There will be no formal charges, since the district attorney cleared the four officers. But a street theater protest determined otherwise
By Lisa Geduldig
MARCH 25, 2015 — San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon is not pressing charges against the four police officers whose barrage of bullets killed Alex Nieto on Bernal Hill a year ago. But a “people’s trial” of Officers Nathan Chew, Roger Morse, Jason Sawyer, and Richard Schiff found them guilty Monday.
The street theater commemorated the one-year anniversary of Nieto’s death, as part of a morning protest that closed the Mission Police Station on Valencia and 17th.
The mock trial found the officers “guilty of murder,” Gascon and Police Chief Greg Suhr “guilty of conspiracy and a cover up,” and Mayor Ed Lee “guilty of silence.”
Stop Police Impunity, a coalition of activist and neighborhood groups, organized the action. Nieto’s parents, Refugio and Elvira, were in attendance along with the Brass Liberation Orchestra, youth percussion group Loco Bloco, and about 200 peaceful protesters. A dozen protesters linked their arms through PVC tubes that said “no justice no peace” and blocked the Valencia Street gate to the Mission police station parking lot.
At the end of the morning protest, the second presentation of the mock trial culminated with Refugio and Elvira Nieto taking off the badges of the officers (who were represented by four protesters donning masks with the officers’ names) and ripping them up, with Mr. Nieto stomping on them to a cheering crowd. Rose Arrieta, a Mission District resident, explained to 48 Hills: “Police shootings in the United States are an epidemic. We hold up local faces of this crime to address the national epidemic of police shootings.”
The protest, which was in response to last month’s announcement that the officers involved in the shooting death of Nieto would not face charges, began at 7am and was slated to last for four hours and 15 minutes; 415 is the California Penal Code for disturbing the peace.
But the protest was peaceful, and the only thing it disturbed was traffic for that one block of Valencia Street between 17th and 18th as well as the commute of a small handful of EBay workers whose shuttle bus was blocked by protesters on bicycles and others holding a Gentrification = Violence banner. That banner along with two others (one of 28-yearold Nieto and another of 21 year old Guatemalan immigrant, Amilcar Perez-Lopez, who was killed in the Mission by two undercover officers one month ago) were held up in front of the bus for the duration of the morning, with the bus driver calmly seated inside.
“We are calling for an independent federal investigation into officer-involved shootings in San Francisco,” Arrieta said. “We want the officers who killed Alex Nieto fired. We want an end to impunity and a beginning of accountability and transparency. Officers who are subjects to an open investigation should not be promoted or rewarded.”
A bilingual banner “Vidas Robadas: Stolen Lives/Asesinados Por Fuerzas Policiales: Killed by Law Enforcement” also adorned the street. An altar of candles, flowers, and photos of over a dozen young Bay Area people, largely people of color, killed by police sat just feet away from a line of police standing in front of the Mission Police Station; other officers stood on the 17th Street side of the station chatting and seemingly enjoying their morning. No arrests were made.
