Walker is Every Cop in San Jose
By Elizabeth Gonzalez

The Walker verdict came as a complete shock to the family and friends who sat through months of courtroom testimony believing justice would be served for the father of five. Outside the courtroom the family and friends where able to give voice to the feelings they had to hold back inside the courtroom. They drowned out the media interviews of defense lawyer, Brown, yelling “murderer,” “Guilty” and “No justice served!” as other members of the Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement practically ran out of the courthouse.

A few of the plainclothes officers who formed a barrier between Brown and the protesters openly laughed at the protesters as they let their feelings be known. These are the people that trouble me. The other Mike Walker's running loose, that I hate to have out there “protecting” me because they lack compassion and they evidently lack a sense of right and wrong. Those officers that can laugh in the face of pained people with tears streaming from their eyes should not be trusted to uphold a position of authority when they maliciously display it. And although murder is the extreme, we see malicious acts everyday by the police force in our cities. From the officer that believes the rules of the road don't apply to him, and he can cross red lights as it pleases him to the ones who feel it necessary to kick a person while they are already on the ground. Knowing that this happens everyday is what makes it difficult for me to understand how a jury could let him go.

But, then I thought about it. This jury was a jury of Michael Walker's peers. A jury that didn't reflect the San Jose community in any way. They were predominately white, older in age, and most likely don't live in the areas that police officers feel they can run wild. Those are places where you don't see a cop car every time you turn, unlike much of the east side or in down town where the murder took place. These jurors live in a part of the city where unruly cops are not the reality, and if someone is pulled over on the side of the road, they think they obviously did something wrong.

Could it be that if you are patroling a certain side of town, the rules don't apply to officers? That they are to treat everyone like criminals because of the shade of their skin and that it's okay if you violate their rights and even kill innocent people because the life of a regular, working class civilian is unimportant when we cross the path of an unscrupulous cop?

This is not just, and the not guilty verdict was unjust - and though many people know it, only few will stand up for the truth and serve as the conscience of not only Walker, but the rest of the city and even the state, because a wearing a badge doesn't give someone the right to kill.

Related Pieces:

GHAZAL* FOR SAN JOSE
by Christopher Patrick Nelson

Lessons Learned
By Raj Jayadev

Will There Ever be Justice?
By David Madrid

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