Police Accountability

Jesse Rodriguez: We Must Fight So Our Families Can Live

Here to Lead · November 10, 2020 ·

Southern California

“On November 13, 2014, a Bakersfield police officer shot and killed my cousin James.”

“I’d seen police shootings in our community for years before James lost his life. But like many people, I turned a blind eye. What could I do? The problem seemed so much bigger than me.

“With James’s death, it was different. By then, I had a family of my own; the father of six. Gordo – our nickname for James – was my kids’ role model, the kind of adult I hoped my children would grow up to be.

“James worked hard to improve his life, getting healthier and losing 189 pounds in the months before his death. He didn’t live long enough to enjoy his hard work.

“When a loved one is murdered by the police, it’s an open wound you don’t heal from. The trauma doesn’t only affect close family members, it affects everyone around you.

“I had to show my children we couldn’t sit back and let this injustice stand. I was tired of feeling unsafe in my own community.

“I joined the STOP Coalition chapter in Bakersfield. The coalition is a statewide, family-led grassroots organization working to end police violence. Every Friday at 5pm, we protested outside the police department, calling for justice for James. As we got more organized, we started an annual walk for justice to remember loved ones lost to police brutality.

“We knew police brutality was affecting Black and brown families across the state and the data shows it. In California, even though 6.5 percent of the state’s residents are Black, 19 percent of those injured or killed by police are Black. And while Latinos comprise 40 percent of the state’s residents, nearly 47 percent of those injured or killed by police are Latino.

“We got in touch with groups in Oakland, Sacramento, and Los Angeles to learn about their efforts and support each other. I got involved with the statewide Let Us Live campaign to ensure no other family has to go through losing a loved one at the hands of the police.

“For the past several months, we’ve been fighting for the passage of AB 392: The California Act to Save Lives, to secure police accountability at the state level and change how police interact with us in all of our communities.

“Introduced by Assemblymember Shirley Weber (D-San Diego), AB 392 updates the state’s use of force laws to hold police officers accountable and encourage officers to avoid using deadly force at every possible opportunity. This law sets one of the toughest standards in the nation, strengthening police scrutiny at the state level.

“Our campaign brought together families and advocates all around California to fight for justice and accountability for our communities.

“It was not an easy fight. I learned a lot about the political process as I saw our original bill get modified to fit Sacramento’s political realities. But, our efforts paid off.

“In August 2019, Governor Newsom signed AB 392 into law. I along with dozens of families and advocates, including the Let Us Live campaign and the Alliance of Boys and Men of Color, joined the Governor to mark this historic moment.

“While I am hopeful about AB 392, and proud of showing my children what it looks like to stand up for what you believe in, our struggle is not over. Until we finally get true justice, and officers are held accountable for their actions, we still have a long road.

“When I see our local police, I see a missed opportunity. I remember as a kid, we used to rely on the police for everyday help. We treated them as valued partners in the community.

“Now, as parents, we have to teach our kids to be careful when they interact with a cop. We have to have ‘the talk’ and explain the cost of not following our instructions may be paid with their life.

“This sends the message that our young people don’t belong in our communities. We have to tell a different story. I want to share the story of the STOP Coalition and the Let Us Live campaign to show that communities of color are making a difference, and our hard work can pay off.

“I’m staying involved in struggles for justice, for my children and grandchildren. I want them to have the future that James couldn’t. We owe it to Gordo and so many others like him, to show up and fight for our loved ones and neighbors.”

Jesse Rodriguez is an active member of the STOP Coalition chapter in Bakersfield and the statewide Let Us Live campaign in California. His cousin James de la Rosa was killed in a police shooting in Bakersfield in 2014.

Resources

ABMoC AB392 Campaign
Anti Terror Police project

Michael Muscadine: Helping Young People Find Their Power—and Their Voice

Here to Lead · November 10, 2020 ·

Northern California

“We used to call it the Urban City Rez when I was growing up. We had people like me from the Crow Nation, Sioux Lakota, Apache Pomo California natives, and Navajo tribes. All the different tribes. We all came together in the Fruitvale District in Oakland in the 80’s and early 90’s.

