Chief Greg Suhr of SFPD addressing an upset crowd at the Town Hall
Long time residents in the City of San Francisco have been growing more and more upset with each passing day as word about the brutal murder of honor student & security guard, 28 year old Alex Nieto at the hands of SFPD gets out…
The police attempted to calm things down by holding a town hall meeting the other night which left people even more disturbed. Many felt what they were being told didn’t add up.
The family of Alex Nieto were on hand and so were damn near half the Mission and Bernal Heights district where Nieto lived. Everyone was demanding to know why Alex was shot and who called the police on him?
SF Police Chief Greg Suhr went all over the map trying to explain why his highly trained officers couldn’t tell the difference between a gun and a taser in daylight hours and why more than 50 shots were fired at Nieto.
What was gathered from the meeting was someone became suspicious of Alex and called the police 3 times. The first call was to report he had a gun, which was actually his work taser. The second call was to say he was pacing back and forth with ‘his gun’ (taser) still at his side.
A third call was made to say that Alex was eating with his ‘gun still at his side’ .. Police showed up on the scene 3 deep.. surrounded Alex from 75 feet away and shot him after they say he pointed his taser at them which the police thought was a gun.
Alejandro ‘Alex’ Nieto
Tiny Garcia who heads up Poor News Network and Poor Magazine was on hand with her crew and captured high points of the meeting.. You will hear that on this episode HKR. Here’s an excerpt from her article on the gathering, titled: GentriFUKation Killed Alex- the brutal murder by Po’Lice of Mission sun Alejandro Nieto
“We don’t want to hear Alex’s murderers,” People shouted intermittently into the air of the Leonard Flynn Elementary school auditorium. The standing room only Town Hall was yelling above the Po’Lice as they spoke about the murder of young Raza organizer, City College of SF student and beloved sun de la mision, Alejandro Nieto.
check out the entire article at http://www.poormagazine.org/node/5083
https://soundcloud.com/mrdaveyd/hard-knock-radio-03-27-14-the
Below is the interview we did with community activist and organizer Jason Wallach from the Center of Political Education who attended the both the vigil and town hall meeting and penned the first article around Alex’s murder. In our interview he brings up the tactics that are often used by police during these incidents which he says comes from a ‘play book’. It starts with demonizing and blaming the victim and ends with presenting a picture that the cop/cops were in fear and danger of their lives.
Wallach notes that insidious narrative doesn’t match up with Alex’s reputation and and statement from friends. It also doesnt match up with a guy who was trying to go into law enforcement
https://soundcloud.com/mrdaveyd/hard-knock-radio-03-26-14-the
Thank you for continuing to cover this. For those interested, tomorrow, Sat 3/29, at 2pm, Mission Cultural Center, Mission St near 25th in San Francisco, there is a previously scheduled “Faces of the Mission/Faces of Bernal” event for neighbors to share their stories of displacement – now dedicated to Alex, and likely to be more of a town hall meeting. Then at 3-3:30 pm, there is a March for Justice for Alex Nieto from the Cultural Center to the site of his murder. Please join us. [Elder & disabled info: second half of this march is up a very long, steep hill.]
shame!!!