• Kindling public action

    Peaceful protest focuses on officer-involved deaths
  • STOCKTON - Protesters and activists rallying against police brutality and ongoing bloodshed in the community convened on the county courthouse's steps for a rally Tuesday afternoon.
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    Friends and relatives of James Cooke, 54; James Rivera Jr., 16; and Luther Brown, 32, spent the bulk of the two-hour demonstration demanding justice for the three who died after confrontations with law enforcement. Additionally, speakers urged members of the audience to register to vote in the upcoming city elections to spur change in the community. The peaceful rally also focused on individuals taking responsibility for their own lives to improve the city they live in.
    "People are set in their ways, but we need to make a change," said Dionne Smith-Downs, Rivera's mother. "Our children's lives depend on it."
    Much of the rally focused on the deaths of Rivera, Cooke and Brown. Rivera was shot and killed by police and San Joaquin County sheriff's deputies in 2010 after a pursuit involving a van authorities say had been stolen at gunpoint. Brown was fatally shot April 6 by Stockton police after they said he ran away during a traffic stop from a car containing narcotics and grabbing a cop's baton during the confrontation. Cooke died while in police custody on his way to a hospital for observation after being combative with police April 12, authorities said.
    All three deaths are under investigation, and many protesters complained the process is taking too long. They also contend the lives of the three have been devalued because the officers involved in each event returned to duty after a brief administrative leave.
    "If someone shoots a cop, they go to prison for life. If someone shoots another person, they get locked up," Stockton resident Danny Hatler said. "Cops shoot someone and get paid leave before coming back to work."
    Protesters argued authorities overstepped their bounds by using lethal force in the shooting deaths of Brown and Rivera.
    Wearing a shirt reading "Where is Justice?" on the front and "Stunguns and pepperspray, not bullets" on the back, Charmaine Gonzales said her friend Brown didn't deserve to die from police gunfire.
    "He didn't have a gun on him," she said.
    Despite the undercurrent of anger at the justice system, Tuesday's rally focused on using the right to free speech and nonviolent protests to achieve a desired result.
    When a brief scuffle broke out between two young men halfway through, speakers and members of the audience admonished the pair and sent them away.
    "We've come too far to connect fighting with what we are doing here today," Smith-Downs said.
    Although Tuesday's rally included protesters from Occupy Oakland, the scene was unlike an April 10 gathering that was declared an unlawful assembly at one point and saw people blocking traffic and committing scattered acts of vandalism.
    No arrests were reported at Tuesday's protest.
    Police officers patrolled the blocks around the rally, and San Joaquin County sheriff's deputies stood on the steps of the courthouse to watch over the crowd.
    "We were having a high-visible presence around the rally, and we're there making sure it's peaceful, which it was," said Officer Joe Silva, a Stockton Police Department spokesman.
    The crowd at Tuesday's rally wants justice for the lives lost, said Lester Aaron Hawthorne Jr., a friend of Brown's.
    Justice comes in the form of people knowing their rights and standing up for what they believe in, he said. He quoted the preamble to the United States' Constitution as his reason for attending.
    "We're trying to form a more perfect union," he said. "That's what we're trying to do."
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