Justice for Josiah (Antonio Lopez Guzman)! [link]
2014-03-30 from the "Justice For Josiah!" campaign [https://www.facebook.com/events/551177261663079/permalink/552083461572459/]:
On
February 21, 2014, the San Jose State University Police Department
(UPD) murdered a community member, an undocumented Mexican immigrant.
UPD
Sgt. Michael "Mike" Santos shot him in the back, twice, in broad
daylight, in the middle of the day, just off campus in a residential
area, directly in front of the SJSU childcare center, while still full
of children. A stray bullet from his gunfire went through the 2nd floor
window of a sorority into a bedroom full of young female SJSU students.
Since that time, the UPD in direct collusion with the SJPD, Campus
Administration and elements of the media have proceeded to concoct a
story around the slaying of Antonio Lopez Guzman, 38. In a campus wide
and public statement, University President Mohammad Qayoumi then
proceeded in media outlets and to the students directly to congratulate
the officers for their rapid response and heroic actions, swiftly moving
to support his department and validate "their" story. Collectively they
have attempted to distort the truth, silence and/or harass witnesses
into altering and changing their stories to match their concocted
version, and have begun a broad based cover up at every level of the
department, campus, city and county. These aren't just allegations, we
can actually PROVE THIS, witnesses have come forward.
The truth of what happened however, is this...
Antonio & The Local PD
Antonio
Lopez Guzman was a 38 year old, sometimes transient, undocumented day
laborer, a father of a four year old son (Josiah), and stepfather to a
10 year old daughter (Angelique) whom he had raised since the age of
three. Antonio spoke extremely limited English, as such he primarily
worked odd construction or landscaping jobs, where speaking didn't
matter or his Spanish sufficed. He regularly volunteered at the Antioch
Baptist Church, one of the oldest black churches in the state, and THE
oldest in the city and county. He also volunteered at the Veterans
Shelter and provided and served food to San Jose's homeless, at St.
James Park and The Jungle, amongst other places. By all accounts even
those of some SJPD officers, he was a profoundly nice, well mannered and
respectful man, a loving father, brother, and friend, a caring spouse,
and the joy in his sons life. This however didn't stop him from becoming
a victim of racially charged police brutality and now, murder.
Only a
year ago (September 2013), here in San Jose a group of multi-agency
police (Santa Clara County Sheriffs and San Jose Police Department)
beat, brutalized and sexually tortured/assaulted Antonio, yelling; "You
f--king wetback, when will you learn, you need to speak English to live
in this country!" After beating him, they arrested and charged him for
resisting arrest, on a street stop that the police had instigated
without cause. So severe were Antonio's injuries, that before taking him
to jail, they took him to Valley Medical Center to be seen, then they
took him back into custody, booked him and began processing him for
incarceration. While in jail he began to have trouble breathing and was
in fact drowning in his own blood. The police again took him to the
hospital, he had to be admitted due to the distress caused by so much
blood in his lungs, the blood had to be surgically drained by inserting a
tube into his side. Thankfully both the Sheriffs and SJPD abandoned him
to be released by the hospital (but didn't of course, lift the charges,
he was murdered with charges for his own beating still pending).
Facts:
-
The Santa Clara County Sheriff's Department runs: security at the
hospital, the Coroners/Medical Examiner's office located therein, the
County Jail and provide police for the Santa Clara County District
Courts.
- A 2005-2006 Grand Jury investigation cited the single most
significant problem with the Santa Clara County Coroners/Medical
Examiner's Office being the absence of a qualified Medical Examiner in
charge of the department, this is still the case today.
- A 2006
Mercury News Six Part Investigative report entitled "Tainted Trials,
Stolen Justice" resulted in the overturning and review of multiple Santa
Clara County District Attorney's office cases, and multiple lawsuits
against the County, most of which were won.
- By 2011, a judge had
ruled that the SJPD and SCCDA's office actively, and regularly colluded
in falsifying evidence and crime lab reports, and it was an endemic and
repeated behavior. To quote: "The Appellate Court also reinstated [the]
claim against the City of San Jose based on evidence SJPD officers
routinely created false crime lab reports and there had been other
instances where fake reports had been presented in court as genuine."
Antonio & SJSU
How
it likely began, Antonio as he had done many times before, walked
through the SJSU campus as a shortcut, this time carrying his water
bottle, and his daughters pink & purple backpack full of tools and
other item. At this time according to the UPD story, someone informed
them that there was someone with a knife on campus. This is problematic
for a variety of reasons;
1) It is not illegal to carry a knife, be
it in a sheath or otherwise, and it is not even suspicious to be
carrying one while simply walking from point A to point B, on or off
campus. SJSU is a public space, though the University will assert that
this is untrue, and claim it is a "closed campus" (it is not, if not
legally so, then functionally so). Most especially as shared property
such as the Martin Luther King Library, and various other structures are
open to the public.
