“I would like to see those cops be fired and put in jail,” Norma Martínez, Gonzalo’s mother, said at the rally outside the police station. The district attorney has refused to file charges against Brian Baker and William Kutz, the cops who killed Martínez. An appeals court judge recently asked that the cops be given immunity, which would bar the family from suing the police.

“How can they justify immunity?” demanded Norma Martínez. “It’s only a gang—the police, the DA, and the rest.” She noted that although there are two videotapes of the cops killing her son, the police are allowing people to view only one of them.

The Martínez family has refused to give up their fight, organizing several protests over the last two years to demand justice in the killing of their son. They have also made the case known in Argentina, where it has received significant television coverage. The family has reached out to other victims of police brutality, some of whom took part in the February 15 protest.

Javier Quezada, Sr., told protesters how the Pasadena, California, police gunned down his son, Javier Quezada, Jr., in a hospital parking lot Jan. 23, 2003. The 22-year-old was suffering from depression and his parents had taken him to the hospital. “He was not violent, he needed help,” Quezada said. Instead, a cop arrived. “He first shot my son four times. [Quezada] ran to get away and fell, and the cop shot him lying on the ground.” The youth tried to stand, fell to his knees, and was shot again in the face, just a few feet from where his parents stood.

Quezada brought posters that he had drawn depicting these events, which had been used at a protest outside the Pasadena police station a few weeks earlier, on the anniversary of his son’s death. As in the Martínez case, the district attorney refused to prosecute the cops. The police “kill people like they kill animals, and that isn’t right,” Quezada said. “I’ve worked here 30 years, pay taxes, and look what we’re getting.”

Idalia Campos came to the rally with a poster demanding justice for her son, José Juan Campos. He has been in prison for five years, since he was 23, serving a 50-year sentence on frame-up charges of murder. Campos turned down a plea-bargain offer, insisting he was innocent, “but the detective lined up a bunch of witnesses” for the trial, his mother said.

Sylvia Ramirez, a 21-year-old student at Cerritos College, was one of many neighbors of the Martínez family who joined the march. Her brother was a friend of Gonzalo Martínez. Since his death, she said, “I’ve tried to come to the protests and invite other people to come.”

Other participants in the march and rally included members of the Brown Berets, Socialist Workers Party, students active in the October 22 Coalition, and the Aztec Dancers, who led the march with dancing and chants.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home