Police violence and brutality are nothing new for communities of color and other marginalized people. It has only been in recent years that we, as a society, have begun to awaken to the fact that more than a few police officers abuse their power – hiding behind the badge of authority to harass, demean and sometimes kill members of our community.
I’m no stranger to this experience. On Sept. 14, 1988, I was distributing grape boycott literature outside a San Francisco hotel when I was physically assaulted by a San Francisco police officer. He sent me to the hospital with broken ribs and a ruptured spleen.