Why I Vote: Your District Attorney Matters More Than You Think
By TRISHESJesse Romero’s father is small in stature. He wears a cap and custom made t-shirt with a picture of Jesse’s face above the years 2001-2016. He speaks briefly, with a heavy accent and a fist high in the air.
It is impossible not to imagine my father in his place. I have a soft spot for immigrant fathers.
Mine is a relatively private man. He lectures in front of students and colleagues, but picturing him on a stage baring his anger and his pain for a crowd is both unbearable and almost unfathomable. But, if what happened to Jesse happened to me, my dad would be there too, crying, yelling, fist in the air. Any parent would.
Since the killing of George Floyd I have been attending the Black Lives Matter Los Angeles weekly protest against District Attorney Jackie Lacey as often as I can, and Jesse’s father is a staple here. Each Wednesday afternoon protest is a lot of things at once - a dirge, a ceremony, a celebration, a calling.
I was there two days after Dijon Kizzee was murdered by LAPD for riding his bike. I heard his partner cry the kind of cry you only hear a few times in a lifetime (if you’re lucky). The kind of violent cry that comes from your belly and your soul. I’ve seen Brendon Glenn’s cousin remind the crowd of all the ways that we are just like Brendon before the LAPD took his life at 29 years old. I’ve seen celebrities under masks cry on the modestly raised platform in 100 degree heat in front of a Hall of Justice that has served little justice. And I have seen Jesse’s father, every week, holding a sign and a fist in the air.
Jesse was killed by the LAPD when he was just shy of 15 years old. Lacey did not prosecute Eden Medina, the officer who fatally shot Romero just 12 days after he shot and killed 36 year old Omar Gonzalez. In fact, in the 8 years that she has been in office for, over 600 people have been killed by the LAPD and she has only prosecuted one officer.
I am ashamed to say that I have often ignored local politics and it has been to the detriment of my brothers and sisters of color. The movement for Black lives and the end of police brutality absolutely hinges on our participation in local politics. On November 3rd, while the world focuses on the presidential election, we have the chance to usher in criminal justice reform by voting for progressive District Attorneys throughout the country.
Not only can District Attorneys “prosecute killer cops” as the chants and signs held on West Temple street demand, they can change the way we address crime all together. They can create diversion programs to replace incarceration for the prison population suffering from mental health issues (more than half of all incarcerated persons). They can urge reinvestment from drug policing into education and health services. They can create stricter use of force guidelines for police officers. Here in Los Angeles, Lacey’s opponent George Gascon, has promised to do these things, and progressive DA’s throughout the U.S. are running on similar platforms.
We can also make changes through local props and measures that focus on community based solutions to crime. In Los Angeles we have a chance to vote for Measure J, which reinvests money from incarceration into things like incarceration alternatives, youth development programs, job training, restorative justice programs, health services and transitional housing.
There are people alive right now who will either lose their lives to police brutality or to a rigged criminal justice system. Somewhere out there a kid like Jesse is in Zoom math class and their father is watching them grow up. Maybe this kid is getting into stuff they shouldn’t be, because teenagers like to do that. Maybe they are a squeaky clean A+ student who walks home on chilly nights with their hood up. Maybe they are riding their bike. Maybe they are asleep. Whatever this kid is doing, I’m hell bent on us protecting them.
Kendrick Sampson asked this question to us all at the BLMLA protest of May 27th, following George Flloyd’s death, and now I pose them to you:
“Can you imagine better than this system?
Can we build better than this system?
Are we willing to tear this system down?”