October 22nd Press Release

When: Wednesday, October 22nd

Where:
3pm 24th and Mission (rally)
4pm March to City Hall
5:30 pm City Hall (rally)

(Also, Rally at SF State at 12noon
Rally and Speakout at SF City College at 12:00 in front of CCSF Phelan Campus Police Department, then head to 24th and Mission)

Contacts:
October 22nd Coalition 415 864-5153, oct22sf [at] energy-net.org
Idriss Stelley Foundation Misha at (415) 846-2250 iolmisha [at] cs.com
Bay Area Police Watch (Malaika) 415 malaika [at] ellabakercenter.org

Who:
Families whose loved ones were brutalized or killed by law enforcement
Stolen Lives Walls with pictures and names of people killed by police

Performers and Speakers will include:
Loco Bloco
Brass Liberation Orchestra
Matt Gonzales, President of San Fransisco Board of Supervisors
Jeff Adachi, Head Public Defender
Amnesty International
La Raza Centro Legal
Bay Area Police Watch
Representative of Yes on Proposition H Campaign
CopWatch
October 22nd Coalition
Trent Willis of ILWU Local 10
Susan Quinlan, injured protester from April 7th anti-war protest at
Oakland Docks
American Muslim Voice, Blue Triangle
Former Oakland High student about Spring 2003 interrogation by Secret
Service
PUEBLO (People United for a Better Oakland)

Why:
Police brutality is not just still "an issue," but rather, it has become a
more important issue. Since Sept 11th the police have been given a "green
light" to continue brutalizing people all over the country. Last year we
put out a poster that read "police brutality did not die on 9-11." We
listed over 140 new "stolen lives"-- this was just the tip of the
iceberg. Law enforcement continues to conduct a campaign of terror on
communities all over the country, and the courts and the media go along
with it.

Since October 22nd, 2002, the police have been caught on camera
brutalizing young Donathan Jackson in Southern California, and they were
acquitted. We've seen Cau Thi Bich Tran murdered in her kitchen, vilified
in the press, with her vegetable peeler turned into a "meat cleaver," with
the implication that this police killing was justified! We've heard the
outrageous verdict in the Oakland Riders case--giving a green light to
police criminality and brutality. Just after that, Terrence Mearis was
killed in his sleep by the Oakland police. In August, we saw Jose Padua,
a day laborer, brutalized on Cesar Chavez St. in San Francisco, and
charged with assault with a deadly weapon--the cast on his broken arm!

The work that the October 22nd Coalition does, in mobilizing people to
stand with the families who have loved ones brutalized or killed by law
enforcement, is as important as ever. We want to show the connections to
the overall repressive agenda unleashed since 9-11 --homeland "security,"
the Patriot Act--the police having even more powers; political dissent
being criminalized--with the highest level of the governments behind the
brutal attack by the Oakland police against a peaceful protest and the
Longshoremen in April. Our rally will start in San Francisco's Mission
District. Family members of people who were killed or brutalized by the
police will kick off the event. We will draw the connections to how
racial profiling has been extended to the Arab, Muslim, and South Asian
immigrants, leading to detentions, round ups and deportations. Other
speakers will highlight movements for increased police accountability,
efforts to take the police to justice, and the increasing breadth of the
movement to stop the epidemic of police brutality and repression.