“But in the last couple decades, a lot of families got pushed out because of gentrification. My family is one of the last of the original families in the neighborhood who still own our home. People I knew and grew up with were evicted, or they just had to move. The Native American population here has gotten very small. And for those who are left, there’s always tension with new neighbors who’ve moved in. They are always calling law enforcement on young people for just hanging out.

“I work for Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice. The acronym is CURYJ – we pronounce it “Courage.” We do a lot of work with young men and women of color in the community, including many Native young men and women like the friends I grew up with. My family has deep roots in the community, with five generations in Oakland. This gives me a lot of privilege in working with folks who are impacted by gang and police violence because it makes it easier to relate. We try to reach out to young people who tend to get left behind – the ones teachers are calling the police on, the ones who get tagged by the system as the ‘worst of the worst.’

“I can relate to these young people because I was in their shoes not too long ago. I got profiled and targeted as one of the Norteno Gang Injection in the Fruitvale District, and what was known as the Mexican/Chicano area of East Oakland. That was during the time of the gang injunctions in California, when you could be arrested for just hanging out and doing nothing. CURYJ was one of the organizations that fought and won the fight against gang injunctions, and that’s one of the things that got me involved.

“My grandfather always told me about who I am and where I’m from. He made the Native American traditions come alive for me. He taught me how our communities have been fighting for dignity and respect for hundreds of years. That’s why I am so focused on helping Native young people connect to their heritage through CURYJ. We have ethnic studies programs, we organize sweat lodges, and we try to educate people so they learn to be proud and feel like they are part of their tribe.

“I also work with a lot of other young people from different cultures. Whether they are African American, Southeast Asian, Mexican or Chicano, at CURYJ we help people find their voice, learn about their history, and get in touch with their roots. And it’s all so they can move forward and be proud of who they are.

“Looking to the future, I want to see more of our young people of color getting more involved in the policy process. I learned how important that is when I was working with CURYJ to pass Prop. 57, which ended the process where prosecutors could arbitrarily file a minor’s case in adult court. We went around registering voters and building support in the community. And, when they tried to bring stop-and-frisk to Oakland, we stopped it. Those were big wins for us, and they happened because people used their power and their voice.

“And now there is so much more we have to do. We need to make it so people and families can stay in their communities. We need young people to be safe from profiling, whether it happens in the community or in school. We need to end mass incarceration and put the money into creating jobs and opportunities for young people.

“CURYJ is working for all of these things and more. When I walk out my door in the morning, I feel like I am already at work even though I am not in my office. Just being in my community and talking to people and offering them whatever hope and support I can – that makes me feel good.

“We talk about helping young people dream beyond bars. That’s what this work is about. We need to help young people connect with their past, present and future. I’ve seen what happens when we do this, and it’s a powerful thing.

Michael Angelo Muscadine is a cofounder and senior life coach with Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice (CURYJ) in Oakland.

Resources

Youth Leaders of Today Hold the Key to a Better Future

Here to Lead · November 10, 2020 ·

Northern California

“Young people will be the leaders of our future, so why not start now?”

Tell us about yourself – where you grew up, what shaped you into the person you are today?

I consider myself very fortunate. I grew up in Oakland in a Caribbean family that was never wealthy, but never poor. My parents are really responsible for setting up my foundation and priorities. My mom, who is currently the assistant district attorney in Alameda, has always worked in law and has always known that the criminal justice system in this country is skewed. Her motivation for becoming a lawyer came from wanting to change the system from within. She graduated from UC Berkeley at 19 and is the one who taught me about working hard and to speak up for what I believe in. My dad, who was a professional swimmer taught me about dedication and discipline from his experience in professional sports. Splitting my time between my parents in the Laurel District and East Oakland, I went to private school the majority of my life and surrounded myself with like-minded friends, including Akil. He was the co-organizer of the protest, and we have known each other since we were four. We had a lot in common: we were both Black, heavily into sports and academics and loved history, politics and the arts. It was the desire to tell the untold stories of people of color and Black people that lay the ground for my love for the arts.

