Reflections on San Jose's first homicide of the year:
when a statistic is a friend
By Raj Jayadev

Here is what came out in the paper the day after our colleague, friend, and inspiration Albert Cobarrubias was unexpectedly killed in a random act of gun violence. Word for word it read:

“San Jose police are looking for a suspect in the fatal shooting Saturday night of a 30-year-old man, the city's first homicide of the year. At 10:57 p.m., officers responded to a report of shots fired at a home in the 2700 block of Chopin Avenue near Puccini Avenue, in a neighborhood south of Eastridge Mall. Near the garage they found a man with a gunshot wound, San Jose police spokesman Ronnie Lopez said. The man was transported to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead, Lopez said. Police have not released the victim's name. Police are interviewing people who were gathered at the home and are seeking more witnesses, Lopez said. They have made no arrests.”

They had a note of who to call at the police department if anyone had information, and in the online version, there was a button to click for an interactive map on crimes in San Jose. It was a total of 155 words.

I don’t blame the paper for leaving out the remarkable life of Albert in their report, they just didn’t know. What was news worthy was Albert’s numerical value – the first homicide of the year in San Jose. It is an annual reporting tradition for city papers, like finding out the name of the first baby of the new year.

After being notified that Albert was a graduate of San Jose State, headed to law school, and a community leader, the media did start to take notice as to the significance of his passing. In his death, he exceeded the stereotype of what they expected, just as Albert had been doing for people his whole life.

Invariably, in their follow-up interviews they would ask me, ”What was lost with Albert’s death?” I don’t know how to answer that. I am used to writing letters of recommendations for Albert for scholarships, grants, college applications. I am used to describing Albert in anticipation of the great man he the would become, rather than reflecting on the great man he was. It should never be that the same words from a scholarship application, the hopeful language of what can possibly be, can also be used in an obituary of what could have been.

All I would tell them is that for the people who were not graced to have known him, they were denied the gift of bearing witness to a living embodiment of integrity, compassion, and perseverance. And he was 31, not 30.

We met Albert at our community center, Silicon Valley De-Bug, three years ago, where he volunteered to help families navigate through the criminal justice system, and actually helped build that side of the organization. I consider him a founding father of our community legal work. Since his first day of service, he showed up every Sunday afternoon, during our legal clinic, to assist families going through the most difficult moments of their lives – when their child got arrested, or a husband was just handed a life sentence – and needed assistance. Albert was made for the job, and throughout his time, advocated for families in a way only he was equipped to do. There are youngsters walking around San Jose freely rather than trapped in the system because of Albert, and inmates in prison doing life that have rekindled hope of an appeal because of Albert.

And despite the fact that he had every right in the world to pronounce that he was uniquely gifted, and had overcome tremendous odds to become the man he was, Albert was always humble, unassuming. At our meetings, after setting up chairs for everyone else, he would take a seat in the back. That’s why he was effective. The people coming into our center for help, low-income people of color, trusted Albert because they knew he lived through the same hardships, and that his efforts were genuine. He was raising three daughters, worked full-time at a paint store, was studying for the law school exam, on top of his community work. With a shaved-head, tatted-up, wearing baggy jeans, and from a Latino neighborhood on the Eastside, Albert was as likely to get profiled by the police as the people he was helping. And he did. Every now and again, he would recount stories of being pulled over and labeled due to his skin color. But I bet the cops who stopped him would never guess they were harassing a guy who wrote a paper called "Racial Profiling: the Interconnecting Events of Race, Masculinity and Class" for his Social Inequality and the Law class at San Jose State that is still being used as a model for student research.

His personal experiences of discrimination crafted his ambitions to change the system, and his personal will and natural intellect was allowing him to do so. He was the first male in his family to graduate from a four year university school. That was Albert to me, someone who was so certain as to who he was -- where he was from, and where he was destined -- that he didn’t need pretenses. He was freer then the rest of us because I didn’t know his place, or rather, didn’t care.

Albert just being Albert changed the way people perceived each other. For the lawyers Albert would press on behalf of a family (and he was relentless when in his advocacy mode) Albert changed the way they looked at community members. He could solve legal problems quicker than they could, was more organized than fully staffed law firms, and paid no mind to the excluding hierarchy of the legal system. Without a title, much less a law degree, Albert would contact the District Attorney or Public Defender directly when someone was falsely arrested, would demand responses from appellate lawyers until they folded. He wasn’t what they expected.

For the families, many who Albert knew from the neighborhood and would bring into the center himself, he was equally transforming. That such a powerful fighter for justice was the same guy they saw the family barbeques, or at the Sharks game, made them realize their own power to fight. As extraordinary as he was, he showed them that you don’t have to leave your community to become something beyond it.

