Fire Police Chief Charlie Beck for Leading the Most Murderous Police Force in the US
by Melina Abdullah, Black Lives Matter LA httpss://www.facebook.com/groups/blacklivesmatterla/
We need you to do three things to help remove LAPD Chief Charlie Beck as head of the most murderous law enforcement unit in the nation.
- Call Mayor Garcetti and tell him to #FireBeck 213-978-0600
- Sign the petition. httpss://campaigns.organizefor.org/petitions/fire-police-chief-charlie-beck-for-leading-the-most-murderous-police-force-in-the-united-states
- Get at least 3 people to do the same today.
Why is this important? Hundreds of Black Lives Matter activists and allies have been sitting-in at Los Angeles City Hall since July 12, 2016, prompted by the ruling of the LA Police Commission that the killing of 30-year-old Black mother, Redel Jones, was “in policy.”
Redel Jones, who stood 4’10” tall, was accused of stealing $80 with a kitchen knife from a local pharmacy on August 12, 2015. By witness accounts, she was running away from police when she was spotted in an alley and shot as she fled; her body lay on the pavement for hours and her family was not notified of her death for more than a week. Redel was the mother of a 7-year-old girl and a 13-year-old boy; her husband, Marcus Vaughn, travelled to Los Angeles by bus to be present for the LAPC ruling. Her family is still reeling from her death and outraged by the ruling.
Sadly, Redel Jones is one in a long list of victims killed by the LAPD. For the last three years, LAPD – under the “leadership” of chief Charlie Beck – has killed more residents than any other law enforcement unit in the country, killing 21 in 2015 and 10 so far this year. With only one exception, the chief has refused to condemn the acts of officers who kill residents, to fire/discipline them, or to recommend them for criminal prosecution. Moreover, he has refused to release information to the families of victims, most recently with the in-custody death of Wakiesha Wilson, killed in an LAPD jail cell on Easter Sunday 2016. Beck is also on-record as referring to former LAPD chief Darryl Gates (who headed LAPD through the Rodney King era) as his mentor and role model. This is not who we want in charge of the police force.
For more than a year, Black Lives Matter and ally groups have been calling upon the mayor of Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti, to fire Chief Beck. Every moment that Beck remains in his post, brings grave danger for community residents.
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Meanwhile, the mother of Ezell Ford, whose killing by two LAPD cops in 2014 in South Los Angeles was found “out of policy” by the Police Commission with no consequences, says enough is enough. Tritobia Ford is planning to chain herself DA Jackie Lacey’s office at 210 W. Temple to remind Lacey that she owes the Ford family an answer, almost two years after the killing.
“I just can’t take this anymore,” said Mrs. Ford. “I used to call down to her office on a regular basis but I don’t even bother anymore because they never return my phone calls. Sometimes I feel like her office is just laughing at the pain my family and I are going through. We want to see charges filed against the officers but more importantly we just want an answer. It didn’t even take the police department this long to do their investigation; so what’s the hold up, really, Jackie Lacey? I think she’s doing Chief Beck a favor and wasting time so he doesn’t have to do anything,” Ford told Jasmyne Cannick.
“I don’t know if Beck and Lacey think we will forget or that if enough time passes by no one will care anymore. At this point I feel like I have no other recourse other than to chain myself to Lacey’s office building. I would go on a hunger strike but I’d probably end up dead because they’d let me starve to death. Everything Mayor Garcetti said to me was lies. From City Hall to the LAPD to the District Attorney’s office no one has told us anything and once the cameras left, and Black Lives Matter wasn’t in front of the Mayor’s house, it wasn’t news anymore we can’t even get a phone call returned. I’m done waiting.”
