Guatamalan Immigrant Killed By Los Angeles Police
September 9th, 2010
Today on KPFK, local Pacifica station, they were interviewing an activist who went to a community meeting last night to try to come up with an action plan regarding the shooting of Manuel Jamines. She said no resolution was made. I am not sure if she was talking about the meeting with the Police Chief or another meeting. Below are several local sources for information on the subject. It seems police murder of minorities with knives is becoming an epidemic. One witness who does not want to be identified claims that Manuel did not have a knife.
"PSL demands justice for Manuel Jamines,
Immigrant worker killed by LAPD
Statement issued by the PSL in Los Angeles
The Party for Socialism and Liberation condemns unconditionally the LAPD for the murder of Manuel Jamines, a Guatemalan immigrant day laborer and father. We send our sincere condolences to his family, neighbors and friends.
The LAPD claims it was called to the scene on Sunday, Sept. 5 because Jamines was allegedly drunk in public and had a knife. The LAPD is highly trained in "non-lethal" tactics, yet their first response was to shoot Jamines twice in the head. While the police version of events is in question—some witnesses said Jamines had no knife at all—there is no question that Jamines did not deserve to die. The cops killed Jamines on a busy street corner in the immigrant Westlake neighborhood near downtown Los Angeles.
The killing ignited a firestorm of justified anger in the Guatemalan immigrant community. As hundreds protested the killing on two successive nights, cops beat and arrested over 20 people and fired rubber bullets indiscriminately, leaving many bloodied on the ground. The LAPD, along with the LA Times, tried to blame the protesters for the police violence against them.
It is the same argument that LAPD brass and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa made after Jamines was killed—they said that his death was somehow his fault. They presented the facts as though the cops had no choice but to shoot him at close range. This is what they are still saying, although, in a clear response to the community uprising, now the top cops and politicians are emphasizing the need for a "thorough investigation."
To the police and their media apologists, maximum violence, including murder, is perfectly fine if carried out by the LAPD, but any violence or fight back by oppressed people is an obvious crime. This false view turns reality on its head. The Guatemalan community did not buy it for a moment.
Organize and fight back
Last night, Sept. 8, the LAPD held a "town hall" meeting. It did not go as the police planned. It was a clear effort to pacify the community anger. But LAPD Chief Charlie Beck was booed loudly by the crowd of 300 community members. He was forced to stop speaking several times as people yelled "justice" and called the police "assassins" and "killers" in Spanish. The Associated Press and other major media outlets covered the meeting.
PSL member and community activist Marcial Guerra spoke at the event (see the photo above), railing at the police for their assassination of Jamines. "You will not quell the anger of our community with your lies and false promises. These racist killings, police raids and attacks on immigrants must end. The officers who assassinated Jamines must be brought to justice now," Guerra said to massive applause. Other community members spoke out bravely against the cops during the meeting as well.
After the town hall meeting, hundreds of people gathered again where Jamines was killed, and the cops launched another unprovoked attack on the crowd by firing concussion grenades and rioting, chasing people in the now heavily militarized area.
The brutally excessive use of force by the LAPD on oppressed people, like Jamines, is the norm, not the exception. This is the case not only in Los Angeles, but in poor communities across the country. It is not a case of just one or two "bad cops" or the result of "unfortunate mistakes."
Cops are not in communities to solve problems or protect people. They exist to enforce the exploitation of the poor and protect and preserve the capitalist state. Police brutality is a preferred form of social and economic control in the United States.
The officers responsible for the death of Manuel Jamines should be fired, arrested and held without bail, and tried for murder. This is how anyone else—other than a cop—would be treated by the capitalist state. But this will not happen on its own or after the LAPD's sham investigation.
In this case, the killer cop is a repeat offender. LAPD officer Samuel Hernandez, who killed Jamines, has been put on forced leave twice before for shooting other people. But cops get promoted and rewarded for using deadly force, while their victims get branded as criminals.
