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Indybay Feature

Another Man Executed by the San Francisco Police.

by JP Massar
On Thursday, April 7th, in the Mission District of San Francisco, a homeless man, Luis Gongora, allegedly "brandishing" a knife, was executed on the street by SFPD.
justice4-alex-amilcar-mario.jpg?14601701There was Alex Nieto. Then Amilcar Perez-Lopez. But it was Mario Woods' firing squad execution in December of 2015 that lit up San Francisco, with politicians, commissioners and police pooh-bahs all pledging to "do something" about use of force policies that amount to nothing less than a license to kill. Anytime. Anywhere. Swearing to implement de-escalation techniques. Claiming they would arm officers with shields so they could deal with people holding knives.

But it was all talk; it's had no effect. Because on Thursday, April 7th, in the Mission District of San Francisco, a homeless man, Luis Gongora, allegedly "brandishing" a knife, was executed on the street by SFPD. The police say he had stood, that he was lunging at them. Witnesses say he was sitting on the ground. Police say he was waving the knife around. Witnesses say the kitchen cutting board knife was on his hip.

There is no known video of the execution per se. There isn't even a picture of the man.

What has been made available, via a surveillance camera, is a clear video of the police cars rolling up, the policemen getting out, one with a bean-bag rifle, and them shouting at the man as they approach him. There's no Youtube video available yet so I can't embed it, but it is available here, and it is only a minute twenty. The first shot occurs as the officers move out of the viewing area, at 00:38. Watch it.

The police claimed (at least initially) that they attempted to de-escalate the situation, but they are lying. The video clearly shows two officers approaching the man, one with a rifle pointed at him, one or both of them shouting at him. This is not a de-escalation technique! Especially when it is not clear that the man a) understands English and b) is not mentally ill or in some kind of altered state).

Then the one with the rifle allegedly fires four bean-bag ("less lethal") rounds at the man to no effect, or so the officers claim. (This is the same kind of weapon that tore a hole in Scott Olsen's skull on October 25th, 2011 in Oakland, CA). Finally, the officers shoot and mortally wound the Gongora (he is taken to the hospital and dies there from his wounds).

They could have de-escalated. They could have stayed where they were. The video clearly demonstrates this. Even the San Francisco Chronicle's police apologist columnist agrees:

First, the concept of "time and distance" when confronting a suspect armed with a knife didn’t happen in this case. The idea is to keep the suspect contained, give him some time to run out of steam, and hopefully defuse the situation.

But video of the incident shows the cops went from leaving their cars to firing beanbag rounds in 25 seconds. Six seconds later, the first shots were fired. That doesn’t look good.

No, Nevius, it NEITHER LOOKS GOOD NOR IS GOOD. They could have tried talking instead of shouting; they could have tried talking to him in Spanish, or waiting for someone to be available to do so. They could have done almost anything other than what they did do, and Luis Gongora might well still be alive. They did not. Because they didn't have any reason to.

The police no longer exist (if they ever did) to protect and serve the public. They make it clear from their statements and their attitudes that their only concern is to protect and serve themselves. Until both the laws regarding extra-judicial murder by cop are changed, and police attitudes are changed, this is not going to stop. The next execution of Alex Amilar Mario Luis Gongora is just an unknown, but certain, number of days in the future.

§Luis Gongora murdered by San Francsico police on April 7, 2016
by surveillance video
Copy the code below to embed this movie into a web page:
video 1:21
§location of the SFPD murder
by street view
800_luisgongora_sfpd_shotwellst_1.jpg
It appears that the camera over the garage between 452 and 450 Shotwell Street in San Francisco is the one that captured the killing.

