SAN FRANCISCO
Racist cops beat children
By Bill Hackwell
San Francisco
While young people in the predominately African American Bay
View Hunters Point neighborhood here were enjoying the Martin
Luther King holiday this year, the San Francisco Police
Department arrived to demonstrate that racism and racist
profiling is alive and increasing in this community.
Four children--two girls and two boys, aged 12 to 14--were
held at gunpoint and beaten by the cops. The four were then
handcuffed and pushed to the ground. The male cops are also
accused of sexually groping the two girl victims. Police gave
no "reason" or excuse for this brutal harassment, which has
left the Bay View community outraged and determined to get
these cops off the streets.
Susie McAllister, the mother of one of the brutalized
children, said, "If a parent were accused of doing these things
to her child, she would immediately lose access to the
child."
Meanwhile, all the cops involved remain on the streets.
Many of the parents feel they can't wait around for a
lengthy investigation. Already several town hall meetings have
taken place.
On Feb. 27, more than 100 people from the Bay View community
and their supporters showed up at the so-called "Hall of
Justice." After a brief picket line to expose this outrageous
incident of racist police brutality, the demonstrators marched
inside. They disrupted a Police Commission meeting that was
taking place, demanding that these cops be relieved of their
duties because they pose a dangerous health risk to the
children of the Bay View community.
Reprinted from the March 14, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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