San Jose community members gathered downtown Tuesday hours after a jury found former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin guilty of murdering George Floyd.
Floyd died on May 25 after Chauvin knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes as he detained Floyd for possessing a counterfeit $20 bill.
Floyd’s murder was viewed by millions through a viral video recording, fueling an uproar of protests throughout the nation.
Chauvin was found guilty of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter, according to the New York Times’ live updates of the trial.
About 50 residents attended the demonstration held outside Grace Baptist Church on San Fernando and Tenth streets. The event was hosted by local activist groups Black Liberation and Collective Knowledge (B.L.A.C.K.) Outreach, Human Empowerment Radical Optimism (HERO) Tent and Silicon Valley De-Bug.
Organizers said the demonstration and vigil was meant to honor Floyd and hold space for families who’ve lost loved ones at the hands of the San Jose Police Department.
Lou Dimes, president of B.L.A.C.K. Outreach, said Chauvin’s verdict was bittersweet because activists want to see the same outcomes for other victims of police brutality all over the country, starting in San Jose.
“There are still countless people here in San Jose who haven’t gotten that level of justice,” Dimes said during the demonstration.
Community members placed candles and flowers in front of the church and held out various flyers with photos of victims of police violence at 6 p.m.
Rev. George Oliver said Grace Baptist Church offered its facility in support because it’s a place where activists, students and residents come to “learn how to do justice.”
Raj Jayadev, guest speaker and Silicon Valley De-Bug co-founder, said similar to the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the election of former president Barack Obama, Chauvin’s verdict is historic.
He said the verdict was a result of a social movement where activists successfully held police accountable, but it isn't a celebration of a criminal court system that operated with integrity.
“That is what story was going to be told had we not taken over the narrative by protesting in the streets,” Jayadev said during the demonstration. “The real action happened outside of the courtroom and in the streets.”
Many event speakers including Peter Ortiz, a Santa Clara County board of education trustee, called for change and accountability within SJPD.
”There’s no denying there will continue to be lives stolen from our communities of color by the hands of the police,” Ortiz said during the demonstration.
Jayadev said 19 people have died from police violence in San Jose within the last five years.
During the demonstration, Dimes also discussed the death of David Tovar Jr., a 27-year-old unarmed Gilroy resident who was shot on Jan. 21 by SJPD officers who believed he was a suspect in a homicide investigation.
Tovar’s family is filing a federal civil rights lawsuit against the City of San Jose over his death, according to an April 7 Mercury News article.
The family’s outrage is focused on SJPD officers releasing a K-9 police dog onto Tovar’s body after he was fatally shot, according to the same article.
“During the height of the trial in regards to Derek Chauvin, SJPD killed a man, David Tovar, in cold blood on camera,” Dimes said. “They sicced a dog on him to eat away at his body as he laid drawing his last few breaths.”
Organizers also discussed the death of Gregory Johnson Jr., a San Jose State student who was found dead in the Sigma Chi fraternity basement in 2008, as an example of SJPD’s alleged corruption.
In regard to his case, Pamela Emanuel, vice president of B.L.A.C.K. Outreach, said it took community advocacy to push law enforcement, the Santa Clara County Medical Examiner-Coroner’s Office and the university to reexamine his death, which they are doing once the coronavirus pandemic eases.
SJSU has agreed to comply with the coroner’s reopening of the case after coronavirus restrictions permit the office to do so, according to a Feb. 18 email from President Mary Papazian.
Johnson’s death was ruled a suicide by the University Police Department and Santa Clara County Medical Examiner-Coroner's Office, according to the coroner’s autopsy report.
The Johnson family and supporters believe Johnson was murdered in a hate crime.
“That family is still fighting, 13 years,” Emanuel said during the vigil. “It wasn’t until this year where people were in the streets, talking about it, controlling the true narrative of this man’s life and because of that, the case is going to be reexamined.”
San Jose resident Mayeli Barragan Sandoval said injustices stemming from SJPD are a lifelong fight for many residents of color. She called on SJSU students to help fight the oppression of SJPD officers and city leaders.
“A lot of us who don't go to [SJSU], we’ve lived here for years and years and so when you guys come to study here . . . you guys become a part of our community,” Barragan Sandoval said in an interview after the demonstration. “We really need more people like you guys to . . . continue to fight alongside us because the more people we can get the better.”
Emanuel said it’s going to take advocacy from the City of San Jose as well as public demonstration to provide justice for lives lost at the hands of SJPD.
“I think the police of San Jose can go to sleep thinking that [the murder of Floyd] happened miles away, across state borders and it has nothing to do with them,” Emanuel said. “If they see more people out in the streets that’s how we are going to see change.”
San Jose resident Ramos Magos, who gave out samples of his art that read “hands up, don’t shoot” during the event, said Tuesday’s verdict was a step forward and echoed the need for police reform.
“I really hope that we invest more in our communities by having more events and we are more educated,” Magos said in an interview after the demonstration.
