hunters Point, everyone is talking about police shooting Tyrell Taylor, 18, in the back. They’re comparing it to the “shoot to kill” order against desperate hurricane survivors in New Orleans.

“I was at work, but people started calling me soon after it happened,” said community activist Tenisha Bishop. “They said there were more than 30 witnesses, everybody shouting, ‘Don’t shoot him!’ It was a nice morning, and lots of people were outdoors.

Mesha Irizarry, director of the cop watch group Idriss Stelley Foundation, named for her son, who was shot and killed by police, said that just as the “Peace Zone” event was taking off Friday morning in front of City Hall, one of the participants received a phone call about the police shooting, and shock and horror quickly spread through the crowd.

Tenisha said that Hunters Point was bristling with police all weekend. They said they were searching for guns, but no gun was found.

The Housing Authority police, too, were “all over” during the weekend, she said. They were harassing people “whenever we gathered together to talk about what to do.” Tuesday evening, she said, SFPD officers were going door to door in Tyrell’s building asking witnesses to testify.

Mesha said in an email to Police Chief Heather Fong: “I respectfully urge you to hold off on your department’s rampant intimidation of our neighborhood, in terms of extensive and oppressive questioning of our residents around the shooting.

“Our community is genuinely frightened for Tyrell and his peers … It is a miracle that young Tyrell has survived! God save us from any further homicidal pursuit on our children.”

In a message posted to Indymedia, Mesha observed: “Sadly but not surprisingly the scandal of Tyrell Taylor’s shooting has not been covered by the corporate press.

“The only mention of the occurrence can be seen in the Bayview Precinct (email) newsletter as follows:

‘Aggravated assault on police officer with a gun. 62 Northridge. 10:34 a.m. Bayview Officers were involved in a shooting when a subject attempted to shoot them with a rifle. This is an open investigation involving an officer involved shooting and I can not give any more particulars regarding the incident.”

From all reports reaching the Bay View, the only guns seen by the many eyewitnesses were in the hands of the police. No one reported seeing a rifle.