How do you define leadership? Civic engagement? How do you see those connected to the protest you organized?

Both leadership and civic engagement are tied directly to the act of protest. With any action, you have to have people engaged, and be able to get across what you need. There is no protest without some sort of civic engagement. In terms of leadership: a leader is someone who cares. You can’t have strong opinions or tell people what to do unless you care about them, and respect them as much as they respect you.. Akil and I genuinely cared about the cause. We told ourselves the day after we put out the flyer that even if it’s just the two of us, we’ll still march because we care about the people who listened to us. Throughout the process, we made sure that every single person felt safe and felt heard.

Why is the leadership of youth of color so important in this moment?

When we are talking about the youth – youth of any race – we have to remember that they are the future. Young people will be the leaders of our future, so why not start now? Elders always have to pass on the torch. For youth of color, and particularly Black youth, this is our cause. Just like the Black Panthers of Oakland fought for their rights, we have to fight for ours. We know what we want. Even if it is someone who is in their 30s protesting, they’re protesting for what they want, but if it’s Black youth like me that want something different, we have to speak up. You can do whatever you put your mind to and make a difference at any age.

What’s your vision for Black youth, for boys and men of color? For our state?

I want to see respect. Black men and Black people in this country, and in some parts of the world, are not respected as humans. I want to see respect from the outside in, and see respect within Black community. When I see us get the respect we deserve, I know that we’ve achieved our vision.

What demands do you have for community leaders, or policy makers? What do you want other young people to know?

Policies around policing in Alameda County need to change. When I say defund the police, I don’t mean to disband the police, but to give the excessive funds that go to police to build up the community so police are not needed in the first place. There can be a specialized group that is specifically trained for high-stake situations, and trained for much longer than they are now, but using the police as a militarized force to solve any issue that may arise needs to change. Currently, police are targeting people who are a products of their own environment. For example, a lot of low-income, Black communities don’t have access to stable housing, quality education, family-sustaining wage jobs, or mental health programs. And when someone grows up in this type of community, and are policed on top of that, of course you are going to have problems. We don’t see police presence in predominantly white neighborhoods like Piedmont, where people have access to all those things, because people have what they need to be happy and thrive.

I also want to make clear that the way I choose to protest and show my pain may be different to other people’s. I have no opposition to the rioting or looting because it’s people showing their pain. I show my pain through my words. I want to make sure that people know that the protests we organized were not truly peaceful. The media made it out to be as such, but, while it was non-destructive, it was not peaceful because we were not at peace – we were mad, hurt and angry.

Xavier Brown is in the acting program at UCLA and an Oakland native. He co-organized the Oakland Tech youth march in response to the recent murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and the numerous Black lives that have been lost to police violence. The protest saw more than 15,000 attendees.

Resources:

How 2 Oakland students got 15,000 people to march against police violence on Monday
Anti Police-Terror Project’s Defund OPD
Black Organizing Project: The George Floyd Resolution

Q&A with Amir Casimir: #StudentsDeserve Police-Free Schools

Here to Lead · November 10, 2020 ·

Southern California

“I defined it differently before and after I turned 18. Before I was of voting age, I looked at it as educating myself and learning about policies that can impact me and my community. After I turned 18, civic engagement and the role that I can play look different because I can vote.”

Tell us about the community you grew up in. How has it shaped the vision that drives your work?

I grew up in Inglewood, California, and was lucky to always be surrounded by people who look like me. This gave me a strong sense of community, while also realizing, from a very young age, that there was a lot of unnecessary stigma towards folks who look like me through policing. Once I started attending Inglewood High School, I started learning more about social and racial justice. From there, the journey into advocacy with other Black students and students of color came naturally for me.

How did you get involved in being a youth leader as part of the Brothers Sons Selves coalition and the Social Justice Learning Institute (SJLI) and fighting for police free schools?

