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The San Antonio Coalition for Police Accountability, composed of many of the Black Lives Matter protest groups, staged a large rally and car caravan held last Saturday. The group gathered at the AT&T Center on the Eastside and lined up over 200 cars in a car caravan of protest to support the national call to action for black lives matter. Just before the cars were set to go food was collected to donate to the city’s poor and dropped off at the Cesar Chavez Foundation. The protest was carried live on KROV Radio with local DJ Keith Scott doing live telephone conversations with talk show host Doug Heath at the station with Marlon Clark a member of the Black Futures Collective. People called in to express their outrage at the killing of George Floyd and the SAPD police association that protects bad cops.
Before the car caravan to a cross-city ride of freedom, from the AT&T Center, through the East Side, through downtown, through the West Side, and finally to Monterrey Park, a rally was held with several speakers. Ananda Tomas of the coalition was the moderator and recognized Mayor Ron Nirenberg and District 7 Councilwoman Ana Sandoval for their concern and support. Speakers at the rally included the family members of murdered individuals at the hands of abusive SAPD officers.
They represented Marquise Jones, Charles Roundtree, and Noble Cooper (Cooper was shocked to death by SAPD officers and his case is now before the U.S. Supreme Court). Jesse Aguirre was also murdered by bad SAPD officers. I also spoke on the importance of voting and filing out the Census forms so that we don’t lose federal dollars and representation in the United States House. Also, I stressed the importance of working on a petition drive to remove the local government codes that allow the police association to rehire fired officers and give them tyrannical control of the budget and the power to discipline themselves. That power results in the rehiring of bad cops at rate unprecedented in the country. San Antonio fired bad cops are rehired at a rate of 70%. There have also been 103 people that have died in SAPD custody, a horrendous rate that needs federal investigation.
The rally consisted of people from all ethnic groups, men and women, young and old, and is now coalesced into a major organization for the struggle against police abuse, white supremacy, and the institutions of white supremacy that have for too long dominated. A major development in the fight against white supremacy is the involvement of anti-racist whites in Alamo Heights, Leon Valley, Terrell Hills, and across Bexar County. Millions of anti-racist whites have joined the struggle against white supremacy hammering more nails into the coffins of racist ideology.
Some of the groups that are part of the coalition include the Black Lives matter groups of Young Ambitions Activists (YAA), the Black Futures Collective, Reliable Revolutionaries, the Cesar Chavez Foundation, the Neighborhoods First Alliance, the Jericho Movement, and many others. These organizations are leading a wave of protest across the city and have not let the fight ramp down. If the police association thought it was going to die out in San Antonio they better think twice as we have not yet seen the whirlwind that is yet to come. Meetings are being held across the city to begin looking at the police budget that gets too much tax-payer dollars at the expense of programs that desperately need funding. Reprogramming (some call it defunding) the police budget must be a priority at every budget cycle as the SAPOA has hijacked the city budget.
