Legalized Terrorism

pstrongHundreds testify at Police Review Commission hearing about the shooting by the police of a young African-American man who suffered from mental illness . /strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/409/photo_1_feature.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Kaponda/p pHer tears were hastened away by the gentle winds as warm rays from the sun dried the eyes of a weeping mother. The crowd whose hands were clasped ringed Mesha Monge Irizarry during a moment of silence to observe the senseless death of her beloved son. The spirit of Idriss Stelley had infused the people with the strength to walk into the presence of The Police Commission and demand that the five members stop the cover-up of his death, request an independent criminal investigation, and a top to bottom review of related police policies as well as concrete changes in police practice./p p “My son is having a party with his ancestors and the angels, so I know he is all right,” stated the courageous mother of Idriss Stelley before a standing-room only crowd and the commissioners at The Police Commission hearing. “But this is no longer about my son. I am not doing this for Idriss. I will now be the voice of the voiceless. I am going to do this for the community. I am not afraid,” stated Irizarry of her plans to enlist in the rank and file of activists who regularly protest civil and human rights violations./p pVan Jones, an attorney with the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights requested the venue of the hearing be moved because the room lacked the capacity to accommodate the swell of activists from community-based organizations, friends and residents of the Bayview Hunters Point District where Idriss Stelley had resided, and many other concerned citizens of the Bay Area. But his request was immediately rejected by Sidney Chan, the president of The Police Commission because “logistics” makes a change of venue difficult. This verbal interplay between Jones and Chan set the stage for a long and emotional evening at The Police Commission./p p “We are here to put the command staff [of the San Francisco Police Department] on notice that the people here today will be joined by more people in the future [to protest civil and human rights violations by police],” stated Jones as Chan asked him to restrain the clamorous crowd which he led through the doors of the Hall of Justice to the threshold of open rebellion. “The people from the Bay Area community have come here to express outrage at the way Idriss Stelley was brutally murdered by the San Francisco Police Department,” added Jones amid the mean mugs of commissioners, police and activists that expressed the degree of hostility between the crusaders of justice and the San Francisco Police Department./p p “We are talking about the Metreon shooting,” stated a cordial Inspector Sherman Ackerson, Public Information Officer for the San Francisco Police Department, during an in-depth discussion about the death of Idriss Stelley. “Obviously, a very tragic incident, I think we all agree, about a person with some mental illness in a theater. I understand he was with his girlfriend and father-in-law, and, obviously, he was suffering with some sort of emotional problem. I understand he had a history of mental illness,” continued Ackerson./p pInspector Akerson stated that “we had heard [that Idriss Stelley had a history of mental illness] in the media,” when he was asked to explain the source of his information. “I am not releasing it from the San Francisco Police Department. I understand from the media that he had a history of some problems or maybe the family had mentioned it,” stated Inspector Ackerson./p pWhile in a theater on Wednesday, June 13th, Summer Galbreath, the girlfriend of Idriss Stelley called the police because Idriss Stelley had undergone a mental health episode or, as his girlfriend explained to the police dispatcher, a “5150.” Eight police officers arrived at the theater and shot Idriss Stelley to death, as he waved a two-inch knife./p p “The police investigator told me he might have been shot ‘to protect the community,’” stated the mother of Idriss Stelley. “Protect the community from whom?” Is the community in need of protection from a tutor at the San Francisco Day Labor Program, or a AIDS volunteer at San Francisco General Hospital? Is the community in need of protection from a chess instructor who taught kids the game, or a tutor at City College? Is the community in need of a graphic artist at the Fillmore Center or a spiritual teacher?” concluded Mesha Monge Irizarry./p p “I know there has been some talk about the size of the knife. I don’t know how big the knife was,” stated Inspector Ackerson when asked if the response by police officers was unusual when confronted by someone waving a small knife. “I think we should wait until all the facts are in. Wait until we find out exactly how big the knife is. Our officers are trained and it is the policy of the San Francisco Police Department to react when they feel that there is a danger of serious bodily injury or death to themselves or to another person, stated Inspector Ackerson.”