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Santa Rosa Mall Security Jam Up Family of Andy Lopez for Wearing RIP T-Shirts

February 25, 2014 By

RIP Andy LopezNot sure how far along this dance that many are doing with evil is gonna go. Over the weekend family friends along with parents of Andy Lopez, the 13-year-old child who was gunned down by a Sonoma County sheriff deputy named Erick Gelhaus last November were in Santa Rosa Plaza Mall shopping and eating lunch.

The parents and one of the relatives had on pink shirts that said RIP Andy Lopez. They had just left an event for their slain son and came to the mall. They were immediately approached by mall security who told them they would have to remove their t-shirts because the ‘owners don’t like the message…’

Folks need to sit down for a minute and reflect on that before responding on what you think you may know about the law… The parents of Andy Lopez just lost their son 3-4 months ago. The District Attorney Jill Ravitch has been stalling and basically refusing to press charges. many suspect it’s because the sheriff department supports her re-election bid and she has supported the sheriffs campaign. The town is in an uproar as Andy represented the 57th murder by Sonoma County sheriffs in 10 years..

Guards approached the family told them they would have to remove the RIP t-shirts or leave the mall.. A white man was in the mall earlier that day wearing a Justice for Andy shirt and was not approached. In fact guards showed him where the rest room was. That white man happened to be a lawyer, named Jonathan Melrod who got a phone call from the Lopez family when guards were surrounding them telling them they had to remove the shirts..

Melrod returned back to the mall and let the family know what their rights were. A Supreme Court case allows one to wear whatever shirts they please whether its public or private.. The Guards didn’t take kindly to the info and went HAM bringing a total of 10 guards to confront the family. This led to the 300-400 folks in the food court reacting and standing their ground after Melrod hopped up on a table and addressed the crowd. They were in full support of the family..

The owner was called and when all was said and done it was made clear that he had no right to tell someone what kind of shirt they can and can’t wear.. An apology was issued to the family, but that was an act of damage control as far as many are concerned..Only in America folks.. Only in America…

Filed Under: 2014 Daily News Tagged With: , , ,

Santa Rosa Sheriffs Attempt to Intimidate Andy Lopez Protestors

January 22, 2014 By

andy-lopezWanna make sure that folks are up to speed with whats happening with the case around 13-year-old Andy Lopez who gunned down by Sonoma County sheriff deputies as he walked to a friend’s house to return a toy gun…

There have been lots of protests in the area mainly led by Andy’s classmates, which means the participants are 12-16 years old..Many of the parents of these kids have also been out protesting.. Andy’s murder at the hands of Deputy Erick Gelhaus marked the 57th killing in 10 years by sheriff and police in that area..

The protests have been mostly peaceful.. but that has not stopped local police intent on protecting Gelhaus from waging a intimidation campaign..The tactics they’ve used include mass ticketing protestors and enforcing arcane laws that most people never heard or knew about …They been spotlighting protest leaders and doing everything from making rude comments and gestures to actually physically assaulting folks.. These incidents have been painstakingly documented..

One protest leader, Ramon Cairo has been arrested when folks came to a city council meeting and demanded the gag order put on council members be lifted.. Ramon was clearly singled out and since then  officers have been showing up in large numbers at all  court proceedings to make it clear that they are in full support of the officers and not with the community  https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/12/17/18747971.php

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CORqBIHKXnM

The arrest of Ramon was deemed a distraction designed to take focus off Lopez.. protestors didn’t fall for it and increased their efforts this time focusing attention on the DA who has yet to press charges on Gelhaus but has been seen at a couple of campaign fundraisers getting ‘pretty chummy’ with police union members..

The police in turn have adopted a new strategy as noted by long time journalist and activist Tom Tompkins

In case you don’t know, I wanted to tell you of a particularly chilling development in the city’s attempt to end the protest movement up there. Because there are some “known gang members” – once a description, now a legal status robbing individuals of important rights (assembly etc) – the cops are using that to smear and scare protestors.

In an obvious but chilling move, the cops have begun a series of midnight raids at what they say are known gang members houses to arrest people who are active in this struggle to get Gelhuas, the murderous cop, indicted. That’s bad enough, but in addition they are declaring that anyone who hangs out with these individuals is legally participating in gang activity.

