Activists won’t keep silent on police brutality

Torrential rains could not stop the Newark-based Peoples Organization for Progress (POP) from marching April 2 to police headquarters to protest the January 2005 police shootings of Rashid Moore and Richard Guy. “We have to get the message out there, and get it out there constantly, that police brutality is alive and well in America,” commented Lawrence Hamm of POP. “Being out in the pouring rain shows just how determined we are to fight against the injustice of police misconduct.” “Why did they have to shoot my son 17 times. Wasn’t once good enough?” asked Elizabeth Moore, Rashid’s mother, during an interview with The Final Call. “I’ve lost my best friend,” she lamented. “He was never in any trouble. People say that he helped a lot of people in the community.” Margaret Guy said she is still in shock over the shooting of her son Richard, who was wounded in the leg. She said that it is hard to understand how the people who are supposed to protect the community end up being the ones who do the most harm. Richard Guy is charged with trying to take a policeman’s gun. “It is the same cops in Newark committing the killings and beatings,” argues Mr. Hamm. He said that one of the police officers who killed Mr. Moore killed another Black man in the summer of 2003. A “no bill” was the ruling in the murder of Michael Newkirk; and now this same officer has killed another young Black man, Mr. Hamm offered. [more]