The only way there will be justice for Jamines, his family, and the community is if we organize together and demand it. For our part, the PSL will continue to work with the Guatemalan community and grassroots organizations to win this fight.
Stop police violence! Jail killer cops! Justice for Manuel Jamines!"
This is from the LA Times Opinion Page
"Chief Beck's challenge
Every LAPD chief, it seems, is tested by crisis. The shooting death of a day laborer is shaping up to be that test for new LAPD Chief Charlie Beck.
September 10, 2010
Sooner or later, every chief of the Los Angeles Police Department is tested.
For Chief Bernard C. Parks, the aftermath of the police brutality and corruption scandal in the Rampart Division was such a test. For Chief William J. Bratton, the May Day 2007 melee in MacArthur Park, and the shooting deaths of 13-year-old Devin Brown and 19-month-old Suzie Pena, provoked crises. For Chief Charlie Beck, the shooting of Manuel Jamines, a Guatemalan-born day laborer who police say was wielding a knife, is shaping up to be his first such test. Like his predecessors, Beck will be called on to find the right balance between crime-fighting and community relations, and to steer the evolving LAPD through the complicated politics of L.A.'s multilayered racial and ethnic cultures.
Beck is no newcomer to such crises. As captain of the Rampart Division, he worked closely with business owners and residents to restore confidence after the scandal. Under his leadership, MacArthur Park was reclaimed after the fracas there, and a gang-plagued drug market was transformed into a safe community resource.
That history did not help him, however, as he addressed an angry throng at John H. Liechty Middle School on Wednesday night. He was booed, denounced as the protector of a killer and as a chief of assassins. In response, Beck promised a fair and transparent investigation that would determine whether the shooting was within departmental policy. It was the right message, no doubt, but his words struck a clinical, dispassionate note to a crowd shouting for justice. To them, Beck did not seem to be addressing the fundamental question, which was not whether the shooting was justifiable according to the rules, but whether it was just.
Still, Beck's assurance is important, because many questions about the incident remain: Was Jamines threatening or attacking passersby? Did he menace police officers with a knife? In the 40 seconds Beck says they had to make a decision, could officers have made one that did not involve deadly force?
Even when those questions are answered, there will be grievances that go far beyond the shooting. One woman in Wednesday's audience tried to explain to the chief the conditions that force mass migration from Guatemala and El Salvador. Another begged Beck not to deport people arrested in the upheaval. Several residents spoke bitterly about racial profiling, and, after the session, others talked of an anti-Latino mood in California and nationwide that frightens them, and about soaring joblessness and economic desperation.
Wednesday's gathering brought little satisfaction to either side. But Beck will have other opportunities to improve the dialogue. In one of Los Angeles' most familiar rituals, officials assured the crowd that before the case was closed, there would surely be other such community meetings.
Copyright © 2010, Los Angeles Times
Local ABC affiliate abc7.com has stated that a band of Anarchists joined the protests. Their website has a photo gallery of the protests.
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/gallery?section=news/local/los_angeles&id=7657984&photo=1
CBS affiliate is calling it outside agitators stirring the pot.
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/
On their website they have this AP story.
"LAPD Protesters Plead Not Guilty
September 9, 2010 3:06 PM
Man Watches As Police Put Out Fire
LOS ANGELES (AP) —Two Los Angeles men have pleaded not guilty
to illegally setting a fire during a violent protest over the
police shooting of a knife-wielding man.
The city attorney's office says 24-year-old Carlos Garcia and
25-year-old Fernando Aguila entered pleas Thursday to two
misdemeanor charges each.
If convicted, they could each face up to
180 days in Los Angeles County jail and a $1,000 fine.
Both men have been released from jail and authorities did not
immediately know whether they have obtained lawyers.
Prosecutors claim the pair lit a bonfire and threw wood on the
blaze Monday night in the first protest of the shooting of
37-year-old Manuel Jamines on Sunday.
Police and the mayor have defended the actions of an officer who
responded to a report that a man was threatening people with a
knife.
(© Copyright 2010 The Associated Press.)
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