/p pBut, opinions about the death of Idriss Stelley have already been formed by officers of the San Francisco Police Department./p p “It was a legitimate knife on a full-blown chain used as a weapon to kill,” stated a sergeant of the San Francisco Police Department who spoke with me on condition of anonymity. “This knife posed a threat to the police officers despite their bullet-proof bullets. I was not at the Metreon and did not see the knife, but I absolutely think that he posed a direct threat,” stated the sergeant./p pNinety two percent of the San Francisco police force are not trained to recognize a mental health episode. In fact, the San Francisco Police Department fought fiercely for years against any notion of a police crisis intervention training. The San Francisco Police Department was never clear on specific reasons why a police crisis intervention training was needed. The Department simply did not think training to recognize mental health episodes was necessary, even though one out of every four persons officers come in contact with a person that suffers with mental illness. In fact, a person who has a mental episode has a better chance of winning the Super Lottery than having a police officer dispatched to the scene of the episode because only 24 police out of 2,200 San Francisco Police Officers have completed the training program which was shoved down the throat of the Department by the Board of Supervisors. /p p “My son was diagnosed with depression and was seeking help. He was in therapy at Mission Health, located in the Portreo District,” stated Irizarry./p pThe value of the impact of the contributions that Idriss Stelley brought to his community may never be measured, since his life was denigrated by the bullets of overzealous police officers. But, the death of Idriss Stelley has already put the importance of recognition of mental illness in the spotlight and has begun to affect decisions of further funding of police crisis intervention training./p p “What I am saying is, Yes. We have problems,” stated Inspector Ackerson. “Every time an officer discharges a weapon. Every time an officer kills someone, that is a tragic incident. It is regrettable that officers have to discharge their weapons when they do. And we certainly don’t take any glee in this,” stated Inspector Ackerson. /p p “There is a pattern of abuse and, in this case, killings of persons with mental disabilities by the San Francisco Police Department. It is a long-standing pattern. We are out here because Our organization for the past four years has been working diligently to try to get the Department to deal differently with people who are mentally distressed. We had s huge uphill battle. We knew that what happened to Idriss Stelley could happen given the way that the San Francisco Police Department responds to people who have mental health issues. They respond with violence. Time after time after time,” stated Van Jones when asked about the attitude of the San Francisco Police Department./p pEven the stolid faces of the commissioners were softened during an emotional spoken-word tribute, titled “It was a Warm Night,” to Idriss Stelley by Lisa Gray-Garcia of POOR Magazine’s Po Poets Project . The commissioners sat on the edge of their seats as they listened to a successive stream of representatives from many, many organizations who testified into the night and reminded them of their duty to provide an impartial investigation into the cover-up by the police department of the death of Idriss Stelley and the brutality that usually characterizes police response to a situation. Thaddeus Bordofsky, a medical doctor at the Alameda County Hospital spoke about victims of police officers after they are brought to him./p p“I’ve personally seen at least two or three patients who I felt were brutally beaten by police and qualified as victims of police brutality,” stated Dr. Bordofsky when asked to be more specific. “In particular, there was one patient that I saw who had been brutalized. He was in the custody of another police officer who stated to the patient, ‘You are lucky that I wasn’t there because you would not be able to speak.’ The persons who I have seen have suffered numerous injuries from police officers, including severe pain and emotionally from the terror,” concluded Dr. Bordofsky./p p “This is legalized terrorism as far as I’m concerned,” stated Mesha Monge Irizarry as she prepared to demand an end to the cover-up of the death of her son./p pThe circumstances of the two-inch knife blade, and the bullet-proof vests worn by the officers of the San Francisco Police Department are sufficient to support the claim by Mesha Monge Irizarry made to the commissioners that her son was “gunned down like a pig.”/p pThe testimony by residents and activists went on and on as the spirit of Idriss Stelley lingered in the room like the swish from a flawless shot that brings the crowd to its feet. The commissioners had finally begun to understand that they were no longer listening to the voices of mere mortal people, but the expressions of victims of years and years of police misconduct.br / /p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p