Los Angeles: Devin Was 13...and the Police Killed Him |\r\n rwor.org\r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n <\/p>

Revolutionary Worker #1268, February\r\n 20, 2005, posted at rwor.org<\/p>\r\n\r\n

In the quiet of 4:00 on a Sunday morning, in the darkness, alone\r\n in the front seat of a car, the short, sweet life of Devin Brown was\r\n ended in a violent burst of gunfire. A night-riding Los Angeles\r\n police officer stood near the car he was in. It took him seconds to\r\n draw his gun and fire: Five shots. Then five more. Half of them\r\n struck and killed the boy in the car. Devin Brown was 13.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

The whole incident that ended with murder of this Black 8th-grader\r\n took less than five minutes from start to finish. Cops started\r\n chasing the Toyota Camry that Devin and another boy were in during\r\n the early hours of Sunday, February 6. They said later they thought\r\n maybe it was a drunk driver. A chase lasting three or four minutes\r\n and covering a few miles ended when the small car crashed onto the\r\n fence of a used tire place at 83rd and Western in South Central L.A.\r\n The police say that one youth got out of the car and ran, leaving\r\n Devin alone. Within seconds, a cop got out of his car and started\r\n shooting. He was so trigger-happy that five of the bullets hit his\r\n own car. The police said that the small compact backed into the\r\n police car, and the cop fired \"in fear of his life.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\"They assassinated him twice,\" a friend of the family of\r\n Devin Brown told the RW<\/em> . They not only murdered him, but\r\n tried to make him sound dangerous. They said the car was stolen,\r\n though they didn’t know it at the time the shot him. LAPD Chief\r\n William Bratton talked about a \"high-speed chase,\" when the\r\n top speed they cited was 40 to 50 miles per hour. When speaking of\r\n the bullets the cop fired into his own car, Bratton said there was a\r\n danger of police being caught \"in a crossfire,\" when Devin\r\n had no kind of weapon.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Devin Brown’s life was stolen by the police without a\r\n moment’s hesitation. It was almost commonplace, routine: chase,\r\n stop, shoot. \"Another senseless killing by the police,\"\r\n Rev. Andrew Robinson-Gaither of Faith United Methodist Church called\r\n it. \"They just like to take out young people’s lives. They\r\n don’t value us.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n

But the people who met him, his family, cherished the life of\r\n Devin Brown. \"There was a sweetness about him,\" one of his\r\n teachers later said. \"I saw an innocence and a sweetheart.\"\r\n She said he was her favorite student in her history class, though as\r\n a 13-year-old he was sometimes more interested in girls and sports\r\n than in his class work. He loved the movie Remember the\r\n Titans<\/em> , and could recite whole scenes. She started calling him\r\n \"Rev\" after his favorite character.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

The mother of Devin Brown’s cousin told the RW<\/em>\r\n about him. \"He was real nice. He was mannerable. Every kid has\r\n their times when they’re going through what they’re going\r\n through. He just lost his father last year. Every kid goes through\r\n their trials and tribulations. Nobody’s perfect. He was on the\r\n honor role at the middle school right here.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Devin’s father, Charles Brown, had quit a construction job\r\n to go to work for the school system in order to spend more time with\r\n his family. When he died of respiratory disease, Devin was\r\n devastated. At first he missed a lot of school, but he had recently\r\n started back improving.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

He could do impressions, and he made his whole class laugh at his\r\n renditions of TV commercials. Other kids called him, \"Willie\r\n B,\" a name they inscribed on a banner that they all signed and\r\n hung by the memorial that people made at the corner of 83rd and\r\n Western. One message said, \"Now you rest, and we’ll do the\r\n rest.\" Many wrote short notes: \"I love you.\"\r\n \"It’s fucked up.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n

The corner of 83rd and Western became the focal point of the anger\r\n and outrage that burst forth all over Los Angeles. Beginning Sunday,\r\n people came with signs and flowers. Over 200 candles were placed on\r\n the corner. There were stuffed animals, toys and messages. As folks\r\n gathered at the spot on Monday—when you could still see\r\n Devin’s blood staining the street—they shouted their\r\n anger at any police car that drove by.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

A boy and girl, both 13, came by on Tuesday. \"It’s not\r\n good that they keep killing little kids. They’ve got to\r\n stop,\" the girl said. \"I feel sad and angry. Only 13, my\r\n age.\" Classmates of Devin’s came by, along with older\r\n kids.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

People in the neighborhood disputed many aspects of the police\r\n version, casting doubt on whether Devin was ordered to get out of the\r\n car before the police opened fire, and even whether he was driving.\r\n Rev. Meri Ka Ra Byrd, of the nearby KRST Center for African\r\n Spirituality, told the RW<\/em> , \"I’m outraged that a\r\n policeman following a car for miles would not be able to see that it\r\n was a child driving the car. Instead, they took it as an opportunity\r\n to open fire and to kill, to take someone’s life. It is\r\n indicative of the racist society we live in.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n

There are lies the police tell that are so familiar that anyone\r\n can recite them: \"Reached for the waist band\";\r\n \"Pointed their hand at the police in a threatening manner.\"\r\n Another one—\"Backed the car toward the\r\n officers\"—was used a year ago when the LAPD shot and\r\n killed Nicholas Killinger outside Santa Monica High School, a\r\n shooting they just decided violated department guidelines for\r\n shooting and killing people. In November 2002, two weeks after\r\n William J. Bratton became police chief of the LAPD, his cops killed\r\n four people in two days in several incidents. At that time, cops\r\n twice<\/em> claimed there was a vehicle backing toward them, even\r\n though there were witnesses who said they were cold-blooded\r\n killings.<\/p>\r\n\r\n \r\n

