Vol. 79/No. 15      April 27, 2015

“It’s important for us to support our union sister in this fight,” said Scott Houldieson, newly elected vice president of United Auto Workers Local 551, addressing an April 4 rally in front of the police station in Calumet, Illinois, demanding the cops who killed 15-year-old Stephon Watts in February 2012 be held accountable.

Danelene Powell-Dickens, Watts’ mother, is a member of the local and a number of her fellow unionists joined the rally. So did members of Service Employees International Union, Teamsters and United Food and Commercial Workers union. Members of the NAACP, Socialist Workers Party and Black Lives Matter also joined in.

“We stand with her and her family in demanding justice for Stephon,” Houldieson said.

In Calgary, Alberta, five cops shot Anthony Heffernan three times in the head and once in the chest after they broke into his motel room March 16. When Heffernan, who was battling drug addiction, opened the door holding a lighter and a syringe, they used a Taser and then shot him. Motel staff had called the police after Heffernan failed to check out and didn’t respond when they tried to talk to him through the locked door.

“In no way was this a high risk situation for five police officers,” said Pat Heffernan, Anthony’s father, at an April 4 rally of 100 called by watchdog group Cop Block. “We do not have a just society if police can come to a wellness call and act like this.”

Heffernan was a journeyman electrician. Fellow electricians and members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers joined the rally.

Several dozen opponents of police brutality gathered March 22 outside the former home of Errol Chang in Pacifica, California, to mark the one-year anniversary of his killing by cops.

Chang suffered from bipolar disorder and paranoid schizophrenia. He suffered a psychotic breakdown March 18, 2014, and barricaded himself in the house. Family members sought the aid of police. During a six-hour standoff with the cops, Chang attempted to surrender.

“In the old days they used to chain up the mentally ill, torture them, shock them,” Dolores Piper told the rally. Her nephew Derrick Gaines was killed by police in nearby South San Francisco two years earlier. “We should be way beyond that now. But no, we just outright shoot them down. So many mentally ill people are shot by the cops.”

In Los Angeles 200 people joined friends and family members of many of the estimated 617 people killed by cops in Los Angeles County since 2000 in an April 7 “Remember Me” march. The action was organized by the new STOP Police Violence coalition.

Protesters converged on the offices of District Attorney Jackie Lacey and the County Board of Supervisors from four different starting points.

“We have to show we are not giving up. We are fighting for our rights,” Melissa Macias, a high school student, told the Militant. She was at the action for Eduardo Bermuda, a family friend shot by cops last November.

R.V. Smallwood in Chicago; Katy LeRougetel in Calgary, Alberta; Mark Shaeffer in Pacifica, California; and Wendy Lyons in Los Angeles contributed to this article.


Related articles:
‘Cold-blooded killing’ in SC fuels outrage, protests
Cop who shot Walter Scott arrested, fired
‘Solidarity is strengthened by social struggle’
Join growing fight against cop brutality
 
 
 
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