Protesters rally L.A. streets

By Wes Woods, On-Line Forty-Niner

Monday, October 26, 1998

Despite wearing black along with about 1,000 other marchers, Tybye (she declined to give her last name) stood out. Maybe it was the baby stroller she was pushing. More than likely, it was because she looked like an average, middle-American grandmother.

At 85, "I'm the oldest one here," she said with a smile. "This is what I've been waiting for. Some action. [The event] is a good way to spend a day."

The third annual Stop Police Brutality march, organized by Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation, took to the streets of Los Angeles on Oct. 22.

Many participants carried signs with alleged slain police brutality victims. The march, which began at Olympic and Broadway, ended with a rally at Los Angeles Police Department Headquarters on Los Angeles Street.

Socialist organizer Zhetonia Piluso asked Tybye to attend the event. She also helped build an enormous, 10-foot-tall sinister-looking LAPD officer. The black-dressed figure wielded a red colored night-stick and had black eyes with red dollar signs as pupils.

"It's important to make a clear public statement and call attention to the abuse," said Piluso, a Los Angeles resident, of the officer. She said youth are "harassed just on how they look and dress."

"We feel police departments need a new type of training," said Tony Muhammad, western regional minister of the Nation of Islam in Los Angeles. "Young people are being portrayed as criminals."

Mario Cueller, 24, of Los Angeles, said police, while not brutalizing him, would harass him in Westwood.

Cuellar said officers would ask him, "You're a minority. What are you doing out here?"

Some marchers had differing opinions on how to gain the law's respect.

"I have some disagreements in philosophy, because it's all about love," said Benjamin Dedemah, Los Angeles resident. "To tell them [police officers] I hate you, doesn't solve the problem."

"How do you ask for respect with a sign that says f*** the police?" asked Anna Yancy Gardina of Los Angeles. "I make them take it down. You have to respect them. We are smart. There are a lot of good [officers], too."

The march led to a rally outside the Los Angeles Police Department building.

"Look at you," said Richard Bird of the October Coalition, to the gathering. "We're fired up and we won't take it anymore. We're here to say no more, no mas."

Police officers declined comment on the march.