This talk was presented by ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) organizer Malena Hinze on Dec. 15 at an event to raise money for police brutality victims in Los Angeles. ANSWER and the Party for Socialism and Liberation held benefit events in cities across the United States. Click here to read a report from the LA event.
Tonight, we are here to raise money for the struggle against police brutality, racism and for free speech.
The main focus of this event is to raise awareness and funds to support the case of ANSWER activists beaten and
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Once again, the Los Angeles Police Department showed its true racist character when it viciously attacked immigrant rights activists who were protesting against the anti-immigrant Minuteman Project in Hollywood on July 8.
The protest of 300 people was called by the ANSWER Coalition to counter a Minuteman hate march down Hollywood Boulevard, a traditional route for anti-war and other progressive demonstrations. The march was an open attack on the immigrant rights movement that gripped the nation in the previous months.
The Minutemen obtained a permit from the city of Los Angeles to rally and march in Hollywood with their neo-fascist message aimed at undocumented workers and Latino immigrants. They called their gathering a “United States of America March.” Their inflammatory rhetoric is strongly reminiscent of the Ku Klux Klan and American Nazi Party.
Shortly after the Minutemen assembled, three corners of the streets were filled with anti-Minutemen protesters. It was a multi-national, working class demonstration. The majority of the protesters were Latino and African American.
After nearly two hours of peaceful but militant protesting, dozens of LAPD cops in full riot gear instigated a wave of unprovoked police violence—really, a police riot—on the anti-racist crowd. They pushed protesters, jabbed them with batons, and wrestled several people to the ground, while beating them brutally without any cause or concern.
It was a coordinated attack on the protesters, who were simply exercising their free speech rights.
ANSWER activists Jose Villa and Christen Westberry were two of the protesters badly beaten. They were pushed to the ground and clubbed repeatedly by cops as they tried to photograph the police falsely arresting another protester. All of this was captured on video.
The video clearly shows the LAPD beating and slamming a man onto the back of a truck before arresting him. Next, Westberry and Villa are shown walking by the curb to get away from the police riot. They are hit by a cop on a bicycle from the side and propelled onto the sidewalk where five police in riot gear beat them both with nightsticks.
After the first round of brutality, while they are lying on the ground, a racist cop continued to strike them with his nightstick until he is pulled off of the victims by another cop. Villa is then arrested. This outrageous arrest, as with all arrests that day, was without cause
Villa was charged with a felony called “lynching.” It carries the possibility of a long jail sentence. We know that the only people that can ever be accused of “lynching” are the police, but in legal jargon “lynching” means something different. It means, trying to help free someone from police custody. When we watch the video you will notice how ridiculous the charge is. Click here to watch the video.
Villa was booked and held in jail for nearly two days on $50,000 bail. He was released after paying an unrecoverable $5,000 bond. Westberry and Villa both had to go to the hospital to be treated for police baton-inflicted wounds.
As this was happening, the Minutemen gleefully chanted “L-A-P-D,” cheering them on. It was a naked display of police and fascist collaboration. The outraged pro-immigrant crowd stood their ground and defended the demonstration while chanting “Cops and the Klan go hand in hand!” And the anti-Minutemen protest continued.
Organizers with the ANSWER Coalition spoke over a mobile sound system to denounce the LAPD brutality and defend the rights of the protesters to speak out against the Minutemen. The protesters ultimately held their ground until the Minutemen were escorted by the police out of the area.
Press conference and campaign
In response to the police riot, ANSWER held a press conference on July 11, featuring Villa, Westberry, members of the National Lawyers Guild, representatives of immigrant rights organizations and ANSWER organizers. The press conference drew dozens of supporters and around eight major English- and Spanish-language media outlets, including, ABC, NBC, Fox, Telemundo, Unavisión and others.
ANSWER then continued to wage a prolonged political struggle against the LAPD, showing the video of the incident on media outlets and at political gatherings. More than 250,000 people have viewed the video online.
Now, because of the struggle, the charges against Villa have been dropped. This comes on the heels of additional videos of LAPD brutality surfacing on the internet.
But the $5,000 non-refundable bond remains. It has been a financial burden for Villa for months. He was unable to apply for certain jobs while the phony felony charge was pending. We are here today to celebrate that victory and also to raise funds to help cover the costs of this bond and to continue the struggle against police brutality and for free speech.
Because, we know that the charges against Villa aren’t the only thing that should be dropped. The police who beat and
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This is just one of many fundraising benefits that are being held by ANSWER chapters and supporters across the nation to defray the costs of the bond paid to free Villa.
LAPD’s record of brutality
The police beating of Villa and other anti-racist protesters is another attack by the Los Angeles police department. It is a disgraced department with a long history of racist violence against progressive movements and working people, especially African Americans and Latinos. As you know, this incident was caught on tape.