This image shows the area across the street from the camera that is out of view in the video above, the tree in front of the Jeep here being the same one in the far right of the video.
§SFPD has been harrassing the encampment
by FTP
SFPD Raid Homeless Camp at the Site of Thursday's Police Killing of Jose Luis Gongora
Add Your Comments

Comments (Hide Comments)
by Taxpayer
The cops want tasers. The mayor wants the cops to have tasers. You whack jobs don't. If the cops are using lethal force it's because of you. You have blood on your hands.
by SF Native, Taxpayer & Voter
Taxpayers have had enough of paying $576 million to the killer police to kill us. No lethal force is necessary to stop a person with a knife. We have enough Kung Fu and Karate schools to teach the police how to disarm a person with a knife. The police department needs to be ABOLISHED and the money must be spent on housing the homeless permanently and on social services needed in this city. For more on this latest police killing, see
http://missionlocal.org/2016/04/sfpd-officers-shoot-man-armed-with-knife-in-sf-mission/

For more on deadly tasers, see
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2016/02/05/18782647.php

The fact is, Mr. Gongora was NOT HARMING ANYONE. His knife was in his belt. One witness said he was SITTING ON THE GROUND. The Homeless Outreach people had NO BUSINESS CALLING THE POLICE. They could have asked the other people in the area why Gongora had a knife if they were so concerned. If they do not know Spanish, they could have asked any one of the THOUSANDS of bilingual people in the Mission District to be an interpreter. The Homeless Outreach is an arm of the police.

The police tried to raid the homeless encampment last night, slashing tents WITH KNIVES angry that there were witnesses! This is the behavior of fascist killer thugs, which the police are and always have been. They get paid over $100,000 a year plus benefits including a pension that allows retirement at age 50 with 90% of salary as pension. There were not only human witnesses, there was a camera at the garage. See
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2016/04/10/18785060.php

The homeless crisis has existed in this country since 1980, when Democrat Pres. Carter was in office, and the funding for public housing has decreased as the money for war has increased under Democrats and Republicans.

San Francisco has 147,400 millionaires and 18 billionaires. California has 750,000 millionaire households, all of whom should be taxed by the state government, run by a supermajority Democratic Legislature and Governor, and in San Francisco, a Democratic party mayor and Board of Supervisors, to pay to house the homeless now. Instead they pay for police and prisons.

In Spanish, we say Luis Gongora, Presente (he lives). In his memory, change your voter registration today to the only 2 parties that will house the homeless and put an end to the killer police departments, namely Peace & Freedom Party and the Green Party so we can finally put an end to the viciously reactionary Democrat-Republican Party.

You can register online at:
https://covr.sos.ca.gov/?language=en-US
For more information, see
http://www.peaceandfreedom.org/home
http://www.votepsl.org/ (Gloria LaRiva for President) (Be sure to read her serious socialist program.)
and
http://www.cagreens.org/
http://www.gp.org/
http://www.jill2016.com/ (Jill Stein for President)
by Anybody
The tent that Luis Gongora was living in was knocked down this morning.
Anybody know what happened last night? People had been guarding the tent, and also signing the tent. It was still on the ground, but looked like quickly knocked down.
by Register Peace & Freedom or Green
A photo of Luis Gongora is displayed in the photo with the article:

"Lawful and Awful: The Death of Luis Gongora" by Elizabeth Creely, 4/17/16, in Mission Local at
http://missionlocal.org/2016/04/lawful-and-awful-the-death-of-luis-gongora/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

The article describes the April 13, 2016, Noon, police press conference at the Laborers' Union 261 hall on 18th Street and the anger expressed by the audience at this police publicity stunt.

Every single person opposed to police killings needs to commit themselves to voting only Peace & Freedom or Green, changing their registration now, to run the police state Democrat-Republicans out of town since they will never change since they are committed to the police state so their patrons, the capitalist class, maximizes its profits by terrorizing the workingclass. When you vote for mayor, support the Green Party candidate as that party usually has a candidate for mayor. If all the anti-police state voters did that in the last election, we would have a Green mayor by now and Chief Suhr would be retired. We would also have a serious program to house the homeless. Quite frankly, if there is not enough money to build affordable housing, we should house the homeless in the Class A hotels since we do not need the tourists until after we house the homeless.

You can register online at:
https://covr.sos.ca.gov/?language=en-US
For more information, see
http://www.peaceandfreedom.org/home
http://www.votepsl.org/ (Gloria LaRiva for President) (Be sure to read her serious socialist program.)
and
http://www.cagreens.org/
http://www.gp.org/
http://www.jill2016.com/ (Jill Stein for President)
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