[HPN] San Diego: PROTEST Police Shooting War On Homeless & Poor People FWD FWD

[Tom Boland]

FWD 12 Feb 2000 from Doc at San Deigo's street newspaper Street Light
Please CC REPLIES TO: Ron "Doc" Sills <jusprobono@aol.com>

FROM THE MEAN STREETS OF SAN DEIGO [California, USA]

Today, on the corner of Imperial and 25th Streets, in front of a new police
substation the Committee Against Police Brutality gave voice to their
concerns about the past history of the San Diego Police Force's use of
brutality against the poor and the homeless. Assembled on that corner was a
diverse crowd representing the homeless community, the black community, the
Latino community and the white community.  Citizen or resident alien alike,
we all have one constant in our lives, the Constitution is supposed to
protect us all.  Some of the acts and deeds surfaced today at this
demonstration indicate that not all of those with the "Gold and the Guns"
share that common love of constitutional protections. Family members of
victims were there to tell of their loss and treatment. The crowd was adamant
in its call for a community elected independent police review board with the
mandate and power to refer for prosecution acts that are indeed criminal.

It does not matter if the criminal was in uniform at the time of the offense,
we do not sanction lawless activity of soldiers and sailors, we have a
mechanism that is in place to prosecute them. The current review system in
San Diego is a flawed one and has seen a zero percent of referrals for
prosecution of police officers who engage in brutal acts or the improper
taking of a life. In Sacramento they have a "must prosecute" policy for bad
check-writers, the leap in logic for a must review-for-prosecution policy is
not hard to make. It should be conducted by an independent body of citizens,
one not beholden too the city or county, one not afraid to make the difficult
decision in an appropriate case.

The Police Chief had to cut short his trip to Hawaii on this shooting.
Perhaps his attention should be focused here in San Diego for a while, it
seems they need his guidance.  It would also appear that his officers surely
need some sensitivity training regarding homeless citizens in this
jurisdiction. StreetLight's "Homeless Challenge" still stands for politicians
and now police officers, leave the wallet, ID and gun behind and join one of
our staff members or another homeless person on the street for a minimum of
24 hours, see it from our perspective and hopefully you will "see" life as
William Anthony Miller did before his life was taken from him.

Ron "Doc" Sills
StreetLight Research Technician
4138 Fairmount Avenue
San Diego, CA 92105
619-528-0407
619-528-0409 fax
drydoc@justice.com
jusprobono@aol.com

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