Frisco5 photo by Lola M. Chavez (Mission Local) Maria Cristina Gutierrez and (clockwise): Equipto, Sellassie, Ike Pinkston and Edwin Lindo.
“This is the beginning of the struggle on so many fronts,” asserted Maria Cristina Gutierrez of the Frisco 5 on Tuesday. It was the end of a long day of marching, protesting and nearly the end of the second week of starvation in the name of ending police violence and the long arm of over-gentrification in San Francisco. Citing the efforts by Gandhi and Cesar Chavez, Gutierrez, 66, says she was moved to hunger strike following the death of Luis Gongora, an immigrant from Yucatan who recently lost his housing and was living homeless on Shotwell Street until he was shot 11 times by SFPD for allegedly brandishing a knife. Witness accounts of the killing varied widely though one certainty is that once again, it doesn’t look good for the police department who in a two-year period have killed four men. Alex Nieto in March of 2014 was shot 59 times when police mistook his taser (he was employed as a security guard) for a gun. Not quite one year later, Guatemalan immigrant Amilcar Perez-Lopez was shot six times in the back. Native son Mario Woods of the Bayview District was shot 20 times in December and the event was caught on video in its entirety. The April 7 shooting of Gongora was the event that prompted Gutierrez to say, “No more,” and to take matters into her own hands. She, her son Ilyich “Equipto” Sato, Sellassie Blackwell, Ike Pinkston, and Edwin Lindo launched a hunger strike on April 21 and have vowed not to eat until San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee fires the Chief of Police.
Read the entire article at Down With Tyranny!
Filed under: San Francisco News, Equipto, Frisco 5, Hunger For Justice, Selassie
Denise Sullivan 