Protesters seeking the firing of San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr began their second week of a hunger strike at a police station in the city’s Mission District Thursday.
What started as a protest by five people—who some are calling the #Frisco5—has now grown to as many as 20. The hunger strikers are occasionally bolstered by dozens of supporters. The core group had been talking for several months about plans to protest police killings of three men of color over the past two years as well as other police actions. They were spurred into beginning the hunger strike after the April 7 police shooting of Luis Góngora, a 45-year-old homeless resident who had allegedly threatened a homeless outreach team with a knife.
There were conflicting accounts of the actual shooting, which occurred outside the reach of a surveillance camera that recorded the arrival of officers in three patrol vehicles. Officers can be heard ordering Góngora to “get on the ground,” then to “put it down.” This is followed by a sound of four bean bags being fired followed by the louder and sharper sound of several shots from their sidearms. Some witnesses said Góngora did not speak English well, and one said the two officers fired at him after he was already on the ground. Police said Góngora had lunged at them with a knife, but more than one witness disputed that. An investigation is still underway.
In addition to the slayings of Góngora and three other men, the hunger strikers are protesting other violence and recent revelations about racist and homophobic electronic messaging by some SFPD officers.
The citizen activist group 48Hills has been providing daily coverage of the hunger strike at its website and on its Twitter account.
On Wednesday, a crowd of more than 100 showed up to disrupt a public meeting on police behavior. Police showed up in force, set up barricades and, as they have in the past, threatened arrests. But nobody was arrested. The meeting, however, was canceled.
In addition to Góngora, the other three slain by police were Alejandro "Alex" Nieto, Amilcar Perez-Lopez, and Mario Woods.
In March 2014, officers confronted the 27-year-old Nieto after getting reports of a man acting erratically and waving a gun. Nieto allegedly pointed a Taser at officers and would not show his hands when ordered to do so. He was shot several times, and a jury in a federal civil lawsuit found in favor of the four officers.
In February 2015, two officers shot the 20-year-old Perez-Lopez, a Guatemalan immigrant, after he allegedly lunged at them. Witnesses said, however, that the officers had tried to grab Perez-Lopez from behind, and he had broken free and run away. An autopsy concluded he had been shot six times in the back.
In December 2015, several officers shot the 26-year-old Woods 20 times after he allegedly threatened them with a knife. A video released by the Woods’ family shows Woods pacing on the sidewalk with his arms at his side. Several of the bullets struck him from behind. That case is under a federal use-of-force investigation.
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jpmassar has posted a discussion of the hunger strike here.