New Yorkers march for racial justice

Over 400 people came out here April 18 on Racial Justice Day to express their outrage against the infamous brutality of the New York Police Department.

This 10th Racial Justice Day was called “the largest protest against police misconduct since Sept. 11, 2001.” The first Racial Justice Day was called by the National Congress for Puerto Rican Rights in 1993 after the 1991 brutal murder of Manuel Mayi in the Bronx by a white racist gang.

Due to an inadequate police investigation and the failure to identify the incident as a bias crime, not one of Mayi’s assailants has been brought to justice. At the time, one of the suspected killers was an officer of the New York City Housing Authority.

This year’s Racial Justice Day was organized as an emergency response to the April 15 release of former NYPD officer Francis Livoti from a North Carolina prison after serving time for violating the civil rights of Anthony Baez. Livoti killed Baez with an illegal and brutal choke-hold in 1994 after Baez’s football accidentally grazed Livoti’s police car as he played touch football with his brothers near his home.

Livoti was acquitted during his first trial in 1996. In 1998, he was found guilty of violating Baez’s civil rights, sentenced to seven years in prison and fined $12,500.

Traditionally on Racial Justice Day, the surviving family members are spotlighted. At a rally outside City Hall, the mothers of Timothy Stansbury, Nicholas Heyward Jr., Manuel Mayi and Anthony Baez represented their fallen children. City Council member Charles Barron and Bran Fenner from the Police and State Violence Work ing Group of the Audre Lorde Project also brought messages of solidarity.

This year’s Racial Justice Day was the first since the death of key organizer Richie Perez in March 2004. Activist and partner of Perez, Martha Laureano-Perez, addressed the crowd.

Tearful parents talked about the support they had received from Perez and his longtime friend and fellow activist Vicente ‘Panama’ Alba, and credited the two with giving them tools to fight back against the injustices of the police, courts and mayor’s office.

The protesters were predominantly people of color and activists in their twenties or younger. Groups such as FIERCE, Audre Lorde Project, International Action Center, Committees Against Anti-Asian Violence, Malcolm X Grassroots Move ment, Justice Committee, Positive Work Force, El Puente, Desis Rising Up Movement (DRUM), a South Asian organization, and Sistafire, among many others, organized contingents.

The Baez family and the Coalition Against Police Brutality have put out a call to the movement calling for the stepping up of federal investigations into cases of police violence, and the creation of a truly independent Civilian Complaint Review Board with subpoena power to monitor and investigate police brutality and corruption.

CAPB media spokesperson Rickke Mananzula assisted with the writing of this article.