Publish to Newswire
Add an EventFrom the Open-Publishing Calendar
From the Open-Publishing Newswire
Indybay Feature
BARTing While HOMELESS, (and white), the latest BART Police Assassination of Charles Hill
On July 3rd, 2011,at 9:45 pm, a 45 yr. scruffy looking man of Euro descent, only IDed 8 days later through his driver licence picture , Charles Blair Hill, ad nauseam described by the corporate press as a "wobbly drunk", and a "crazy hippy", met a violent fate on a SF Civic Center BART Platform at the hands of a white and an Asian BART Thugs in Blue....
BARTING WHILE HOMELESS (and white), the latest BART Police Assassination of Charles Blair Hill
By mesha Monge-Irizarry, Idriss Stelley Foundation
July 13, 2011
On July 3rd, 2011,at 9:45 pm, a 45 yr. scruffy looking man of Euro descent, only IDed 8 days later through his driver licence picture , Charles Blair Hill, ad nauseam described by the corporate press as a "wobbly drunk", and a "crazy hippy",
met a violent fate on a SF Civic Center BART Platform at the hands of a white and an Asian BART Thugs in Blue....
3 bullets casings were recovered on the platform, and Charles was declared dead at SFGH an hour later.
Merely a case of...
BARTIng while Homeless and possibly intoxicated, that has now become a justifiable death sentence on the street,
in the Land of the Proud and the Free, 2 hours before "Independence Day".
http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/07/witness_account_of_bart_police_shooting_prompts_more_questions.html
Here is another corporate coverage but it shows a video of how many riots cops were there:
http://www.chicoer.com/news/ci_18456050 Rowdy protest shuts down three BART stations and causes major delays throughout system - Chico Enter
http://www.chicoer.com
"Protesters want the BART police force disbanded in the wake of the killing of a homeless man by a BART officer on July 3"
THE PEOPLE OF SAN FRANCISCO WILL NOT STAY SILENT ON ANY BART POLICE KILLINGS !
Eight days later, On July 11 2001, 5 pm, commemorating Charles' Stolen Life at the hand of the BART Police, an estimated crowd of civil rights protesters of 200 (although the corporate press estimated numbers at 60 or 80), of all races, ages and economic backgrounds descended en masse to the Civic Center BART Platform where Charles was executed like a rabid dog,
where we met a barrage of hundreds of cops in full riot gear, some flanked with huge K9 dogs, pre-civil rights style,
while we chanted:
"No Justice, No Peace!
Cops, Pigs, Dismantle the BART Police!"
QUIET AS KEPT: CHARLES BLAIR HILL's KILLING BY BART POLICE IS THE FIFTH OCCURENCE SINCE 1992
Those who are relatively new to the Bay Area may not know that this is the 5th BART police killing, all People of Color to the exception of Charles Hill...
In the previous cases, BART's internal investigations concluded that the officers felt threatened by the victims and were justified in pulling the trigger. It's unbelievable given the circumstances of the killings:
- In 1992, African American 19-year-old Jerrold Hall (only son of Cornelius Hall, who at the time was the Fire chief of Oakland !) was shot in the back by a BART officer as he tried to leave the parking lot of a station.
The officer was responding to reports of an armed robbery and said he suspected that Hall and a friend were involved.
The officer tried to detain the two, Hall ran and then the officer shot him in the back and killed him.
Hall was unarmed, but the officer said he thought Hall was on his way to get a gun and return for a showdown.
Jerrold's assassin later committed suicide....
- In 2001, an African American schizophrenic man, Bruce Seward was the next victim of the rogue force.
Seward, 42, was naked and had been sleeping on a bench outside the BART station when an officer approached him.
Seward did grab the officer's nightstick at one point, but there were several options for subduing him.
Instead, the officer shot and killed him.
At the time, 2 weeks before the SFPD killing of my own son Idriss Stelley, 23 yr African Anerican student, I had the opportunity to listen to an archived audiotape of that homicidal investigation. Exerpt:
(Investigator): "So, you felt you had to kill the suspect?"