In Los Angeles alone, many others have been caught on tape too.
The most famous police brutality incident is the 1991 horrific beating of Rodney King by three LA police officers. Twenty-four other cops stood by and watched as King was beaten, kicked and shocked by batons and stun guns. The cops who perpetrated this crime were acquitted by a majority white jury in 1992.
Then, in 2004, Donovan Jackson, a 16-year-old African American youth, was punched in the face and slammed onto the hood of a car by an Inglewood police officer while he was handcuffed. We know what happened to Jackson only because a passing tourist with a video camera happened to videotape the incident. The cop who beat Jackson was let off after two mostly white juries failed to reach a verdict.
Just one week before the charges against Villa were dropped, a video of William Cardenas, a young, Latino man, being kneed in the neck and punched repeatedly in the head by LAPD officers surfaced. It was shown widely on media outlets and featured in the LA Times. It is interesting to note that the same LAPD division that beat Villa and the anti-Minutemen protesters are was responsible for the violence against Cardenas.
Just days later, video footage of an African American man being arrested and then pepper sprayed in the face while cuffed and sitting in an LAPD squad car was shown on LA television.
And two days later, a UCLA student of Middle Eastern decent was tasered by university cops six times for not showing his ID. Most of the tasering occurred while he was handcuffed.
These are just some of the incidents we know about because they were captured on video. Countless episodes of these types of attacks go on regularly as “business as usual.” Many times, the victims are not only beaten, but killed.
Like Deandre Bruntson, killed by sheriffs in Compton in 2003 without any cause. Or Gonzalo Martinez, murdered by Downey police in 2002, again for no reason. Or baby Susie Pena, who was 19 month old when LA SWAT officers killed her. Our hearts and solidarity are with the families of these victims. And the struggle to bring justice to these people and these cases of police violence is another reason why we are here tonight.
We also know that police brutality doesn’t only happen here in LA, although the cops here are particularly racist and violent. The same thing happens on a daily basis in African American and Latino communities, large and small, across the U.S.
For example, you only need to scan news headlines to see symptomatic and terrible episodes of police terror in many cities. On Nov. 25, Sean Bell, a 23-year-old African American man, was gunned down by New York City undercover cops on the day of his wedding. The cops did not identify themselves before opening fire on Bell and his two friends, who were leaving a club after Bell’s bachelor party. The cops fired 50 shots at the three youths.
It brought back memories of the 41 NYPD shots that killed West African immigrant Amadou Diallo in 1999.
And in Atlanta, a 92-year-old African American woman, Kathryn Johnston, recently was killed by police after they broke
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We want to express our utmost solidarity with all of these victims, no matter who they are or where they live.
From these incidents, and many less known others like them, it is clear that police brutality against African American and Latino communities is the norm, and not the exception. Such a widespread social issue is not the result of a handful of a few “bad cops,” nor can it be an issue of “misconduct.”
Police are not in communities to solve problems like drugs or crime. They exist to maintain and enforce the continued oppression and exploitation of these communities.
Similarly, police don’t come to protests to protect anti-racist and progressive protesters. This is especially true when the protest is targeting right-wing groups like the Minutemen.
Fascists, politicians and the police have always collaborated to repress movements led by working people and progressives. This collaboration, most pronounced in the KKK, is also true with the Minutemen today.
Last year, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger referred to the Minutemen as “honorable citizens.” Shortly thereafter, the police attacked anti-Minutemen protesters in Santa Ana and Baldwin Park, both immigrant cities near Los Angeles. These attacks were not coincidental, just like the Hollywood police riot was not coincidental. These were planned.
Because police brutality is a preferred form of social and economic control in the United States. It is institutionalized and deeply entrenched in society’s ruling power structures.
From LA’s mayor to the governor to the federal government and every ruling class politician in between, they want to keep working people and oppressed communities down where they are today. They don’t want anyone, especially the most exploited, to rise up and challenge their power.
But, despite overwhelming police repression and their support for right-wing elements, the communities under attack with its allies in progressive movement have always fought back.
This movement staying united and strong minimized the affect of the police attack on the anti-Minutemen protesters in Hollywood. The movement applying pressure to the LAPD is what ultimately got the charges dropped against Villa. And the movement, uniting against racism and police brutality, is what will ultimately put an end to racist violence. We can do it, sisters and brothers.
Tonight, we want to take another step toward keeping that movement alive and thriving. And we want everyone here to help us in supporting our fellow activists who have been attacked and mistreated while they were standing up and fighting against racism on the streets of LA.
Let’s say it together: “No more victims, stop police brutality!”
