Demanding Justice for 14-Year-Old Latino Boy Killed by Police

A week after the fatal shooting by Los Angeles police of 14-year-old Jesse Romero, dozens of activists Tuesday attended the city’s weekly Police Commission, meeting to demand accountability.

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“The system as a whole is set up to basically scare and marginalize people,” said Alejandro Sanchez-Lopez, one of several people who organized a vigil for the young victim last week told teleSUR.

“Jesse was criminalized,” Carolyn Vera, another organizer advocating against Romero’s death, told teleSUR, noting that Black and brown youth are always portrayed as older, and more menacing. In initial police reports by police, Romero was described as being 20 years old.

As Sanchez-Lopez described, although the LAPD police commission reported witness testimony that Romero had a gun on him at the time of the incident, despite multiple witness accounts to the contrary, LAPD Police Chief Charles Beck did not take the testimony into account.

The demands from the community include releasing video footage from the bodycam of the officer who shot Romero dead, as well as releasing more information about the officer himself.

In addition, “the city needs to pay for Romero’s funeral, because he was unjustly killed,” Vera told teleSUR.

Romero is the fourth fatal victim of a police shooting this year in the tiny enclace of Boyle Heights. The community has responded with with vigils, marches and a Go Fund Me page to help the family members of the slain.

A poster for a rally in memory of Romero held last week | Photo: Facebook / Youth Justice Coalition

“There is no point in working within the institutional structure of the LAPD,” said Sanchez-Lopez.

In continuing Black and brown unity against the overpolicing of their communities, the multiple contingents demanding justice for Romero, a Latino teenager, are standing in solidarity with Black Lives Matter.

As Sancho-Lopez and Vera recounted, Black Lives Matter have been camping outside LA city hall for 36 days, demanding that Mayor Eric Garcetti fire LAPD Chief Charlie Beck, who has consistently defended fatal shootings by his officers.

It’s the community’s youth that are perhaps most shook up from the recent killing, says Alessandro Negrete, an activist with Defend Boyle Heights, a grassroots collective fighting against gentrification.

“Our youth of color are continually getting harassed. Kids don’t feel safe calling cops, they’re more comfortable calling community members,” Negrete told teleSUR.

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"I'm really heartbroken," said 19-year-old Nancy Flores, a student who works with younger teens in an after-school program in Boyle Heights, to 89.33 KPCC. She described that she and her friends are the ones that walk to school, go to the parks and deal directly with crime and the police.

"It's affecting us," she said.

The communities in the area have always had a contentious relationship with the LAPD, Negrete explained, saying that they’ve been subjected to racism and repression.

Just hours after Tuesday’s meeting of the Police Commission, LAPD officers shot and killed yet another person in South LA, during a routine traffic stop.

According to the LA Times, a male passenger got out of the car, and at some point the officer shot him. No details of the victim’s name and age have been released yet.

This shooting marks the 16th by LAPD officers this year, in which 13 people have died.