(BART Cop): "Dunno, he just had this look on his face like he wanted me to shoot him"
- On January 1, 2009, African American Youth Oscar Grant was assassinated, handcuffed, face down, by BART officer Johannes Meherle, (who was released from custody last June 12, 2001, for "Good Behavior" following a substanstial reduction of his incarceration for time already served from indictement to trial).
- Mid August,2010, BART police killed a distraught man of intereacial descent, Fred Cook, 34.
- Shortly after, Robert Greer died from am alleged "fall" after being taken into BART police custody.
"AT FIRST, I THOUGHT IT WAS FIREWORKS" SAID EDWIN LEE
"At first I thought it was fireworks, and we didn't pay any attention,"
said Edwin Li, a San Franciscan who was on a train stopped at the station when the shooting of Charles Blair Hill occurred.
He got off the train and saw the two officers, with Hill nearby on the ground.
"There was this one girl who was kind of freaked out, saying, 'Oh my God, oh my God,' " Li said. "There were people on the platform."
(The killing endangered the lives of innocent bystanders.... WHO do you mean to Serve & Protect, again?)
A BART commuter sent me a private message two nights ago, right after seeing Charles'photo in SF Gate:
"Dear God ! I knew him ! I used to give him quarters all the time, sweet guy, he would not have hurt a fly !"
"N... SAY YOU WANNA DIE ! YOU KNOW YOU WANNA DIE, SAY IT, N... !"
A young African American man, husband of one of my staff at Hayward Emergency Shelter of which I was the program director in Nov, 2001, jumped fair at South Hayward Bart as he was late to go pick up his new born baby from childcare.
4 BART cops brought him to the ground and started hitting him with sticks, one was recording and kept yelling at him:
"N..., say you wanna die, you know you wanna die, say it N...".....
so that he could become yet another "BLACK SUICIDE BY COP"
There were witnesses in the platform, and the young Brother started screaming,
"NO ! My wife and I just had a beautiful baby boy, I don't wanna die !
Someone PLEASE ! Call the police, the REAL police !".
the BART cops gave him a citation and let him go....
He and his wife were so shaken by the occurence that I had to conduct two emergency counseling sessions with the couple, and an interactive "Know Your Rights" seminar with the entire family of the victim...
COMMUTERS' "UPSET" IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN A STOLEN, ANONYMOUS LIFE...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIw1Z-H1WIA&feature=player_embedded
BART protest
http://www.youtube.com
The corporate press whines on and on about the major delays and "distress" incurred through last evening Stolen Lives protest at Civic Center BART Station for the decent commuters trying to get home....
Charles, a "transient", on the dark side of the conservative middle class, who considers the Homeless as a "nuisance"...
will never enter a shelter, let alone attend a function with his grieving family and friend.
I am yet to read ONE word of compassion towards Charles' Grieving Family !
I wholeheartedly hope that his family members and friends do not read the hundreds of hateful,vilifying and degrading comments,entered below corporate press coverage of the killing,
Assault compounding horror and injury, stabbed through the heart each time they would read "wobbly drunk" about their Loved One, posted by cops on company time, budget and equipment, and by their unconditional police culture lovers.
Alcohol is a LEGAL drug,
late stage alcololism is an ILLNESS,
a DISABILITY,
not a CRIME !
YET, ANOTHER WASTED, STOLEN LIFE.
Yet, another wasted, Stolen Life,white this time...
probably to the immense relief of Law Enforcement, as it dilutes allegations of
longstanding illegal Racially biased Policing.
Or would it be that on the BART Plantation,
Poor, Black, Brown, and the Homeless,
Are N...s of our World ?
Don't Drink & BART, if you have a preference for staying alive ?
I would like to understand how a distraught subject, with unsteady balance, could possibly "lunge" at an officer with allegedly a broken vodka bottle in one hand and a knife in the other,
without falling down in the process ?
I am a female disabled Elder, and with the basic self defense training I took, I have, to this day, no difficulty to quickly bring down to the ground any large agressor with my cane....