I was only 12 or 13 when I got involved in the SJLI and the Brothers Sons Selves Coalition. Starting in middle school, I was involved in a public health fellowship program that focused on health inequities in communities of color. The fellowship made me comfortable in using my voice and the opportunity to engage in civic leadership in different ways. At the end of that program, my mentor, David Turner from the Brothers Sons Selves Coalition, encouraged me to go to Sacramento to testify and speak truth to power about the inequities I was working to change.

My background in public health connected directly to my work and advocacy to decriminalize our schools. Our society ignores how influential living conditions can be on other aspects of our lives. Not having access to healthy food or safe housing, for example, can impact how someone shows up at school. When I got to high school, I started seeing police intimidating Black students for just standing and congregating in one place. That’s not what our students need. What schools and students need are mentors, fellowships, and connections – to be surrounded by folks that look like you and can relate to you, not police.

How have you been involved with the organizing around police free schools in LA? What is the call to action to school districts and local officials when it comes to police free-schools?

When school closures happened at the beginning of the pandemic, I was part of the Brothers Sons Selves Coalition’s push for police free schools and the efforts to reduce LAUSD’s police budget. Additionally, with schools not being in session, I wanted to be part of that organizing during my downtime. I reached out to the local BLM chapter and worked with their cohort to start putting together a list of demands, which later became #StudentsDeserve. The demands included ICE and police-free food distribution centers, end the use of pepper spray in schools, conduct graduation ceremonies for students and mandatory passage of classes for seniors to ensure that students still had a fair and just education experience during a pandemic.

Even with some of this progress, it does not feel like youth of color are safe anywhere. Recently, a young Black man was murdered close to my school. He was shot 29 times by LAPD. It makes you think that there are no safe spaces. If someone can walk down the street and get shot, why would someone think they are safe in a school that is flooded with police? Our society has a problem with the way we think about youth, and particularly youth of color. If our school system is so scared of young people that they need police presence, it is time to either rethink our schools or the role of police.

How do you define civic engagement and why, particularly in this moment, is it so important?

I defined it differently before and after I turned 18. Before I was of voting age, I looked at it as educating myself and learning about policies that can impact me and my community. After I turned 18, civic engagement and the role that I can play look different because I can vote. Now, I do more research and am more intentional about my voice. It is easy to be in a classroom and learn about issues in our society, but now it is about applying that and continuously educating folks of how they can go beyond just voting to make a difference.

What does leadership mean to you and how does that show up in your work? Why do you feel like it’s important to support the leadership and voice of boys and men of color?

Leadership is a two-way street. You need to be able to lead while lifting up everybody in the room and their voice. Everyone is a leader in their own right and leadership should not be centralized to one person. A leader should be open to criticism, hearing other perspectives and representing those that put their trust in them. Folks think about different things in different ways.

More importantly, boys and men of color are not a monolith – each person has their own perspective and an individual way of doing things. This moment has given a lot of people initiative, so we need to make sure that individual voices are heard and magnified. It’s our moment, but we must also acknowledge what this moment has different meaning for each individual.

What do you think is the opportunity in this moment to reimagine communities and schools without police and community safety?

I don’t think I need to explain why I don’t want Black people getting killed. It’s not complicated. They look like me. When we reimagine safety, we need to acknowledge that it’s happening to real people – this is someone’s uncle, son, best friend – it’s not someone random. It is ridiculous that there are police in schools, but the fact that they are shows how incredible of a force police are in our cities. If we have a system of policing that is supposed to be protecting people and providing safety, but is instead cutting lives short, we need to ask “why” does this system continue to exist, and is it functioning correctly.

What advice would you give to other young people of color around civic engagement and leadership? Why is it so important that youth get involved?

Your voice matters more than anything.

Amir Casimir is a youth leader at Inglewood High School, the Social Justice Learning Institute (SJLI) and, most recently, as part of the Brothers Sons Selves coalition. He has testified on behalf of his community in Sacramento and across the state, and worked with the Alliance for Boys and Men of Color to speak out about gentrification in his community.