Toddler and father killed by police
By
John Parker
Los Angeles
Published Jul 21, 2005 9:18 PM
At the funeral for
19-month-old Suzie Peña, one person summed up the feelings of many who
attended when he shouted in Spanish: “The police are
assassins!”
At the front gate of the car business of Jose Pena in Watts. Inside of the gate Pena and daughter Suzie were killed by police. Neighbors, activists and children decorated the gate with flowers, toys and messages of support and love for the family. Many of the signs call the police "baby killers" nd demand community control of the LAPD.
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Suzie and her father, Jose Peña, were both shot
on July 10 in Watts when the father, with his daughter in his arms, exchanged
gun fire with a Los Angeles Police Department SWAT team, hitting one police
officer in the shoulder. Instead of calming the situation, the police decided
that neither Peña nor his daughter were worth a little more time and
negotiation—which the family was pleading for—and decided to fire on
a desperate man holding a baby and a gun.
Forensics have shown that the
bullet that killed Suzie was fired by the SWAT team—one of 90 rounds the
police blasted at the Peñas. Though the LAPD tried to conceal the
coroner’s report, even Los Angeles Chief of Police William J. Bratton
assumed the LAPD killed the child. He, however, put all the blame on the father,
calling him a “cold-blooded killer,” even though there is no
evidence that Peña killed anyone.
Bratton, on the other hand, has
a long record of police brutality and killings done under his watch in Los
Angeles. And from 1994-1996, when Bratton served as chief of police in New York
City, 75 people were killed by the police there.
Instead of showing
remorse for Suzie’s death, Bratton insulted the grieving Peña
family, saying they were distorting the truth. “This father was not a
father of the year, as the family is now attempting to portray him,”
Bratton said shortly after the tragedy.
Lorena Lopez, Peña’s
wife, has pointed out that the reckless endangerment of life by the LAPD is the
real issue here, and has called for justice in the death of her husband and
daughter.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Lopez and her older daughter
called the police seeking help because they were being threatened by
Peña, who also threatened to kill Suzie. They communicated that he was
under the influence of drugs and alcohol. What they wanted was for the police to
keep their family, especially the baby, safe from harm.
When police
arrived, the family asked to participate in the negotiations with Peña.
But the LAPD SWAT division refused. With an officer hit, they decided instead to
even the score—and then some.
“It’s been cruel
what’s happened to my brother,” German Peña told the Los An
gel es Times. “They didn’t have any patience, none at all, knowing
that my niece was with him, that he was a father.”
This fatal
shooting comes two months after deputies from the Los Angeles County
Sheriff’s Department volleyed 120 bullets into a vehicle at an unarmed man
in a Compton residential neighborhood. Their reason? He failed to stop and was
leading them around the block—-at 35 miles per hour. The driver was struck
four times, and many stray police bullets spray ed into nearby houses.
Local activists point out that this reckless racist police behavior is
not experienced in more affluent neighborhoods, like Beverly Hills, where fewer
Black and Latin@ people live.
Newly elected Los Angeles Mayor Antonio
Villaraigosa has refused to put the blame for the killing of the Peñas
squarely on the police. Instead, he has asked the police chief and the family to
tone down their remarks.
Given the increased police brutality and killings
in South Los Angeles, a much more appropriate response is the loud and militant
demand for justice voiced at demonstrations organized by the family at the site
of the killing.
Many believe an additional important step would be to
fire and then jail Chief Bratton as an accomplice to the numerous killings of
Black and Latin@ people by the police force he heads.
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
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