Cinco de Mayo Copwatch Report
By San Jose Copwatch
May 12,2009

 

Cinco de Mayo: Political Heritage and Current Struggles

Cinco de Mayo weekend is the biggest public celebration in San Jose. In the past, there were huge gatherings in the downtown in the daytime and then hundreds of thousands of people would walk, cruise, or bike all over the city to catch up with their friends and families and party. People would come from all over the western U.S. to be a part of San Jose’s Cinco de Mayo celebrations, whether cruising in their classic lowriders or just being out with friends and flying Mexican and UFW flags on an early summer night.
Culturally and historically, el Cinco de Mayo commemorates the victory of a Mexican and indigenous army over French invaders at Puebla in 1862, and is not a huge celebration in Mexico. But here in the U.S., el Cinco de Mayo is deeply meaningful because it publicly reminds everyone of the 500 years of indigenous and Chicano struggle to affirm a sense of home right here in spite of being told they are immigrants or that they should “go home!” Claiming the right to live and work in the U.S. in dignity and without racial profiling now in 2009 cuts right to the heart of today’s politics. As the economy collapses and the poor and working people are being robbed by the government to pay off the trillions of dollars of public money given to the rich and the bankers, the “middle-class” in the U.S. that thought every generation would be better off than their parents is realizing they have been lied to. Now the “middle-class” wants someone to blame for their troubles and rather than confront the government and the rich that they serve in the long tradition of U.S. racist nativism the Minutemen and conservatives are calling for the deportation of all undocumented workers and the militarization of the border with Mexico.
Concretely, the City’s policies around Cinco de Mayo took a turn for the repressive after a violent incident occurred in 1997 where alleged gang members got in a fight on Cinco de Mayo. The SJPD and City administrators seized on the incident and used it as part of their overall plan to portray youth of color, especially Chicano and Mexican youth as the primary threat facing San Jose, using the racist stereotypes that all those youth were gang members. The SJPD, City administrators, and politicians scapegoated youth of color and used the threat of young Brown and Black people as possible gang members to demand more money for cops, “gang experts”, a paramilitary Gang Unit, and increased policing of the Downtown and Eastside on Cinco de Mayo. The SJPD began to close freeway offramps and divert traffic from the Downtown and the Eastside onto the freeways to disperse the partiers, turning San Jose into a police state every Cinco de Mayo weekend. With such heightened police activity and the notorious racial profiling by the SJPD (see: http://www.urbanhabitat.org/node/4036 and http://www.mercurynews.com/san-jose-public-drunkenness/ci_10995681), the numbers of people going out have shrunk from hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands and there is a sense among Chicanos and Latinos and other people of color that going out on the streets means risking police harassment and arrest, especially for people in classic or tricked out cars.
In recent years, San Jose Copwatch has observed huge numbers of police and probation officers aggressively patrolling the downtown and routinely and randomly selecting youth for detention and profiling into the SJPD gang database, in addition to the ongoing arbitrary arrests and intimidation of the community. In this climate, confronting racial profiling and arbitrary arrests of Mexican and Chicano people in San Jose is a must and that is why we copwatch on Cinco de Mayo.

Tactics used by SJPD to deter the Cop watchers

For Cinco de Mayo 2009, copwatchers experienced a show of force and aggression by SJPD for no other reason than being videotaped.

In particular, there was a motorcycle stop which was witnessed by the Copwatchers. In this particular stop the cop watchers witnessed a motorcycle driving down the street and a cop car attempted to pull over the motorcycle by using the front of his car to block the path of the motor cycle from proceeding forward. As the copwatchers witnessed this a group decided to cross the street in the vicinity of the stop. One other group decided to stay watching from across the street to get a different angle on the stop.
As the copwatchers from across the street were filming one of them noticed the street being lit up and decided to look up (see San Jose Copwatch Incident Report 5/3/09 #3 and video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ohuHd_HXbY) and noticed it was a helicopter shining the light on the copwatchers rather than the stop. At this moment there were four copwatchers on the side of the street where the stop was and another 2 across the street. As the helicopter circled around it shone the light on the copwatchers continuously. This lasted for the duration of the stop.