\"What were they there to do? You know, fuck all this\r\n ‘serve and protect’ bullshit. If they were there to\r\n serve and protect, they would have found any way but the way they\r\n did it to handle this scene, they could have and would have found a\r\n solution that was much better than this. This is the way the\r\n proletariat, when it’s been in power, has handled and would\r\n again handle this kind of thing—valuing the lives of the\r\n masses of people—as opposed to the bourgeoisie in power,\r\n where the role of their police is to terrorize the masses,\r\n including wantonly murdering them, murdering them without\r\n provocation, without necessity, because exactly the more arbitrary\r\n the terror is, the more broadly it affects the masses.\"<\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\n

—Bob Avakian,\r\n on the police murder of Tyisha Miller
\r\n (\"Valuing the Lives of the People vs. Wanton Police Murder, RW\r\n #1255)<\/p>\r\n\r\n \r\n

\"All the people that’s out here representing for my\r\n little brother, they’ll put their lives on the line for him\r\n before these officers will.\"<\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\n

The brother of Devin\r\n Brown, speaking at a protest of his killing<\/p>\r\n\r\n

A protest rally was called for Tuesday by ministers in the area\r\n and others. Three or four hundred people came, overwhelmingly Black\r\n people, from all walks of life. There were truck drivers, students,\r\n family members, people from the neighborhood and from Devin’s\r\n school, Audubon Jr. High. One Black woman described herself as an\r\n executive assistant to the CEO of a company in West L.A. She said she\r\n had to come. Norma and Norberto Martinez, the parents of Gonzalo\r\n Martinez, attended. Gonzalo was murdered three years ago this month\r\n by Downey police. Looking over the crowd, one neighbor said,\r\n \"There’s a strong force out here and they been hit in the\r\n gut.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n

As people got off work, the protest got bigger, spilling off the\r\n sidewalks. Chanting \"No justice, no peace,\" and \"Stop\r\n killing our children,\" they took over the street, marching to\r\n the Bethel AME Church four blocks to the north.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

When this happened, the cops cordoned off the streets for several\r\n blocks in each direction and kept out of sight, even though the\r\n protest had no permit. It showed how nervous the authorities are\r\n about the anger they have unleashed.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

A young Black woman was holding some artwork she made that\r\n morning: two photos of lynching victims, one hanging from a tree, the\r\n other from the Statue of Liberty, with the words, \"Kill or Be\r\n Killed\/Made in Amerikkka.\" She explained, \"They’re\r\n trying to show us, ‘Now you stay in your place, or look what\r\n happens.’\" Then she added, \"Nothing changes without\r\n revolution, and I’m a peaceful person.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\"The system don’t work,\" a Black man in his 30s\r\n told the RW.<\/em> \"We tried going through the system. It\r\n just don’t work<\/em> . When it get caught on tape, and you\r\n don’t get no justice out of the system—what the hell?!\r\n What else can you do?! It’s war!\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n

After slandering Devin at first, the authorities in L.A. have made\r\n a big show of \"apologizing.\" The head of the Police\r\n Commission apologized. The mayor apologized. They call it a\r\n \"tragedy.\" They have promised to change LAPD policy to end\r\n the practice of shooting at vehicles. But there has been no move to\r\n charge any of the cops who murdered Devin Brown. In fact, LAPD\r\n officials have made the sick statement that this is a tragedy for the\r\n killer cops who carried it out.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

The police chief and the mayor tried twice tried to get more money\r\n from the L.A. City Council for more cops to clamp down on the people.\r\n \"At each incident we risk this city going up in flames once\r\n again,\" Chief Bratton told them, \"which has happened twice\r\n in recent history.\" The 1965 Watts Rebellion and the 1992 L.A.\r\n Rebellion were both triggered by police brutality. Even after the\r\n LAPD announced it was changing its policy, Chief Bratton said,\r\n \"All of a sudden these incidents are not going to go\r\n away.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\r\n
\r\n This article is posted in English and Spanish on Revolutionary\r\n Worker Online
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\r\n Phone: 773-227-4066 Fax: 773-227-4497\r\n <\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\n<\/body><\/html>\n","contact":"darbycrash1965@yahoo.com","link":"","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/html","summary":"\r\n
In the quiet of 4:00 on a Sunday morning, in the darkness, alone\r\n in the front seat of a car, the short, sweet life of Devin Brown was\r\n ended in a violent burst of gunfire. A night-riding Los Angeles\r\n police officer stood near the car he was in. It took him seconds to\r\n draw his gun and fire: Five shots. Then five more. Half of them\r\n struck and killed the boy in the car. Devin Brown was 13.<\/p>\r\n\r\n ","numcomment":1,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/","filesize":null,"article_url":"\/news\/2005\/02\/122802.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[{"id":126057,"heading":"Devin killed by cops","article":"What was an 8th grade, 13 year old boy doing in the front seat of a car at 4:00 am in the first place?","author":"Duko","parent_id":122802,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2005-05-07 15:53:45","modified":"2005-05-07 15:53:45","fileurl":""}]}