mothers cry for justice comes to newark!

‘MOTHERS CRY FOR JUSTICE’ TOUR STANDS WITH NEWARK MOTHER!

by ‘bro. zayid’

            Mothers Cry For Justice, a coalition of mothers who have lost loved ones to police violence, came to Newark last Friday as apart of their national tour.

            They came to stand with Sheila Reid of Newark, the mother of Jerome Reid, to mark the second anniversary of his death at the hands of two police officers in Bridgeton, NJ on December 30, 2014.

            The case is widely known as ‘New Jersey’s Hands Up, Don’t Shoot Case’ because Reid’s death was captured on videotape clearly exhibiting his hands in the surrender position when he was then shot seven times.

            Reid’s mother, along with the People’s Organization for Progress, has been demanding that the Justice Department take over the case and federally charge the officers.

            Incredibly, to surprise of many legal observers, Paul Fishman, US Attorney for New Jersey, announced in August, that no such charges would be brought against the officers.

            “We have the videotape of the police.

            “We have medical examiner’s report who opined that the case was a homicide.

            “We have a history of harassment of Reid by the officer who put six of the seven bullets in his body, but the Justice Department doesn’t have enough evidence to indict.

            “What more do they need?” asked an angry and incredulous Lawrence Hamm, chairman for the People’s Organization for Progress.

            “We want Attorney General Loretta Lynch to shake up this investigation the same way they are shaking the investigation of the videotaped strangulation of Eric Garner in New York,” he insisted.  

            Khadijah Shakur, a NY nurse and activist who valiantly served in an independent mission to Haiti after their devastating earthquake several years ago, made a point to reveal how the officers involved in the Reid case each had previous complaints against them, that Officer Braheme Days, an African American officer, who not only had previous hostile encounters with Reid before the incident, also had complaints of him sexually extorting women in that community.

            She produced a picture of the officer with his son and then rhetorically asked Days.

            “How would you feel if this happened to your son?”

            NJ Assemblyman John Wisniewski, running for governor as a Sanders Democrat said that “in a nation that is supposed to be as progressive and advanced as ours, it is wrong to see these tragedies play out again and again.”

            He said that if he were governor, he would compel the NJ Attorney General to do the kind of investigations necessary “so we do not see a continuation of lives lost, of lives stolen from us.”

            Among the participants were NY-based mothers Juanita Young, who lost her son Malcolm Ferguson to police violence in 2000. Young also endured a police assault protesting her son’s death.

            Young, who has become a driving force against police brutality since her son’s death, did not mince words.

            She declared that these cases were all cases of “murder” and that they need to be treated as such.

            “Now we live in pain everyday because some trigger happy cop decided to make our lives miserable,” she said pointedly.

            J.Andree Smith, who lost her son Justin in 1998 to a horrible police beating while he was handcuffed in Tulsa, Oklahoma, also participated and pointed to the new challenges facing the struggle against police brutality in light of the recent election of Donald Trump.

            “We are moving into a facist regime.

            “If you never been involved before, now is the time.

            “We have to accelerate our game.

            “We are at a crossroads in this country,” she declared.

            Guinean immigrant Hawa Bah, mother of Mohamed Bah, who endured the ordeal of for an ambulance to get her son emergency medical help, only to have him shot ten times in their by the responding officers instead, also participated.

Locally, Regina Ashford, mother of Kashad Ashford, who was shot to death in Lyndhurst, NJ two years ago, his grandmother former labor activist Cecille Hepburn, and Tawanna Graham, mother of Jahqui Graham, viciously beaten to death in East Orange NJ, also participated…

            ©2017