The implications of this are clear and really serious. It’s a convenient way to brand people, to rob them of their rights, and to scare the hell out of anyone who fights back. It’s not different from the way Homeland Security made average people afraid of all Muslims; in Santa Rosa, they’re trying to make sure that all young Latinos are branded as gang members (and it’s also a way to really screw people who were or are in gangs; their participation in this movement is a righteous social activity).

Tompkins reminded us that similar tactics were used by sheriff down in Anaheim after police shot 7 different (mostly Latino folks) last year around Disneyland.. There were mass protests and police used the gang suppression tactics to stifle and discredit protests..

The gang label is an interesting far-reaching tool used by police.. In the late 80s early 90s LAPD under the leadership of Daryl Gates launched a program called Operation Hammer. It was in response to a gang fight spilling over into the affluent Westwood community and an innocent bystander being killed. The strategy was to make contact with as many gang members and potential gang members as possible and enter them into a data base..

If you were stopped for any reason, major or minor you were given gang affiliation based on the neighborhood you lived in.. By the time the Rodney King riots (rebellions) took place, more than half of LA’s Black adult males were in the Operation Hammer gang data base..By labeling folks gang members, a whole set of rules and laws come into play for law enforcement..from gang injunctions to conspiracy to commit crime  charges..It appears that’s the strategy being used in Santa Rosa…

There will be a candlelight vigil tonight (Wednesday January 23) starting at 5:30 to mark the 3 month anniversary of Lopez being killed..

We’ll keep you abreast as more details around this emerge..

Filed Under: 2014 Daily News Tagged With: , , , ,

Meet the Deputy (Erick Gelhaus) Who Shot 13 Year Old Andy Lopez

October 30, 2013 By
Erick Gelhaus

Erick Gelhaus

For those who don’t know the sheriff deputy who shot and killed 13-year-old Andy Lopez in Santa Rosa California has been identified as Erick Gelhaus…. He’s a 24 year veteran of the force, a firearms instructor, an Iraq War vet and writer for several gun publications..Recently some folks in folks following the case came across his photo bucket page and saw this bumper sticker …

Ya gotta wonder what his mindset is overall.. because this bumper sticker doesn’t advocate coexistence.. It advocates intolerance..

bumper sticker santa rosa cop

A few other things to think about..lets not delude ourselves and act like 13-year-old Andy Lopez was trying to scare anyone especially an officer. He wasn’t trying to take them out with a pellet gun nor was he playing toy soldier..Folks in the area said he had on earphones when he to his friend’s house when police came up behind him..

The officers were not there engaging Andy Lopez because neighbors were scared or reported a man with a gun.. It was 3pm in the afternoon, he was going to a friend’s house leaving a field that many use to shoot pellet guns.. There was nothing usual about his actions. There was no reports of a robberies and the police were not looking for a suspect who fit Andy Lopez’s description..

The police shot 13-year-old Andy Lopez within 10 seconds of coming upon him, meaning that they may have at 2 or 3 times at most, he turns around to see who is yelling and gets blasted 7x.  If he was wearing headphones as reported or simply didn’t hear or understand which was a possibility because the neighborhood is mostly Latino, the police should’ve approached this differently?

What remains in question is whether or not Andy even knew it was police officers yelling at him.. Did they say ‘This is the Police drop your gun and put your hands up? or did they say ‘Drop your weapon’? Deputy Gelhaus claims he doesn’t remember if heidentified himself as the police. His partner was still in the car when the shots were fired. He doesn’t indicate that they had identified themselves.

Andy LopezOne has to wonder why they didn’t take more time to access the situation. Why was Andy shot so quickly? Within the 10 seconds of seeing Andy Lopez did these deputies have enough time to determine whether or not this was a kid and not a grown man ‘brandishing’ an assault rifle??

One would think officers are trained know all these different scenarios. One would hope that in an area where kids do carry pellet guns that they would know better upon encountering a 13-year-old. What we are being told to believe is that a 13-year-old boy pointed his gun at the police..In other words, he heard the police turned around and said ‘f– it lemme point my gun at you‘.. That makes no sense whatsoever..Deputy Gelhaus with all his 24 years of firearms training couldn’t tell this was a pellet gun or that Andy wasn’t ‘aiming at him when he turned around?