"ALWAYS SHOOT AT CENTER MASS"
But Police' organizational culture has it that one should not merely impair the fine motor skills of a subject, while bringing her/him safely to the ground, hence protecting the subject from self harm and near onlookers,
but to ALWAYS SHOOT AT CENTER MASS,
which I was taught for 15 weeks at my SFPD Academy Citizens Training in 2003.
What happened with the much praised CIT (Crisis Intervention Training) modeled after the Memphis PD training ?
More smoke, more mirrors, more assassinations.
If you witness police misconduct, and shoot pictures or a video with your cellphone,
* stay 10 ft away fron the scene,
* loudly assert that you are "Exercizing Your Consitutional Right to Observe",
* and if at all quickly possible take the chip out of your cell and hide it in
your mouth after filming your evidence !
"An Injustice to One is an Injustice to ALL"
Rest in Glory Brother Charles,
You will not be forgotten
One lingering regret...
I never got a chance to give you a quarter, a ciggie, a sandwitch with a bottle of water....
By mesha Monge-Irizarry, Idriss Stelley Foundation
July 13, 2011
On July 3rd, 2011,at 9:45 pm, a 45 yr. scruffy looking man of Euro descent, only IDed 8 days later through his driver licence picture , Charles Blair Hill, ad nauseam described by the corporate press as a "wobbly drunk", and a "crazy hippy",
met a violent fate on a SF Civic Center BART Platform at the hands of a white and an Asian BART Thugs in Blue....
3 bullets casings were recovered on the platform, and Charles was declared dead at SFGH an hour later.
Merely a case of...
BARTIng while Homeless and possibly intoxicated, that has now become a justifiable death sentence on the street,
in the Land of the Proud and the Free, 2 hours before "Independence Day".
http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/07/witness_account_of_bart_police_shooting_prompts_more_questions.html
Here is another corporate coverage but it shows a video of how many riots cops were there:
http://www.chicoer.com/news/ci_18456050 Rowdy protest shuts down three BART stations and causes major delays throughout system - Chico Enter
http://www.chicoer.com
"Protesters want the BART police force disbanded in the wake of the killing of a homeless man by a BART officer on July 3"
THE PEOPLE OF SAN FRANCISCO WILL NOT STAY SILENT ON ANY BART POLICE KILLINGS !
Eight days later, On July 11 2001, 5 pm, commemorating Charles' Stolen Life at the hand of the BART Police, an estimated crowd of civil rights protesters of 200 (although the corporate press estimated numbers at 60 or 80), of all races, ages and economic backgrounds descended en masse to the Civic Center BART Platform where Charles was executed like a rabid dog,
where we met a barrage of hundreds of cops in full riot gear, some flanked with huge K9 dogs, pre-civil rights style,
while we chanted:
"No Justice, No Peace!
Cops, Pigs, Dismantle the BART Police!"
QUIET AS KEPT: CHARLES BLAIR HILL's KILLING BY BART POLICE IS THE FIFTH OCCURENCE SINCE 1992
Those who are relatively new to the Bay Area may not know that this is the 5th BART police killing, all People of Color to the exception of Charles Hill...
In the previous cases, BART's internal investigations concluded that the officers felt threatened by the victims and were justified in pulling the trigger. It's unbelievable given the circumstances of the killings:
- In 1992, African American 19-year-old Jerrold Hall (only son of Cornelius Hall, who at the time was the Fire chief of Oakland !) was shot in the back by a BART officer as he tried to leave the parking lot of a station.
The officer was responding to reports of an armed robbery and said he suspected that Hall and a friend were involved.
The officer tried to detain the two, Hall ran and then the officer shot him in the back and killed him.
Hall was unarmed, but the officer said he thought Hall was on his way to get a gun and return for a showdown.
Jerrold's assassin later committed suicide....
- In 2001, an African American schizophrenic man, Bruce Seward was the next victim of the rogue force.
Seward, 42, was naked and had been sleeping on a bench outside the BART station when an officer approached him.
Seward did grab the officer's nightstick at one point, but there were several options for subduing him.
Instead, the officer shot and killed him.