2) According to the UPD's own story, Antonio
however was NOT carrying a knife, he was carrying a drywall saw blade
(it is still unclear as to whether this was simple a blade itself or
attached to a handle). A drywall saw however, is NOT a knife, it has a
significantly serrated edge for use in construction. It is a TOOL. And
it is 100% legal to carry a tool, but furthermore the entirety of SJSU
campus is filled with construction workers, carrying tools. There is no
less than three major construction projects going on, throughout the
downtown campus, including a massive expansion and renovation of the
SJSU student center. Thus interaction between construction workers and
students is a regular occurrence, and large portions of the campus are
fenced off as construction sites.
3) Witnesses to the shooting say; "There was no knife."
This
begs the following question: Why was Antonio even approached in the
first place? Most especially as he no longer presented any threat (real
or imagined) to anyone on campus, and was now in a residential
community.
Antonio's Murder
Antonio had LEFT the campus, and was
on/near the intersection of 8th Street and San Salvador (we encourage
you to Google Earth the area), in a residential neighborhood when
according to the UPD (and now SJPD), Officer Frits van der Hoek stopped
him, engaged with him and discovered he spoke limited English (has
anyone asked if either of the officers spoke Spanish? No.), then things
supposedly escalated. Standard procedure for all police stops requires
the calling up of a back up officer, it is this second officer Sgt. Mike
Santos that would fatally shoot Antonio in the back, twice, one of them
through his heart. A recent March, 19 on campus incident of a supposed
"man with a knife" in which Santos was involved, also began with all the
officers responding with guns drawn. Again, there was no knife, and yet
the man was still taken into custody.
According to eyewitnesses, on
February 21, contrary to police claims, they saw no discussion take
place between Antonio and any UPD officer, nor did they hear any orders
given to drop anything, in any language. Nonetheless, it is clear that
Antonio did indeed drop his backpack. According to the Mortician, when
they saw the body, they had to partially reconstruct Antonio's face, and
"stuff" the body, in order to give it bulk as the exit wounds and
autopsy had essentially exploded his chest, they had been told the
damage to his face was a result of the body falling face first into the
street after being shot. However, there is no way of determining if such
injury is postmortem or not actually. Again while some witnesses say
Antonio was simply walking, others say he was running, but none say he
was charging or presented himself as a danger to anyone, let alone a
police officer.
According to the UPD officers claims, Antonio (a
pacifist) brandished a knife (drywall saw), forcing the UPD officer 'to
discharge his taser at range' but it was ineffective (i.e. the officer
fired the taser and missed), twice. Santos claims Antonio then charged
Van der Hoek, so he shot him, in the back, twice, in order to defend his
partner. But one must wonder, how does a bullet that according to some
accounts 'went through Antonio's body into a second story window', not
represent an equally lethal danger to Officer Van der Hoek, who
according to Santos would have had to have been standing in front of
both Santos and Antonio in the line of fire as he shot him in the back?
How is this not "more" lethal than an imaginary knife? Why would you
discharge a firearm in a seemingly arbitrary direction, knowing that
there is a Childcare Center full of children also directly in the line
of fire?
Some witnesses say that they saw Antonio running, that in
fact there was no officer in front of him, that he appeared to be
running away from something, and that they did not even see an officer
nearby, in front of, or behind Antonio at all, but heard shooting (three
shots) and then saw Antonio stumble and fall. Due to the severity of
Antonio's wounds he was likely dead before he hit the ground. He was
shot through the heart. In the news media, of the dozen or so witnesses,
on the short narrow two way street, none were interviewed, only a 13
year old girl who herself said she didn't know what was going on, nor
did she know she was in any kind of danger, and her mother who wasn't
even in the area at the time of the shooting was also interviewed. The
young woman and the mother didn't 'know she was in danger', because, she
wasn't, and she was naively coached, and put right in front of the
cameras almost immediately, to set a particular story into motion. No
adults, nor student witnesses were interviewed, and put on the news, why
is that? To this day, there are still direct eyewitnesses who have yet
to be interviewed. Why? Yet, supposedly the SJPD has already closed the
case, and labeling it a "Justifiable Homicide".
Investigating Antonio
After
the SJPD took over the case as per the Memorandum of Understanding
between the City of San Jose, the SJPD and the University Police (UPD),
Laurie Valdez, Antonio's widow spoke to the lead investigator of the
homicide, Detective Sgt. Raul Martinez. Laurie desperately wanted to see
justice done as she has family members both past and present who have
worked in law enforcement, she begged Martinez to do it right and make
Antonio's case a priority. In order to address her concerns with any
malfeasance Martinez assured her, and said; "Don't worry. There won't be
anything done wrong. We don't play favorites. And I don't know anyone
at UPD except for one person - the Sergeant. There will be no problems."
