Vigil, Caravan Demands Justice in the State-Sponsored Killing of Yuvette Henderson

Women of color are often the invisible victims of police-terror. On Sunday April 12th, the Anti Police-Terror Project (APTP), in conjunction with Yuvette’s family and a handful of other organizations, held a vigil and caravan in the name of Yuvette Henderson. The mother of 2 was killed feet away from an Extra-Space Storage surveillance camera, yet both the storage facility and the police have refused to release those tapes. Yuvette suffered a head-wound at the hands of Home Depot security, paramedics were called, yet tapes of this encounter are being withheld from Yuvette’s family too. The vigil and caravan were held on the corner of 34th and Hollis street in Emeryville, half a block away from where Yuvette was killed.
Published on IndyBay prior to the event, the specific demands for the event were as follows:

1. Release of the video tapes that contain the shooting or any lead-up to the shooting of Yuvette Henderson.
2. Leave without pay for Michelle Shepherd and Warren Williams, the officers involved in the killing of Yuvette Henderson, while they are being investigated and, ultimately, the termination of Shepard and Williams from the Emeryville Police Department.
3. The immediate return or destruction of all military styled weapons and accessories in the possession of the Emeryville Police Department.
4. An account on what happened to Yuvette while in contact with Home Depot security, an explanation regarding how she sustained the head injury on Home Depot property, and a reason as to why she never saw the paramedics as a result of her head injury.

The community first gathered in support of Yuvette Henderson the night of her death. The Anti Police-Terror project called the vigil that evening. Armed with candles, flowers, and signs, around 150 people collected behind “do not cross” lines the night of February 3rd. Although, CBS news only reported the “smashing of windows,” (one door to Home Depot was broken) the evening was almost entirely peaceful and was the first chance for the community to organize its response to her death. Two months, dozens of meetings, one march later, the APTP gathered again to call for #JusticeForYuvette. The afternoon began with a rally and vigil on the corner of 34th and Hollis St. in Emeryville, only a half a block away from where she was killed by Emeryville Police officers Michelle Shepard and Warren Williams.

Mollie Costello of the Anti Police-Terror Project and the Alan Blueford Center for Justice emceed the event. Formed afer the death of Alan Blueford, The Alan Blueford Center for Justice has been an integral, revolutionary institution in the fight for an end to police-terror. Alan was murdered by Miguel Masso of the Oakland Police Department May 6, 2012. Alan was unarmed at the time of the shooting.

The first two speakers were Jamison, the brother of Yuvette, and Antoinette, Yuvette's sister. Both spoke words of strength, power, and loss. Jamison testified as to the kindness and strength of his sister. Intensely spiritual, Yuvette would call her brother almost daily asking him if he had given thanks for today. Antoinette also outlined alternative policing strategies, letting Emeryville Police know there are ways to deal with a shop-lifting suspect that do not include shooting them seven times with an automatic rifle. The siblings created a revolutionary narrative of love and power that runs directly counter to the slander campaign by Emeryville Police and their partners in the local, corporate media. Local outlets such as ABC7 and The Mercury News have published functional op-eds for the police, criminalizing, dehumynizing Yuvette and depicting the community response as "riots." (Here is a link to Jamison's speech: https://vimeo.com/124988893 )

After the family of Yuvette, Dionne, the mother of James Rivera, spoke of the 5 years of activism she has embarked on since Stockton Police Department murdered her son. James, 16 and unarmed when killed by Stockton police, was shot 19 times with a number of different firearms. Like Yuvette, James was shot with an AR-15.

Family members of victims of police-terror have been busy in the Bay. Sunday's action for Yuvette Henderson followed an equally important action Saturday in the name of Guadalupe Ochoa. On December 7th, 2014, San Leandro Police shot Guadalupe Ochoa. Two days later, the mother was dead. The stories and deaths of Guadalupe and Yuvette are linked. Both are women of color, mercilessly gunned down by police. As in the case of Yuvette Henderson, Oakland Police Department is also in charge of investigating their partners in the San Leandro Police Department. In fact, OPD was present during the shooting of Guadalupe but, according to the OPD spokesperson, they fired no rounds... At the Justice For Guadalupe Vigil in East Oakland on Saturday friends and family members of the fallen comrade demanded the police answer questions about her death. After speakers, organizing, and a moment of silence, everyone packed into their cars and began the caravan from Home Depot to OPD.

It was at the Emeryville Home Depot that Yuvette sustained a head injury serious enough to call the paramedics. It was at this location where Yuvette allegedly stole a box of knives and showed a gun to the security. Activists prepared a letter to Home Depot requesting video surveillance of Yuvette's interaction with loss prevention and a report as to why she never received the attention of paramedics. This is the second letter of demands APTP and the family of Yuvette has delivered to Home Depot. The first letter received no response. This letter had to be slipped through a metal door; upon the arrival of the caravan, they closed their store, keeping some customers inside.

Aside from their assault upon Yuvette Henderson, Home Depot shares responsibility for the death of Yuvette Henderson in two other ways.