Another tactic employed by SJPD was when another group of copwatchers saw a stop at the KFC on Santa Clara St. We saw three youths taken out of the car who were Latino. They were sitting on the curb on the side of the KFC. One copwatcher was dropped off while the others left to park their vehicle. As the copwatcher approached he began to videotape what was happening (see San Jose Copwatch Incident Report 5/3/09 #4 and video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORtZPtblOUs). As he approached and was videotaping an officer asked him “is that a camara or is it a gun” in his hand. The copwatcher took this as implying that if he was going to continue doing this then there might be a chance of his video camera being mistaken for a gun. This did not make any sense to the copwatcher because the officer was shining his flashlight directly into the copwatcher's face. As the light was being shone on him, the other copwatchers came from parking the car and immediately began to record. As they were recording they were told they were obstructing and they should move across the street (violation of SJPD Duty Manual Sec. L2308 “Onlookers Policy”). They continued to record and attempted to move back. The other copwatcher was videotaping as the officers began to call in for backup. This was communicated to the copwatchers via the copwatch command post that was set up for that evening. The command post was coordinating between the copwatcher teams about where to go based on information received from contacts on the street working along with the copwatchers.

Several other copwatchers verbally reported hearing the police use the new tactic of threatening to “arrest you for obstruction because now I have to watch you instead of the arrest” over the weekend of Cinco de Mayo. Taken with the “Is that a camera or is it a gun?” comment, a pattern of police threatening copwatchers is developing which is counter to department policy as per the “Onlookers Policy” or Sec. L2308 of the SJPD Duty Manual which states clearly that onlookers have a right to observe and be within earshot of the stop and will not be harassed by officers at the scene. We will document any other harassment of copwatchers very thoroughly and request that anyone who has been charged with “obstruction” or been otherwise harassed by the SJPD for exercising their right to observe contact sanjosecopwatch@gmail.com.

Cinco de Mayo 2009 Copwatch Summary

In 2009, San Jose Copwatch worked with members of student, community, anti-war, union, and police accountability organizations from around the South Bay to coordinate the largest copwatch San Jose has seen in many years, although the Community Alert Patrol of the late 60’s and early 70’s routinely did this work in San Jose. Here is a quick overview:

Friday 5/1/09

2 Copwatchers, 1 team

NOTES:

-Two men forced to take off their shoes and socks for parking in a loading zone between 1st and market on San Fernando.

Saturday 5/2/09

10 Copwatchers, 3 teams plus a dispatcher

NOTES:

-City Staffer called ACLU who called Raj who called Brian to inform them about a questionable stop at 1st and San Fernando.

-Documented the citation of Cesar from SJSU MEChA with two teams (7 copwatchers)

Sunday 5/3/09

12 Copwatchers, 4 teams plus a dispatcher

NOTES:

-Saw a cop put a 13 y/o Chicano guy into a headlock and take him down while screaming “Don’t f#&*ing tense up on me” for no apparent reason at the Wienerschnitzel at 19th and Santa Clara and then take him into custody.

-Had an SJPD helicopter put its spotlight on copwatchers at 19th and Santa Clara across from Wienerschnitzel while filming a stop of a motorcycle that had been cut off and forced to pull over by a squad car and then ticketed for parking in a red zone.

See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ohuHd_HXbY

-SJPD Officer asked one of us “Is that a camera or is that a gun?” in a clear threat and then threatened all the copwatchers at the same stop at KFC at 12th and Santa Clara with arrest for obstructing an officer because “Now I have to watch you instead of the arrest.”

See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORtZPtblOUs

Tuesday 5/5/09

17 Copwatchers, 6 teams plus 2 dispatchers

NOTES:

Still collecting notes