{"id":13219,"date":"2014-03-08T13:47:29","date_gmt":"2014-03-08T20:47:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/?p=13219"},"modified":"2014-03-08T13:54:12","modified_gmt":"2014-03-08T20:54:12","slug":"federal-jury-accepts-latinos-murder-for-gang-colors-neighborhood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/federal-jury-accepts-latinos-murder-for-gang-colors-neighborhood\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal Jury Accepts Latino’s Murder for ‘Gang Colors’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Police Rationalize Murdering Unarmed Anaheim Latino for Dress & Neighborhood<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\"Manuel

Manuel Diaz with his daughter in undated family photo<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Rania<\/a>

Rania Khalek<\/p><\/div>\n

by Ranika Khalek (3-7-14)<\/em><\/p>\n

Anaheim, CA —<\/strong>\u00a0On July 27, 2012, 24-year-old Manuel Diaz was\u00a0shot in the back of the head<\/a>\u00a0by Anaheim police officer Nick Bennallack. Officers then stood over Diaz, who was unarmed, for three minutes, watching him twitch and bleed out before doing anything. It was an execution.<\/p>\n

Almost two years later, a federal jury has rejected a lawsuit against the officer and the city filed by Diaz\u2019s mother claiming police used excessive force. Why? Because it happened in a neighborhood where there are gangs and Diaz was, according to police, dressed like a \u201cgang member\u201d.<\/p>\n

As the\u00a0OC Register\u00a0<\/em>reports<\/a>\u00a0(emphasis mine):<\/p>\n

One of the jurors said that\u00a0on Anna Drive, where the shooting happened, police could reasonably expect that a man dressed like a gang member and running from them could have a gun.<\/strong>\u00a0The neighborhood is claimed by an Anaheim gang that was at the center of a multi-agency firearms and narcotics investigation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, had this happened in an upper-class suburban neighborhood free of gang activity, perhaps then it would qualify as excessive force. But, in the working class and poor Latino neighborhoods of Anaheim, young men like Diaz are fair game for police execution, armed or not (Diaz was not).<\/p>\n

Humberto Guizar, the Diaz family attorney, called the jury\u2019s decision, \u201c an\u00a0indictment on the community<\/a>,\u201d adding, \u201cThey denied him justice because of where he lived.\u201d<\/p>\n

The jury, comprised of six men and two women (four white, three Latino and one Asian),\u00a0deliberated for just two hours<\/a>\u00a0before reaffirming the long held belief that unarmed Latino men are disposable.<\/p>\n

To be clear,\u00a0\u201cgang member\u201d is code<\/a>\u00a0for nonwhite, usually black or Latino. Immediately after Diaz was killed, Anaheim police (in between\u00a0shooting rubber bullets<\/a>\u00a0at women and children protesting the killing) painted him as a gang member who despite being unarmed probably did something<\/em> to deserve his fate. And it worked. The cop who killed Diaz was cleared of any wrongdoing by the city. All that was left was this lawsuit brought forth by Diaz\u2019s grieving mother. She plans to appeal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Police Rationalize Murdering Unarmed Anaheim Latino for Dress & Neighborhood by Ranika Khalek (3-7-14) Anaheim, CA —\u00a0On July 27, 2012, 24-year-old Manuel Diaz was\u00a0shot in the back of the head\u00a0by Anaheim police officer Nick Bennallack. Officers then stood over Diaz, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13219"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13219\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13225,"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13219\/revisions\/13225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}