Almost 2 weeks after 2 LASD deputies fatally shot #DijonKizzee protesters are meeting just yards from where he was killed in South LA. They’ll be marching soon. One organizer says: “We want the community to see us and feel us.”
Today follows week of nightly protests outside South LA sheriff’s station. @NLG_LosAngeles held press conference outside station Friday to share witness accounts of police brutality.
Deputies responded by closing in on the group, 1 grabbed a legal observer. IG: vishal.p.singh
Hundreds marching now for #DijonKizzee and #AnthonyWeber, a teen killed by sheriff’s deputies in 2018 in same neighborhood as Kizzee
Re: protesters. The LA County sheriff has been raising the “outside agitator” narrative. Says out-of-staters are inciting violence.
South LA resident Tiara Lucas watches marchers go by. She doesn’t care where they’re from:
“When you see an injustice, it strikes you to move.”
Tiara Lucas is a TSA agent whose mom lives right by where #DijonKizzee was shot in South LA.
She’s not satisfied with LASD. Says last year, she was sitting in a car outside the house with the window rolled down, when a deputy reached inside & unlocked it w/o explanation.
Marchers are on Imperial Highway. They can’t get close to the South LA station as on previous days.
Deputies in riot gear have cordoned off several blocks of Imperial, boxing out protesters who decide to hold a rally at Imperial & Normandie instead
Shaunta Whiting, a social work student from Torrance, was passing thru South LA when she saw a large deputy presence on Imperial hours before the marchers arrived—what she saw as intimidation. She went to her optometrist appt then drove back to protest w/signs she had in her car
Shaunta Whiting is heartened to see non-Black protesters coming from outside South LA to demonstrate. “because people in the community are afraid of the police.”
Scene outside the South LA sheriff station - Raymond & Imperial - behind a yellow barrier people are calling the slinky.
These siblings live w/mom & little brother in an apt across from the sheriff’s station in South LA, right in front of the nightly protests.
Dante, 13, says it’s not safe to play hide-n-seek anymore: “They (the deputies) see us running, they might think something suspicious.”
During the protests, the family has had deputies shine a light into their bathroom window as they peered out.
Dante, 13, has been hit with a chemical irritant. The fumes seeped into their place. “I felt like I was going to choke to death.”
The flash bangs and shooting projectiles are keeping Tia, 15, up on school nights but she’s more worried about Black boys her brothers age. (Mom notes she’s a straight-A student.)
Protesters still at Normandie and Imperial, with speakers calling for murder charges for the deputies who killed #DijonKizzee. No interaction with deputies blocking off Imperial.
Protesters for #DijonKizzee prepare to march back to 109th, where the day began. Dozens of deputies stay put on Imperial outside their station
Protesters for #DijonKizzee have just turned onto W. 109th Pl, headed back to his memorial.
“What do we want? Murder charges!”
Sequarier McCoy - Dijon Kizzee’s aunt...sister to his deceased mom -- was thankful for the turnout of hundreds of protesters today.
“We need people to come…These are our streets. They don’t belong to the sheriff.“
Dijon Kizzee’s aunt Sequarier McCoy shares her dream of creating a community garden filled with snap beans & bell peppers on the empty plot by where her nephew was chased down by deputies.
“Something was taken but still we want to give back.”
Sisters Evelyn and Veronica live up the street from the Sheriff’s station in South LA. They say they’re sleep-deprived from the noise of flash bangs and helicopters and that the chemical irritant used by deputies has wafted into the house they share.
The sisters wish protests would end by 7 or 8 p.m. so they could get some rest. But older sis Evelyn says her bigger problem rests with how Dijon Kizzee was killed.
“There’s no more trust with any law enforcement right now."
Ricardo Miranda, an artist from Pasadena, jokes he is an “outside agitator ”—which he calls a trope used to make people watching TV at home think the protests are “fake.”
He says he’s out on the streets in part for those who can’t make it like the elderly, those on probation
Sheriff Villaneuva blames out-of-staters for protests. This South LA resident is from NJ, says LA is full of transplants.
“Let’s pay attention to the fact that the Sheriff’s department doesn’t even live here..They’re the one’s who are coming in & terrorizing the neighborhoods”
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