Vigil for Yuvette Henderson, Gunned Down by Emeryville Police in Oakland, 2/3/15: photos

[“R.I.P. Yvette” sign at the memorial on the corner of 34th Street and Hollis. TRIGGER WARNING: Two final photos below depict flesh and blood remaining at the scene.]



The Anti-Police Terrorism Project (APTP) issued the call-out for the vigil to be held just hours after Yuvette was killed. The APTP recently initiated and helped organize the "Reclaim MLK" 96 hours of action in the Bay Area. Friends of Yuvette attended the vigil and said she carried a gun because she was in a domestic violence situation, but they couldn't imagine her pulling a gun outside.

<< FEB 4 UPDATE: Police are now accusing Yuvette of attempting to carjack three vehicles before they shot her down -- see details below photos. >>

The story of her death as told by police on the day Yuvette was killed is that at 12:35pm on February 3 someone called police to report a “combative” shoplifting suspect in Emeryville, then called police a second time to say the woman had a gun and had left the store. Police reportedly found the same woman a block away on the other side of Interstate 580 in Oakland and proceeded to gun her down. The police did not name the woman or her race, or the store involved in the incident, but they have said that two officers found the woman and shot her. Police have not specified whether both officers fired their weapons or said how many shots were fired, and they claimed not to know whether either of the officers were wearing video cameras. While police do say vaguely that a gun was supposedly found in the vicinity, they have not stated that Yuvette drew a gun or pointed it at officers. Most notably on the day of the shooting, police failed to offer any justification as to why Yuvette was executed. Normally, the post-shooting police script would require them to claim that Yuvette pointed a weapon at them, or appeared to have a gun in her hand, or that she was reaching for her waistband, etc.

One witness in a corporate media report described how Yuvette tried to wave down a passing bus: "The girl did not have no gun. She was waving her hands." Another witness named Russ Whitehead was almost killed by the hail of police fire that shattered his car windows with him inside, police only showing concern for his safety after they had killed Yuvette. That same witness reported five or six police officers shouting at Yuvette before she was gunned down.

Those present at the vigil were highly skeptical of the police version of events based on the regular lies so many police departments have told after shooting down African American men and women in the past. One point raised was that there is a video camera just above a garage door right next to the garage door that had the most bullet holes and markings, suggesting that the reason police have not claimed Yuvette pointed a gun at them is because they know she didn’t, and that the ExtraSpace Storage surveillance camera will bare that out if it was functioning and pointing in the right direction at the time.

The only clues to date about which specific officer or officers fired their weapons come from two witnesses to the immediate aftermath of the shooting. One witness at the vigil said that a female officer after the shooting was holding her hands to her face, seemingly shaken and aghast at what she had participated in. A report online shows a photograph of a female officer whose identity other officers were attempting to conceal as she left the scene.

After the vigil, upon inspecting the garage door showing the most bullet marks, it became apparent to those present that at least two weapons were fired at Yuvette, a shotgun and a handgun or rifle. (A witness at the vigil reported seeing an AR-15 or M15 held by police.) Numerous small holes and dimples in the door suggested they were the result of shotgun pellets. It appeared that two shotgun rounds had been fired based on separate groupings of the smaller markings. At least four or five notably larger holes were seen in the garage door #107 at ExtraSpace Storage. There were also similar small dimples in the door to the left and larger chips missing from the cinderblock walls surrounding the doors.

The Oakland fire department truck that backed into the garage alcove to hose down the scene of the killing did a haphazard job, leaving broken glass and grisly bits of blood and flesh in the garage alcove parking area and in the street gutter where the water from their “clean-up” flowed. It appeared that Emeryville police literally shot Yuvette to pieces. [WARNING: Final two photos below depict this.]

Separately, on the same afternoon, Contra Costa County sheriff’s deputies shot and killed an as yet unnamed man in Antioch and police in St. Louis, Missouri killed 23-year-old Ledarius D. Williams. The two Bay Area killings happened within minutes of each other. The killing in St. Louis is said to have happened at about 3:30pm CST.

At the vigil there were discussions about possible future demonstrations in and around Emeryville.