First, their refusal to release surveillance tapes and their silence regarding her interaction with loss prevention is assisting Emeryville PD and Oakland PD in their cover-up of the state-killing of Yuvette. (Oakland Police Department is in charge of investigating their friends over at Emeryville PD.) Home Depot could be showing themselves as an empathetic, empowering company. Instead, they have sided against transparency and justice; they have colluded with a police department that hands out defacto-executions to Black, female shop-lifters.

Second, it was Home Depot loss prevention who made the original call to Emeryville police. As we saw with Tamir Rice, the 12 year old boy murdered by police in Cleveland over a toy gun, and Sureshbhai Patel, the Indian man brutalized by police in Alabama, 911-callers bare a unique, but often overlooked responsibility for the brutal actions of police. Black women are being hunted down, assaulted, and killed by police in alarming numbers in this country. It requires a violent insensitivity and ignorance on the parts of Home Depot to not only call the police, but stand behind that decision unabashedly.

Following the short rally and letter delivery at Home Depot, the caravan of roughly 30 vehicles drove from down Broadway to Oakland Police Department headquarters. Endowed with the symbolic power of a funeral procession, the cars traveled slowly, with signs out being held outside windows, emergency lights on. In the middle of the caravan was a moving van, it’s sides lined with the faces of Mike Brown, Oscar Grant, and Kayla Moore, and other lives stolen by police-terror. The caravan went smoothly with much thanks to the team of bikers who directed traffic and held down intersections, securing safe travels for Yuvette's procession. There was powerful solidarity showed to the caravan throughout the entire procession for Yuvette, her family, and comrades.

When the caravan came near the OPD headquarters, a line of police officers, armed with guns, batons, pepper-spray, handcuffs, and zip-ties appeared. Stopping on the street and parking in near-by parking lots, the caravan gathered face-to-face with line of cops. It was here, where Antoinette, Jeralynn Blueford (mother of Alan Blueford), Cat Brooks, and Mollie Costello spoke to their crowd of comrades. Below is a video from a portion of Cat Brooks' speech. Cat simultaenousely put the police on notice and drew the activists' to a frenzy with her impassioned words. "The time for talking, is about over..." (Here is a link to Cat's speech https://vimeo.com/124791337 )

Antoinette spoke again and her presence and powerful words were a reality-check to the officers blocking the activists from OPD headquarters. She is a living example of OPD's inability to squelch resistance with cover-ups. She is an affirmation of the humanity of black women and their power to build, organize, and lead a movement against police-terror, terror which strikes Black women both disproportionately and, often times, invisibly.

In front of the police line, Jeralynn Blueford, mother of Alan, connected the dots between the states-murder of her son and the state-killing of Yuvette. In both cases, police hunted down their victims, in Alan's case, waiting for him to trip and fall before shooting him dead. In both cases, there was police withheld information and subsequent criminalization of their victims. OPD initially stated that Alan exchanged gunfire with Officer Masso, shooting the officer in the foot. This story was later found to be a lie, Officer Miguel Masso shot himself in the foot.

Jeralynn again offered a vehement criticism of Emeryville and Oakland's use of automatic assault rifles. "You can deal with shop-lifters without using an AR-15," Miss Blueford said. The police departments in Emeryville, Oakland, and San Francisco are using the same weapons to gun down black and brown people as the United States military used to kill civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. Earlier in the afternoon, the mother of James Rivera reminded us, that her unarmed, 16 year old son was shot repeatedly with an AR-15 by Stockton Police. "The revolution has begun and is being led by Black women,” were the closing words at the event, spoken by Mollie Costello. Sunday was an affirmation of the truth of Mollie’s statement.

Thank you to @violentfanon @alyssa011968 @sosanista @evanpmatthews @ThornCoyle @thehoopoe @ThatKittyMcGee @MathisOdell @rasceylon and the many other on-the-ground documentors for capturing the day on social media.

On the event's Facebook page you can find hundreds of photos of the rally and vigil in front of Extra-Space Storage and the subsequent caravan to the Oakland Police Department. Here is the link: https://www.facebook.com/events/816734415071241/826536134091069/

An album of Daniella's photographs: https://www.facebook.com/mollie.costello/media_set?set=a.672927652819267.1073741930.100003061144757&type=1

An album of Mollie's photographs: https://www.facebook.com/mollie.costello/media_set?set=a.672927652819267.1073741930.100003061144757&type=1

There is also a storify compiled for the event: https://storify.com/APTP/justiceforyuvette-vigil-and-caravan-demands-answe

The #JusticeForYuvette Vigil and Caravan was organized by the Anti Police-Terror Project in conjunction with the Alan Blueford Center for Justice, the ONYX Organizing Committee, The Idriss Stelley Foundation, Community Ready Corps, and the Workers World Party. The Anti Police-Terror Project is a group of committed organizations and individuals committed to creating replicable and sustainable models for eradicating police terrorism in communities of color across the nation. Organizations included in the APTP are the ONYX Organizing Committee, The Community Ready Corps, the Alan Blueford Center for Justice, Healthy Hoodz, The Idriss Stelley Foundation and the Black Power Network.

To contact the curator of this page email evanpmatthews [at] gmail.com or leave a comment.