Below is a an excerpt from an essay Albert wrote for his Santa Clara Law School application last year.

“I was raised by my grandparents because my mother was only 15 years old when she had me. I soon became the focus of my entire family and everyone from aunts to uncles to cousins wanted to help out with raising me. As I grew up my grandmother became one of my biggest inspirations. She was a nurse for 25 years and taught me a lot about perseverance and commitment…It meant the world to her when I graduated from San Jose State because I am the only male and only the second person in my whole family to graduate from a 4 year college. At my San Jose State graduation her present to me was a promise that she would still be alive to be at my graduation from law school. She is now 80 years old and is in failing health. In my mind, that promise was the best present ever given to me.”

His story is an improbable one, and one that will live on through anyone who has the courage and strength to do what Albert did so naturally – believe in yourself and your community.

To donate to the family of Albert Cobarrubias please send checks made out to his Uncle:
Mitch Cobarrubias (Care of Albert)

And can be sent to Silicon Valley De-Bug at:
701 Lenzen Avenue
San Jose, CA 95126

For more information regarding fundraising activities please contact: 408.971.4965 // svdebug@newamericamedia.org

Albert Cobarrubias Will Always Be With Us
Father, Leader, Fighter for Justice That Continues to Inspire
January 25, 2010

Albert Cobarrubias, our brother, friend, and one of the driving forces behind our justice work has passed away. He had just celebrated his 31th birthday last week.

I'm not send this as an obituary because I honestly cannot fathom this loss. Since its a Sunday, I'm used to seeing Albert in a couple hours, at 2:30pm, at our Sunday meetings. He would be the first one in most of the time, preparing the room, setting chairs for people, cleaning the board. Selfless, humble, and always ready to serve others -- and we bore witness to this every Sunday. His military history made him very orderly, and he would make sure the board was clean, the office table we sat around clear for others.

We met Albert through his professor, Sang, who said she had a stand out student, who really wanted to plug into the fight for justice in San Jose. I told her we don't take interns for our Sunday work, its too personal, and not something people should do for college credit. She was adamant Albert was a perfect fit. I met him, and he was just as Sang described -- bright, insightful, committed, and had understood the issues he wanted to fight for through his own personal experiences. As promised he was special. He became a fixture every Sunday, well after he finished his class with Sang, well after he graduated. This just became part of his life, because he carved out the limited time he had to make it so. He was determined to use his education and efforts to make the world better for people who were treated unfairly. He asked for no credit, no fame, no money, he just wanted to serve, and given his sharp mind, the fact that he had been in the shoes of many who came to us, he helped many families who came through our doors. Albert became the go-to legal researcher, and never failed to find the answers, even the ones the lawyers couldn't locate. At countless Sunday's, when Aram would find a road block in the legal strategy while assisting a family, he would ask Albert to find a way over the obstacle -- and Albert always obliged. He set up public functions for De-Bug to be heard, and always held the torch as soon as it was handed to him.

And some of the people Albert helped, he never met face to face. Albert was always getting letters from prison, as inmates would share his name as a man who would help them. And he did. Albert was probably the only hope for some of those locked up, some for life. And Albert carried that hope with grace and consistency. He knocked on doors that others would not. He challenged institutions and powerful legal clinics, for those he was advocating for and was relentless. Albert was undeniable when we believed in something, and would push the pace for all of us.

He did all this community work while maintaining a full-time job at KellyMoore paints, rasing three kids, studying for law school, and supporting his Sharks. And despite his amazing accomplishments, he did all this without pretense. He could have been boastful, bragging, but he was always humble, funny, the guy you just want to hang out with. He was well on his way to becoming a top flight attorney, but he was still the guy who wore t-shirts and jeans, and could chop it up with anyone about San Jose life -- Raiders, Niners, police, whatever. On Sunday he would be able to give us some obscure, but vital, case law, and give us the score of the game right after looking at his phone.

Chip and I went to his graduation. He is the first in his family to graduate college. I've been to plenty of graduations, but this was special. Albert was on a path that he was not supposed to be on as a low-income, tatted-up, father of three from the Eastside. And he wasn't going to use school to get away from his community, he was going to use it to make his community stronger. Albert was always the one at De-Bug we knew would go on to great triumphs, and someone we could point to as to what was possible with belief. He was already the role model we pointed out to others. The rest of the De-Bug folks called him, "Albert the lawyer."

