anaheim-demoRadicals, working with Genevieve Huizar and Donna Acevedo, are planning a long-hot summer for the good people of Anaheim. This is from the website of Answer – LA, a radical left-wing organization, and was e-mailed out last week to left-wingers around SoCal:

A letter from the mothers of Manuel Diaz and Joel Acevedo, murdered by Anaheim P.D.
Call to action on the anniversary of their sons’ murders

May 23, 2013

The following is a personal appeal from the mothers of Manuel Diaz and Joel Acevedo, the two men murdered on July 21 and 22 by Anaheim police which sparked the historic community mobilizations against the scourge of police brutality. They are joining with other family members who’s loved ones are victims of police brutality, the ANSWER Coalition and other community groups for a Southern California Unity March Against Police Brutality on the 1 year anniversary of the events. We urge everyone to read their letter below, and learn more about march by clicking here.

To the people of Southern California:

Our names are Genevieve Huizar and Donna Michelle Castro and we are writing to you and all organizations concerned with fighting police brutality and racism. Our sons were murdered on July 21 and July 22 of last year in the city of Anaheim, sparking weeks of rebellion and resistance to the epidemic of police violence that is affecting communities throughout Southern California and beyond.

These mass protests were made possible through the broad unity of local communities and activist organizations. We call on all of you, from Bakersfield to San Diego, to converge in Anaheim again, on the one year anniversary of those dramatic events. We will march united, in the name of our fallen sons, Manuel Diaz and Joel Acevedo, to demand an end to police brutality throughout the region.

Our demands for the July 21 march, which are our points of unity, have come from our experiences for the past year as steadfast activists in the police brutality movement throughout Southern California, fighting alongside countless grieving mothers.

We demand:

  • Justice for Manuel Diaz, Joel Acevedo and all victims of police violence!
  • Jail all killer cops! Fire the Los Angeles and Orange County District Attorneys!
  • End racial profiling, gang injunctions and police checkpoints!
  • Community control over all police and prison guards!

We know that the people hold the power to stop police violence and that this change can only come from our collective, direct action. We will gather at Little People’s Park in remembrance of the 1978 uprising against racist Anaheim police violence. We will march on Disneyland, a world icon of Southern California, and expose the real life experience of working people that are pushed outside the bounds of Southern California tourism and affluence.

Join us in the streets on July 21st! Please endorse and/or RSVP by clicking here.

In solidarity,

Genevieve Huizar Donna Michelle Castro
Unity March inititated by:
Family of Manuel Diaz (murdered by police in Anaheim on July 21, 2012);
Family of Joel Acevedo (murdered by police in Anaheim on July 22, 2012);
Family of Martin Angel Hernandez (murdered by police in Anaheim on Mar. 6, 2012);
Family of Jose de la Trinidad (murdered by police in Willowbrook on Nov. 10, 2012);
Family & friends of Mike Nida (murdered by Downey police on Oct. 22, 2011);
Elizabeth Bustamante and John Cabrera (shot by Long Beach police on May 14, 2011);
Family of Andres Avila (murdered by Pomona police on Oct. 16, 2011);
Family of Caesar Ray Cruz (murdered by police in Fullerton on Dec. 11, 2009);
ANSWER Los Angeles; United Survivors of Anaheim; Nida’s Rydas; Jeremy Marks Defense Committee; Long Beach Campaign to Stop Police Violence, Women Organized to Resist and Defend (WORD); KmB Pro-People Youth; March Forward!; Party for Socialism and Liberation; Worker Student Alliance (UC Irvine); and more (Click here to endorse)

Get involved!

Click here for the event information. Please share widely!
Click here to endorse and/or RSVP to the July 21 march as an individual or organization.
Click here to make a donation to help build this action.

Where to start?

I don’t know if Huizar and Castro-Acevedo actually wrote this letter or if they read, approved and signed it. Given the revolutionary, the-oppressive-power-structure-is-racist tenor, it sounds like it was written by a Chicano Studies student (pardon me – Chicano/a Studies. Mustn’t be politically incorrect).

This letter is not reasonable. It is not a tempered call for reform. It is not kind. It is devoid of goodwill and charity. Huizar’s and Acevedo/Castro’s screed is the rhetorical clenched fist of the revolutionary. It’s oozes the radical’s impulse to smash.

Huizar and Acevedo/Castro claim their sons were murdered, and are therefore claiming the police officers who shot them are murderers. Yet, they have no evidence to substantiate such a serious  (and recklessly hurled) charge.

Huizar, Acevedo/Castro and the other radicals attached to this letter demand “Justice for Manuel Diaz, Joel Acevedo and all victims of police violence!” but have nothing to say in this polemic about the far more numerous victims of far more real gang violence.

Huizar, Acevedo/Castro and the other radicals try to ennoble last summer’s rioting as “rebellion and resistance.” Tell that to the citizens whose businesses and property were attacked and vandalized by the rioters. Huizar and Acevedo/Castro, who are being celebrated by those who should know better as crusaders, are lionizing criminal behavior and implicitly calling for more of the same this July 21. Praising last year’s rioting while issuing an inflammatory call to march in celebration of that rioting is a de facto invitation for more rioting.

Review the roll-call of groups working with Huizar and Acevedo/Castro to organize this ambulatory paean to mayhem — these are hard-core radicals, not the League of Women Voters.

When not denouncing the Anaheim police as racist, homicidal maniacs, Huizar and Acevedo/Castro have been active advocates of policies such as carving Anaheim into single-member council districts, creating a fifth layer of oversight in the form of a civilian police review board and various other planks in the Left’s political platform for Anaheim.

It is tragic and deeply sad for any parent to lose a son or daughter. I have four children and cannot imagine the grief. But the hard truth is that the distinct possibility of meeting with a violent end is concomitant with life as a criminal gang member. It is no favor to anyone to gloss over that reality and claim — as an astonishing number of people do — that the opportunities for a better life for residents of neighborhoods like Anna Drive and Guinida Lane would improve if the police would just go away.

It will certainly be interesting to see who shows up on July 21 to show “solidarity” with the assortment of leftists, radicals and police-baiters in honoring last year’s rioters.

[POST-SCRIPT: In a post last week, I referred to Donna Acevedo as Donna Castro, which prompted local left-winger Vern Nelson to claim that I was attempting to link her in readers minds with Fidel Castro. Absurd on its face — but that’s the mind of Vern Nelson at work. Since Donna Acevedo singed her name here as Donna Castro, I await Vern’s publicly accusation that she is linking herself to the Cuba dictator.]