Julian Alexander is dead, murdered in cold blood by the Anaheim Police Department on the night of October 28, 2008, just a week after celebrating his wedding and his 20th birthday. Julian heard a disturbance on his lawn and stepped outside the house thinking he would protect his wife and family. He had a stick in his hand; the Anaheim cop had a gun and immediately shot Julian twice with the fatal bullet piercing his heart. Julian’s family watched as the cop turned Julian over and handcuffed him before eventually having him sent to the hospital. Three hours later Julian was dead, his family left devastated.
Julian Alexander was completely innocent. This crime was so outrageous that even the Anaheim police chief had to publicly admit that Julian was a totally innocent man. But no cop was ever arrested, indicted or charged for his murder, let alone tried, convicted and jailed. The cop who killed Julian is back out in the streets and has never even been identified to Julian’s family or the public.
The Anaheim City Attorney claims that this cop can’t be publicly identified because of the anger in the community over the murder, because people are meeting and talking about why this kind of police murder happens and the need to turn our grief and outrage into resistance. According to the City Attorney this situation threatens the safety and well being of the police. What a twisted and criminal logic – an innocent man has been killed in cold blood by the cops and these same murderers turn around and blame the people who want to stand up against this outrage for the murdering cops getting away with it.
Now they tell us that things have changed, that the election of Obama as president will spell an end to this sort of horror. The reality is that inequality and white supremacy are so embedded in this system, so fundamental to the way this system works, that the rulers of this system couldn’t get rid of it, even if they wanted to. Julian Alexander was killed because he was Black and that alone is enough of a reason for the police to kill a man in America. Racism and discrimination against Black, Latino and other people of color is built into this system. And the police are a big part of enforcing all this.
From Anaheim to Inglewood to the LAPD, from New York to Chicago and everywhere in between, the enforcers of the system continue to cut down the lives of mainly Black and Latino people. And while they’re doing this, the system covers up its crimes and plays people against each other to keep the whole system going. This is what is happening in the case of "Jamiel's Law", an effort to mobilize support among Black people for intensified attacks on Latino immigrants after a Black high school student in Los Angeles was allegedly killed by a Latino immigrant gang member.
If you think the day should be long past when the police enforcers of the system can get away with rolling into the neighborhood and shooting down innocent youth then join us in a public Speak Out against police brutality and murder. Join family members of those killed and brutalized and others as we talk about why these murders happen and, yes, how to turn our grief and anger into resistance. It IS time to break out of fighting each other and get with the revolution. It IS time to Fight the Power, and Transform the People, for Revolution.
IDENTIFY, ARREST AND JAIL THE COP WHO KILLED JULIAN ALEXANDER!
JAIL ALL KILLER COPS!
Thursday, January 15, 7 - 9 p.m. at Immanuel Presbyterian Church
3300 Wilshire Blvd. (2 blocks west of Vermont)
Sponsored by Revolution newspaper (online at revcom.us). For more information or to get involved contact Libros Revolución bookstore at 213.488.1303 or
librosrevo@yahoo.com.
The views expressed are not necessarily those of Immanuel Presbyterian Church.