When Albert graduated, he was one step closer to his goal of becoming a lawyer. He was on his way to Santa Clara University, but needed another year to save up money. I remember reading his application statement, De-Bug wrote a letter of recommendation for him, and his story is awe-inspiring, and was the first time I heard him articulate what Sunday at De-Bug fully meant to his larger life plan. He wrote... "At Debug I learned that with a strong community backing anything is possible. And I truly believe that. I will be forever grateful to her for directing my journey to a place in which I can help members of the community. At Debug we help community members who are mainly poor minorities that can’t afford lawyers...The experience from that class along with my experiences at Debug has allowed me to recognize discrimination and disparities within the criminal justice system. And it has also empowered me to become a fighter for social justice. All my experiences have afforded me the opportunity to make a difference and impact the community in a positive way."

Albert will always be our inspiration, and he will be with us whenever any of us are fighting for justice. Please read his full story below that he wrote for law school.

I was raised by my grandparents because my mother was only 15 years old when she had me. I soon became the focus of my entire family and everyone from aunts to uncles to cousins wanted to help out with raising me. As I grew up my grandmother became one of my biggest inspirations. She was a nurse for 25 years and taught me a lot about perseverance and commitment. And as a devout catholic she taught me the importance of having faith and putting things in “God’s hands”. It meant the world to her when I graduated from San Jose State because I am the only male and only the second person in my whole family to graduate from a 4 year college. At my San Jose State graduation her present to me was a promise that she would still be alive to be at my graduation from law school. She is now 80 years old and is in failing health. In my mind, that promise was the best present ever given to me.

Although my grandmother’s love and inspiration has helped me in my journey to the threshold of law school, I still had to overcome many obstacles in order to get here. I grew up on the Eastside of San Jose in an area that was considered a high crime and high gang area. We didn’t have much money growing up so I had to work for everything that I had. The high school I went to was in the news all the time. However, it wasn’t for academic reasons but rather for crimes that occurred at the school by students or about the students that were arrested for crimes in the area. The nights were often illuminated with the lights of fire engines, cop cars, ambulances, and helicopters. Sometimes it was hard to sleep because I could hear gunfire and sirens throughout the night. And as a result of the constant chaos many people in the area, especially us kids, were often harassed by the police. They would often pull up behind us while we were walking and would handcuff and search us. That became routine after a while but what really was stamped in my mind was the fact that the cops would tell us we would never amount to anything and that we would probably all end up in prison. And to a certain point they were right because many of my friends, which consisted of 21 kids in my neighborhood, did time in juvenile hall and eventually ended up in prison. In fact, I am only one of two people from my neighborhood to graduate high school. And I am the only person to graduate from college.

I had many obstacles and hurdles to clear growing up which only made me stronger as a person. It was a challenge for me to stay focused and do my best at school because of the enormous peer pressure to do drugs and to get into gangs. But the most challenging thing happened 5 months after my 17th birthday. It was my first day of summer school and I had to miss it because I was at the hospital to witness the birth of my first daughter. I soon had to get a job and spent my senior year working, going to school, and then taking care of her. This was a major event in my life and it made me more determined to graduate from high school and eventually graduate from college. Since then I have had 2 more daughters but still have not lost sight of my goal. I quickly learned a successful formula to balance many things out at one time. During the last few years of college I began working 6 days a week, to make 40 hours, and taking on 12 units. It was a crazy schedule but I was able to persevere and graduate as a member of Alpha Phi Sigma, the National Criminal Justice Honor Society and Sigma Alpha Lambda, the National Leadership and Honor Organization. I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Justice Studies and a minor in political Science with a focus on constitutional law.

San Jose State improved me academically but also allowed for the 2nd major event in my life to happen. This occurred after I took a class with Dr. Sang Kil. The class was JS132, Race, Gender, Inequality, and the Law. It was in this class that I discovered that the way I was treated by the police and other members of society growing up was not just a way of life but was actually a complex matrix of intersecting oppressions. She was also the person that introduced me to the place that I now volunteer at, Silicon Valley Debug. At Debug I learned that with a strong community backing anything is possible. And I truly believe that. I will be forever grateful to her for directing my journey to a place in which I can help members of the community. At Debug we help community members who are mainly poor minorities that can’t afford lawyers. What we provide is a shadow to court, ensure their public defenders are doing their jobs, help them build a good defense, and ensure that true justice prevails, but most of all we provide them with support. We also give them a chance to stand up for themselves and not be charged with crimes they didn’t commit or take abuse that they do should not have to deal with. Currently we are working to establish a police crimes unit, fight disparities within the local criminal justice system, help facilitate a diversion program, and also have an impact on cases that are filed. The experience from that class along with my experiences at Debug has allowed me to recognize discrimination and disparities within the criminal justice system. And it has also empowered me to become a fighter for social justice. All my experiences have afforded me the opportunity to make a difference and impact the community in a positive way. I think I have a unique perspective, due to my Mexican heritage and humble upbringing. This is especially true with issues that deal with the criminal justice system...