It’s also wrong to presume that at 13 year old would automatically know to be extra cautious around cops i.e . not making sudden moves or making sure his toy gun was pointed down etc.. As adults we know this.. But for many, especially if they haven’t encountered been apprehended or detained, they might know, or they might be hella nervous.. Police are trained to deal with those situations and should know how to put a kid at ease..Safety first, not killing first..

Filed Under: 2013 Daily News Tagged With: , ,

There was No Excuse for the Police to Shoot 13 Year Old Andy Lopez

October 24, 2013 By

As you read this story check out yesterday’s Flashpoints radio show on KPFA that gives up to the minute details as to what went down with the killing of Andy Lopezmany of the reporters from our station live up in Sonoma County and are very familiar with the community.. http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/96473

RIP Andy Lopez

RIP Andy Lopez

The death of 13-year-old Andy Lopez at the hands of sheriff deputies in Santa Rosa should not be treated as something that is routine, even though death at the hands of the police in Black and Brown communities happens far too often…

The death of Andy Lopez should not be excused because he was carrying what police described as a realistic looking toy gun…In an age where we have hundreds of video games, reality shows, HD movies etc, realism in toys is a fact of life and police officers are well paid and have extensive training to 1-know the difference and 2-deal with that reality..

In other words, lets not get it twisted and start thinking that Black and Brown kids are the only ones with toy guns.. White kids have them as well. White kids run around with fake toy guns, paint ball guns and even real guns and don’t get shot by police who ‘feared for their lives’..

The faces of grieving white moms are not splattered across our TV sets because law enforcement shot their sons..Its always Black and Brown.. Contrast the shooting death of 13-year-old Andy Lopez  who shot no one and had a toy gun with that of James Holmes the man who shot up a theater in Aurora, Colorado, killing 12 and injuring 70… Even though there was concern he had explosive attached to him, he was APPREHENDED without incident.. He wasn’t blown away… We can cite dozens of examples where police manage to disarm ARMED people..

Why are they able to do this? Because they are trained. They practice and practice reacting to all sorts of hair-raising scenarios. They train so that when they come across a 13-year-old with a fake gun, they don’t panic and start shooting..

But in the case of 13-year-old Andy Lopez, we are told he refused to put down the gun after police asked him twice. Are we to believe that he wanted to be shot? Was this 13-year-old doing death by suicide? Are we to believe he thought he could spook the police by pointing a fake gun at them? Was he a criminal on the run facing a 3rd strike and this was his last desperate stand? Why does a 13-year-old point a gun at well-trained better armed police?? It makes no damn sense.

Witnesses in Santa Rosa are noting the gun had an orange tip on it indicating it was a toy and that no one had called the police to complain.. More deatils on this case are emerging as we speak..

**Additional details to this tragedy.. Andy Lopez was shot in an open field where local kids go to play and do target practice with BB guns. He also had headphones on.. He was shot as he was turning around and then shot several more times as he on the ground. Police handcuffed before giving him CPR..more details to come..****

Sadly Andy Lopez joins a long line of victims killed by police who thought the folks they shot had a gun..We can look at actor Anthony Lee who was shot to death at a Halloween Party several years ago for holding a toy gun..Police shot through a window 9 times without warning when he raised up his gun. They ignored white guests dressed as cops who were standing nearby.  You can read that HERE.

Earlier this year police in San Jose had to pay nearly 5 million dollars to Javier Gonzales-Guerrero who was also at a Halloween Party when he was shot. In Guerrero’s case he had fallen asleep holding his fake gun which was part of his costume. Police approached him woke him up, ignored his pleas not to shoot and shot him 20 times.. He was left with bullets in his spine.. You can Read about that HERE

Not sure what it’s going to take for this to cease..But obviously there are far too many trigger happy cops.. There are far too many instances where they life is not valued and they see an enemy or an animal and not a son, daughter and fellow human being.. There was no excuse to shoot Andy Lopez.

There is a Facebook support page for Andy Lopez ..You can access it HERE

Our heartfelt condolences to the family. We can only imagine what they are going through and how they are feeling..

photo; Tess Unger

photo; Tess Unger

 

Filed Under: 2013 Daily News Tagged With: , , ,