At the time, 2 weeks before the SFPD killing of my own son Idriss Stelley, 23 yr African Anerican student, I had the opportunity to listen to an archived audiotape of that homicidal investigation. Exerpt:
(Investigator): "So, you felt you had to kill the suspect?"
(BART Cop): "Dunno, he just had this look on his face like he wanted me to shoot him"
- On January 1, 2009, African American Youth Oscar Grant was assassinated, handcuffed, face down, by BART officer Johannes Meherle, (who was released from custody last June 12, 2001, for "Good Behavior" following a substanstial reduction of his incarceration for time already served from indictement to trial).
- Mid August,2010, BART police killed a distraught man of intereacial descent, Fred Cook, 34.
- Shortly after, Robert Greer died from am alleged "fall" after being taken into BART police custody.
"AT FIRST, I THOUGHT IT WAS FIREWORKS" SAID EDWIN LEE
"At first I thought it was fireworks, and we didn't pay any attention,"
said Edwin Li, a San Franciscan who was on a train stopped at the station when the shooting of Charles Blair Hill occurred.
He got off the train and saw the two officers, with Hill nearby on the ground.
"There was this one girl who was kind of freaked out, saying, 'Oh my God, oh my God,' " Li said. "There were people on the platform."
(The killing endangered the lives of innocent bystanders.... WHO do you mean to Serve & Protect, again?)
A BART commuter sent me a private message two nights ago, right after seeing Charles'photo in SF Gate:
"Dear God ! I knew him ! I used to give him quarters all the time, sweet guy, he would not have hurt a fly !"
"N... SAY YOU WANNA DIE ! YOU KNOW YOU WANNA DIE, SAY IT, N... !"
A young African American man, husband of one of my staff at Hayward Emergency Shelter of which I was the program director in Nov, 2001, jumped fair at South Hayward Bart as he was late to go pick up his new born baby from childcare.
4 BART cops brought him to the ground and started hitting him with sticks, one was recording and kept yelling at him:
"N..., say you wanna die, you know you wanna die, say it N...".....
so that he could become yet another "BLACK SUICIDE BY COP"
There were witnesses in the platform, and the young Brother started screaming,
"NO ! My wife and I just had a beautiful baby boy, I don't wanna die !
Someone PLEASE ! Call the police, the REAL police !".
the BART cops gave him a citation and let him go....
He and his wife were so shaken by the occurence that I had to conduct two emergency counseling sessions with the couple, and an interactive "Know Your Rights" seminar with the entire family of the victim...
COMMUTERS' "UPSET" IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN A STOLEN, ANONYMOUS LIFE...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIw1Z-H1WIA&feature=player_embedded
BART protest
http://www.youtube.com
The corporate press whines on and on about the major delays and "distress" incurred through last evening Stolen Lives protest at Civic Center BART Station for the decent commuters trying to get home....
Charles, a "transient", on the dark side of the conservative middle class, who considers the Homeless as a "nuisance"...
will never enter a shelter, let alone attend a function with his grieving family and friend.
I am yet to read ONE word of compassion towards Charles' Grieving Family !
I wholeheartedly hope that his family members and friends do not read the hundreds of hateful,vilifying and degrading comments,entered below corporate press coverage of the killing,
Assault compounding horror and injury, stabbed through the heart each time they would read "wobbly drunk" about their Loved One, posted by cops on company time, budget and equipment, and by their unconditional police culture lovers.
Alcohol is a LEGAL drug,
late stage alcololism is an ILLNESS,
a DISABILITY,
not a CRIME !
YET, ANOTHER WASTED, STOLEN LIFE.
Yet, another wasted, Stolen Life,white this time...
probably to the immense relief of Law Enforcement, as it dilutes allegations of
longstanding illegal Racially biased Policing.
Or would it be that on the BART Plantation,
Poor, Black, Brown, and the Homeless,
Are N...s of our World ?
Don't Drink & BART, if you have a preference for staying alive ?
