Thursday, July 26, 2012

Amid days of riots, residents wonder if Anaheim is most dangerous place on earth...



Less than five miles from Disneyland, Anaheim police officers killed two young men in separate incidents this past weekend in a working-class section of the city populated mostly by Latinos. The deaths are the fourth and fifth fatal shootings at the hands of Anaheim police offers this year; a sixth man shot by the department’s officers in February survived.

Also known as the home of the Angels baseball team, Anaheim is a melting pot that ranges from upscale hilltop residences to crammed apartment complexes and boasts an estimated population of 341,000 people—more than half of whom are Latino. Its national image, long associated with Mickey Mouse and Republican politics, now includes the stench of police brutality, riots, and reputation for violence that mirrors Los Angeles, its neighbor 25 miles to the north.

“It’s been terrible this year,” said Genevieve Huizar, the mother of Manuel Angel Diaz, the 25-year-old shot by police Saturday afternoon. “You hear about it on the news and now it’s us…nothing is going to bring him back. Nothing. That’s why I’m fighting so hard, and that’s why I’m asking for peace and justice.”

The deaths of Diaz and 21-year-old Joel Matthew Acevedo, who was shot by police Sunday night after, they say, he fired his handgun at an officer while being pursued, sparked four days of violent protests in which riot-clad police officers fired beanbags at women and children and used pepper balls and batons to disperse crowds; protesters hurled rocks, traffic cones and other objects such as shoes, vandalized businesses, and started fires in dumpsters. Full story...

Related posts:
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  2. Police brutality worse than Rodney King - The Robert Leone Story...
  3. Trigger-happy cops: Police brutality in the USA...
  4. Kelly Thomas: how cops beat to death a mentally-ill homeless man (graphic)
  5. Florida cops tie up 62-year-old man and pepper spray him to death...
  6. Police in the US brutalize and abuse the American citizen with impunity...
  7. London riots: 'The police like to give the impression that they're the biggest gang'

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