Friday: Press Conference about Police Brutality

Press Conference to Highlight
9TH NATIONAL DAY OF PROTEST TO STOP POLICE BRUTALITY, REPRESSION AND THE
CRIMINALIZATION OF A GENERATION--sponsor of events in 25 + cities

Press Contacts:

Rita Akayama, October 22nd Coalition,
oct22sf [at] energy-net.org, 415 336-2801
http://www.october22.org

Mesha Monge-Irizarry, Mother of Idriss Stelley (killed by SF police,
6/12/2001 at SF Metreon), founder of Idriss Stelley Foundation
iolmisha [at] cs.com 415 595-8251
http://www.justice4idriss.org/

What: Press Conference/Speak Out in Bayview/Hunters Point. 9th National Day of
Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation

Visuals: Large, black Stolen Lives banner that lists names of people who have died at the hand of law enforcement; attendees all dressed in black; signs related to deaths of loved ones

When: 4:00pm Friday October 22nd

Where: 4921 3rd Street (near Palou) San Francisco

Speakers:

Familes Speak Out- Marylon Boyd, Mesha Irizarry and Sandra-Juanita
Cooper, Danny Garcia, Regina Cardenas, Soto family from Richmond, CA, and representatives of other families affected by police brutality.

Individuals and Organizations such as:
-Mona Cadena of Amnesty International,
-Attorney Dennis Cunnigham
-October 22nd Coalition
-Police Watch,
-Samina Faheem (American Muslim Voice)
-Representative of the Day Labor Program
-Yuri Kochiyama (David Wong Support Committee)
-poet Leroy Moore
and others.

This press conference will feature stories from families and loved ones of people
who have been beaten or killed by law enforcement officers or while in custody, and statements from organizations
that are concerned with issues such as police brutality, racial profiling that has expanded to
target Arabs, Muslims and South Asians, and the
criminalization of dissent.


The Stolen Lives Project lists names of people who have died
at the hand of law enforcement in the United States- over 2000 deaths were listed in the
1999 2nd edition of the book Stolen Lives, and researchers are now compiling more
names for the 3rd edition. In New York and New Jersey, researchers now know, over 100 people have been killed by law enforcement since 9/11/2001. Bay Area researchers from the October 22nd Coalition have compiled over 40 names of people who have died in Northern California since 2001.

Nationally on October 22nd, activists will draw parallels between occupation armies
that brutalize, suppress, and illegally dominate countries such as Iraq,
Afghanistan, and Palestine; and police brutality in the US, especially in communities
of color. The opening line of the Call to Action for October 22nd states:

"An occupying army sweeps into a neighborhood, searches all vehicles, harasses and
brutalizing children, and arrests residents in massive sweeps...." This is
describing SFPD and CHP’s siege on San Francisco's Bayview District, seeming retaliation on this community in the wake of the death of SFPD officer Isaac Espinoza.

SFPD: History of brutality
The police brutalized and molested children in front of
their homes on Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday in 2001. When the parents cried
out against it, and demanded to know why, officers did not stop. The San Francisco
police mobilized a riot squad in response to a fight at Thurgood Marshall
High School on October 11th, 2002. When they arrived, the fight had already been
resolved, but thirty or more police officers marched into the school building. They beat
the students with their batons, slammed the youth up against their lockers, and
arrested two students and teacher Anthony Peebles, who was videoing the police's actions. In spite of the passage of Proposition H, the intensity of police brutality
in San Francisco has not diminished. The killing of disabled man Cammerin Boyd in
the Western Addition in 2004 is just one example of this.