I would like to understand how a distraught subject, with unsteady balance, could possibly "lunge" at an officer with allegedly a broken vodka bottle in one hand and a knife in the other,
without falling down in the process ?
I am a female disabled Elder, and with the basic self defense training I took, I have, to this day, no difficulty to quickly bring down to the ground any large agressor with my cane....
"ALWAYS SHOOT AT CENTER MASS"
But Police' organizational culture has it that one should not merely impair the fine motor skills of a subject, while bringing her/him safely to the ground, hence protecting the subject from self harm and near onlookers,
but to ALWAYS SHOOT AT CENTER MASS,
which I was taught for 15 weeks at my SFPD Academy Citizens Training in 2003.
What happened with the much praised CIT (Crisis Intervention Training) modeled after the Memphis PD training ?
More smoke, more mirrors, more assassinations.
If you witness police misconduct, and shoot pictures or a video with your cellphone,
* stay 10 ft away fron the scene,
* loudly assert that you are "Exercizing Your Consitutional Right to Observe",
* and if at all quickly possible take the chip out of your cell and hide it in
your mouth after filming your evidence !
"An Injustice to One is an Injustice to ALL"
Rest in Glory Brother Charles,
You will not be forgotten
One lingering regret...
I never got a chance to give you a quarter, a ciggie, a sandwitch with a bottle of water....
Add Your Comments
Comments
(Hide Comments)
Sometimes we forget to document all that happens. Thank you for putting out all this information. It is my understanding that BART has given up on the "he's got a knife" line and that BART has video from BART and witness cameras. Of course, none has been provided to the community. ALSO, Hill was shot 3x; how can a drunk be a threat after 1 shot?! WHERE IS OUR DA?!!!! Certainly, the second and third shots should be prosecuted. Finally, on the comments left after stories by readers--there are people so hate-filled that they wrote similar comments (or even worse) after the Grant shooting. Reading those comments, you can see the (non) values of the people who committed the killings.
For more information:
http://www.justiceforseanatoaklandfire@gma...
Yesterday I realized that besides an article in colorlines, covering the People' demand for an independent investogation, there was nothing written appealing for compassion for the family of this man, or anything about the kind of man he was.
Several comments hace been entered on the facebook I set up in Charles' memory at http://www.facebook.com/groups/203548939693413?ap=1
A gay Disabled activist stated who BART with his attendant to the TL fron the Castro stated that he has seen Charles many times, and never saw him display any aggression. Another man stated that his brother is mentally ill and he fears that he would meet the same fate.
I reckon that the white conservative community is yawning, and that they do not consider Charles as "one of them"....
Where is the DA ? The current one, being an ex-police chief, will concur with BART PD and conclude "Justifiable Homicide". We need to holler "CONFLICT OF INTEREST" !!!
Oakland has a civilian review Board..... We must demand a FBI investigation. Next would be to confront DOJ in Washington....
Several comments hace been entered on the facebook I set up in Charles' memory at http://www.facebook.com/groups/203548939693413?ap=1
A gay Disabled activist stated who BART with his attendant to the TL fron the Castro stated that he has seen Charles many times, and never saw him display any aggression. Another man stated that his brother is mentally ill and he fears that he would meet the same fate.
I reckon that the white conservative community is yawning, and that they do not consider Charles as "one of them"....
Where is the DA ? The current one, being an ex-police chief, will concur with BART PD and conclude "Justifiable Homicide". We need to holler "CONFLICT OF INTEREST" !!!
Oakland has a civilian review Board..... We must demand a FBI investigation. Next would be to confront DOJ in Washington....
For more information:
http://www.facebook.com/groups/20354893969...
Cops are gona keep killing people and we're gona keep protesting and its never going to end until we organize insurrection for a world with out cops, prisons, war, politicians, austerity and capitalism.
We are 100% volunteer and depend on your participation to sustain our efforts!
Donate
$75.00 donated
in the past month
Get Involved
If you'd like to help with maintaining or developing the website, contact us.
Publish
Publish your stories and upcoming events on Indybay.
Topics
More
Search Indybay's Archives
Advanced Search
►
▼
IMC Network