Trial starts for Somerville 5

Supporters held a picket line and news conference on June 7 at the start of the trial for Isiah Anderson and Calvin Belfon, two of the defendants known as the Somerville 5, to demand that all charges be dropped immediately.

African-American Boston City Coun cilor Chuck Turner’s statement to the news conference read, “Justice demands that all charges against the Somerville 5 be dropped immediately. None of the youths should ever have been indicted, and the fact that it has gone as far as a trial is an outrage and a travesty of justice.

“Police brutality and racial profiling in the Boston area and around the country is at epidemic proportions. The Somerville 5, Black youth, were victims of racial profiling and police brutality and gang profiling when they went to Medford, Mass., to attend a carnival on April 20, 2005. They were beaten, maced and called racist names by 10 white police officers.

“These young men were good students and accomplished athletes at Somerville High School with no prior records, but were suspended from school by officials who found them ‘guilty until proven innocent.’ Cases like the Somerville 5 show the lengths that police and DAs will go to criminalize youth of color and feed them into the prison system.”

The jury trial is expected to continue through June 14. Supporters have been attending the trial on a daily basis to demand justice for the Somerville 5.

—Phebe Eckfeldt