The "Sergeant" is the officer that shot Antonio, twice, in the back -
Sgt. Michael "Mike" Santos, who is also the head of UPD Internal
Affairs, which means he knows the procedures of an Officer Involved
Shooting, and the Police Officers Bill of Rights, backwards and
forwards, i.e. he can work the system to his advantage.
But what of
Officer Van der Hoek, why hasn't he spoken up publicly in defense of
Mike Santos' version of the story, or even made a single statement about
having felt endangered by Antonio? If he were standing in front of
Antonio, in danger, why didn't he use his own firearm and defended
himself, shooting Antonio in the chest as he was charged? Perhaps the
silence has to do with the fact that Frits Van der Hoek, used to be a
Law Clerk in the DA's Office and is scheduled to graduate from Santa
Clara University with a Juris Doctorate in Law this very year, and has
in fact already accepted a job with the Santa Clara County District
Attorney's Office, which he is scheduled to start in the Fall of 2014.
Do you think those engaged in an active murder conspiracy will make good
public servants for the SCCDA?
Santos and Van dar Hoek were on Paid
Administrative Leave for two weeks, and are now back on duty, free to
potentially murder or cover up for murder at the next possible moment,
in fact they've already begun to practice for the fact:
http://spartandaily.com/119042/breaking-news-police-question-possible-gunman-campus-gun-found
To
date, Laurie does not have a coroners or police report from any agency,
and in fact the University President was informed of Antonio's identity
and death before anyone in his family was, and some in the media were
informed the case is already closed. They haven't even returned a single
phone call to Laurie. All incidents and "police reports" produced by
the UPD are submitted to the County's District Attorney's Office for
further investigation or prosecution. Wait, whose supposed to work there
again? A CSU University President, is in fact, by law, the head of his
campus police department, while the Chief manages it. In this case the
UPD Chief of Police Peter Decena, is an SJSU alumni, a UPD alumni, a
retired SJPD Officer and a "double dipper". A double dipper, is one of
the (thus far) over two dozen SJPD officers who retired at the age of 50
at full pension, only to get a second ranking officer position at
another police department or agency, at full pay, while still collecting
their full retirement pension. These officers individually and
unanimously make over $300,000+ in combined salary and retirement
benefits a year as a result of their "double dipping". Needless to say,
Chief Decena hasn't been the most vocal or critical about the
investigation either. But why would all these peace officers who are
supposed to "protect and serve" be so dishonorable, and cover for one
another, so regularly? Is it just that cliched "blue wall of silence",
or perhaps something more?
San Jose State & The Police
SJSU
has the oldest accredited degree offering (undergraduate, and graduate)
program for police in the entire country, it began in 1930. San Jose
University literally established the very foundations of modern formal
police training. As a result, the city of San Jose, Santa Clara County
and the CSU system (the founding campus of which is SJSU) prefer if not
require university educated and degreed personnel as a prerequisite for a
job on their respective police forces, this is why no less than six
south bay campuses have degree certified programs in policing and police
related fields. To put it more simply, all these local cops are
graduates of SJSU and are more often campus and UPD alumni.
The SJSU
Justice Studies department is currently under investigation for
financial malfeasance, moral turpitude, and the policing side of Justice
Studies itself is being criticized for its lack of any form of academic
rigor, cultural literacy, or scholarly value. While elsewhere in the
sub-department of Criminology which is housed in SJSUs Sociology
department, they have simultaneously been outted by local activists for
their direct connection to and complicity with the overt militarization
of policing in California, the United States, and more particular direct
collusion with COINTELPRO an illegal series of Counter Intelligence
programs targeting political activists from the 1950s to the present
day, with the intended aim of repressing political dissent. This
relationship has existed since as far back as 1964, but "Red Squads"
have existed in the SJPD since at least the 1930s, before they
formalized their Intelligence Division in the late 1970s.
Justice For Josiah
Josiah,
is here. Antonio is not. There is no Justice for Antonio, he is a
victim of Social Homicide by a Police Industrial Complex many years in
the making. Josiah, is still here, his family is still here, his
community is still here, for him. We strive for San Jose and a world in
which no more Antonio Lopez's must die to police and structural
violence, that only wants to see him incarcerated or in a grave.
***If
you have any evidence or information on the murder of Antonio, please
contact us via private facebook message, phone (number still pending) or
email: justice4josiah[at]riseup.net ***
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