On the second day of the #120hours of action, 11 San Francisco natives are still sitting in across the road from City Hall. Tents were taken down and folded up this morning to respect the city’s law against encampments, but protestors remained determined to continue until Friday.Â
Protestors say they will camp for 120 hours to pressure District Attorney George Gascon to indict officers involved in police shootings. Activists will also be joining protests against Trump’s presidency on Friday.Â
The eleven San Francisco natives include musicians, teachers and activists: Max Leung, Ike Pinkston, Illyich Sato, Julia Retzlaff, Sachel Rozen, Angela Rey, Shelby Baizar, Christian Ceron, Sam Gabel, Darrell Rogers and Martin Harrera. Protestors are hoping that more people will join them.Â
Darrel Rogers, 70, is camping out until Friday & has a message for the DA “Gascon do your job” #120hours pic.twitter.com/tDiD4LMjvE
— Sana Saleem (@sanasaleem) January 18, 2017
Seventy year old Darrell Rogers is one of the eleven. He’s a former civil servant and an active member of the Mario Woods coalition. Rogers said he feels it is important to protest the upcoming presidential inauguration and to pressure District Attorney George Gascon to indict officers involved in shootings: “I am sitting here in front of City Hall as part of the Martin Luther King celebration and at this point we really are saying to ourselves what do we have to celebrate? when black and browns are still being murdered, the homeless is still unhoused. There’s elected official threatening to take away health care,” he said.Â
Rogers continued,: “We still haven’t had any action out of Gascon as for the death of black and brown people in the city. So my word is Gascon do your job. People are dying, we just had another shooting just last week Gascon do your job!” he said.Â
Gascon has long been criticized for not filing charges involved in the shootings of Mario Woods and Amilcar Perez Lopez. In Lopez’s case activists alleged that DA Gascon told them all evidence pointed to officer misconduct but still failed to bring charges. The Justice for Amilcar Perez Lopez coalition published alleged text conversation between coalition leader Father Richard Smith and DA Gascon to back their claims and criticism of the District Attorney.Â
Shelby Baizar, SF state student, is camping out for #120hours & wants DA to indict officers involved in Lopez shooting. pic.twitter.com/Xp8GKrN4xX
— Sana Saleem (@sanasaleem) January 18, 2017
San Francisco State Student and media liaison for the group Shelby Baizar is committed to camping out until Friday and urged DA Gascon to indict officers involved in the shooting of Lopez: “Amilcar Perez Lopez’s case is on DA Gascon’s desk and we want to apply pressure so we are here for that. Our demands are basically that DA Gascon do his job and indict these officers as well as give attention to the other ten cases on his desk. We know that by him doing his job is the first step,” she said.Â
The group spent the night at the Civic Center Plaza. They moved their tents when approached by SFPD officers and agreed to remove banners from trees. There’s an open mic and people’s assembly scheduled for 7 pm tonight.Â
We’ve reached out to the District Attorney’s office for comment and will be updating the story.Â
Hi,
The term “native” is how they self-describe and we decided to go with that.
Sana
She could of simply kept it at “San Franciscans” and or “San Francisco musicians, teachers and activists”, but instead choose to emphasize the word “native”.
That’s bias; that’s nativism.
Your opinion is your opinion. There are plenty of women that voted for Trump, plenty of people of color that voted for Trump, and I don’t need to prove that I’m female but I’ve been here for literally years & have corrected people such as yourself. Also, frankly, racist as H.
Sorry if I’m wrong, but I just don’t believe you’re a woman or a person of color. Also, I find it hypocritical to use the language of feminism while gloating over the (dubious) victory of an arch-misogynist and bigot.
PS, typical of you mansplaining what a woman of color is. Typical patronizing mansplaining attitude.
Try what? I’ve been here for years & everyone here knows I am mixed.
Nice try.
PS, perhaps you don’t realize this but I am a woman of color. I am mixed.
The MX rapist remark was referring to people who illegally cross the border. You realize it’s a crime? Don’t be a criminal.
Nice of you to say so. Now how about sharing some of that love with your fellow citizens of color who are disproportionately profiled, arrested, charge, imprisoned and, yes, killed on the street by cops?
As for “catastrophizing,” your TV idol is the king catastrophist (Mexican rapists, etc., etc.). Please don’t use that word in a reply to me unless you’re trying to make me double over in laughter.
Now you’re catastrophizing Ragazzu. Honestly, I think better of you & I like you. We don’t have death squads. Have a great day my friend. I know I am.
And the unarmed, innocent people who still get murdered by cops? It could happen to you, too.
Don’t be so facile, man. This is supposed to be a country with due process, not death squads.
Don’t do the crime, don’t get in front of the cops, simple. Obey the police. MOST Americans do thankfully.
Perhaps people should do sth interesing like…IDK, obey the law. 🙂
Extrajudicial executions are illegal, and certainly not a part of the job.
Actually, it’s probably a preemptive response to accusations of “outside agitators”—a baseless yet all too common charge by right-wingnuts.
Maybe they should do a hunger strike.
For a more nuanced analysis, see David Talbot’s excellent article in The Chron yesterday:
http://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/The-D-A-and-the-grieving-mother-a-tale-of-2-10857557.php
“On the second day of the #120hours of action, 11 San Francisco NATIVES are still sitting in across the road from City Hall.”
“The eleven San Francisco NATIVES include musicians, teachers and activists…”
It’s interesting that the author of this piece emphasizes that the protesters are “natives”.
Why is that so important that it bears mentioning twice — or even at all?
This emphasis on “nativism” by (supposed) Progressives is very telling and very disturbing — similar to attitudes that one would expect from Trump supporters.
In this regard, the main difference that I can discern between these two camps is that Trump supporters are “anti-immigrant” whereas (so-called) Progressives in SF are “anti-migrant.”
The cops are doing their job. People need to obey the law, not just when it’s convenient for them to obey it. GL to them, it’s freezing out there.