Remember ‘66! The police do

Tuesday, April 4, dozens of police responded to what was reported – very briefly – on the news as a hostage situation on Quesada Avenue, at the Bayview YMCA. Later, it was said by one of Bayview’s boys-in-blue, that it was a domestic situation in a home on that block. Yet, Palou and Quesada were both blocked off completely by cop cars, and residents on those avenues were “evacuated.”

Two white negotiators were seen on the corner of Third and Palou talking on the phone to the person who, witnesses say, was the suspect. Meanwhile, news choppers, tanks, SWAT and tactical units, as well as about 20 or 30 uniformed officers made their way back and forth between the two locations – carrying AK-47s. A battering ram was even positioned on top of a waiting vehicle.

But it was all for show.

Although officers claimed to have resolved the situation hours into it, residents recall helicopters and squad cars combing the Bayview for hours – during and after the standoff. Who were they looking for?

A suspect was never seen being led into a squad car. Perhaps, as a witness later reported, he was simply having a mental health episode and had gone off of his meds. His wife was said to have told an officer that her husband might have a gun. Yet no one in the home or on the street was harmed physically or fired on. In fact, no gun was ever found.

Typical.

What is even more strange about this so-called standoff, which lasted for hours, is that all published news, every bit of anything on the web, which was easily accessible the day after, has been removed. In fact, the incident wasn’t even reported in the Bayview Precinct’s weekly Community Update. How strange is that?

Not so strange if you think about it. What I remember most about that brief KRON 4 news flash was the anchorwoman’s words: “We don’t know what, if anything, the suspect has done” and “The suspect may or may not have a gun.”

It was as if even KRON 4 had figured out that every badge that glitters ain’t got a word worth of gold – especially when it belongs to the SFPD.

I believe that this demonstration of police force was more than just procedure – it was practice. If it was something as simple as a “hostage situation,” it is very unlikely that reports of the incident would have been removed from mainstream media web sites – very unlikely.

Being that we in the Bayview are constantly under siege by police terrorism, I think it is very important that we stay on top of these tactical exercises and let SFPD know that we are not target practice or training for the next head buster to enter the Bayview Precinct. We are citizens. We are residents. We are human.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Hunters Point uprising, days that everyone who lived here then will remember forever. Tanks rumbled down Third Street, cops fired into the beloved Opera House and still residents stood their ground. In 1966, one life lost in Hunters Point at the hands of SFPD was too many. HP wasn’t having it!

And we’re not having it now. Who remembers those “riots” that broke out just weeks before the Black Panther Party was born? Come forward; send us your stories. Don’t let this legacy of revolution and of power die. The constant intimidation and terrorism SFPD has inflicted on us has bent us, but damn it, we ain’t broken. Remember ‘66!

Email Ebony at ebonywrites [at] sfbayview.com.

http://sfbayview.com/041906/remember66041906.shtml