On September 1st, 2015, members of the Anti Police Terror Project led a speak-out against police terror and the execution of Yuvette Henderson by Emeryville Police at the Emeryville, City Council meeting. Powerful testimony was given by many, excerpts of which are provided below. Directly below is the video of an hour and twelve minutes of testimony.
Speakers included Yuvette’s brother and Cat Brooks (both pictured at right), co-founder of APTP.
Yvette Henderson was killed approximately eight months ago after exiting Home Depot over a dispute over shoplifting.
At the time of this hearing, seven months later, the Coroner’s report on her death had still not been released. Perhaps due to this hearing and threats of subsequent protest the report was released to the family around the 1st of October.
On October 6th, 2015, APTP plans to again visit the Emeryville City Council. They will speak to item 7.2 on the agenda, “Community Policing Presentation.”
Excerpts:
5:25 “Hardly a death sentence of a crime… Emeryville Police Deptartment is severely overmilitarized”
8:10 “Imagine if your family member was murdered… and you needed to get this much community support just to get a Coroner’s report…”
12:10 “This happened, I believe, because she was an African-American woman…”
15:00 “Assault weapons are used in war… The police are saying ‘we are at war…’
18:50 “For this family to be suffering for this long without any offical report… it’s despicable.”
24:00 “gunned down with military-grade weaponry by men who held themselves to be judge, jury and executioner… Emeryville is now up there on a list of infamy…
29:30 “More and more it didn’t make sense. I’m hear to demand transparency for when police kill people.”
31:00 “There are countless people around the country who have been killed for the crime of having black skin… When white people do stuff, they get talked down.”
39:00 “Yuvette is no longer living and breathing because Emeryville Police decided to commit an extra-judicial killing… Tell your police to stand down… Rethink the weaponry you are giving to these men and women.”
42:30 “What is going here, that is a crime, a punishable crime by death, to walk away from the police? … They are declaring war on the people.”
46:50 “I’m the brother of Yuvette. I just want to know some answers… We had to find out in the news. Still no autopsy report… I just need answers… She didn’t have a funeral… This is her memorial…”
51:20 “I fought in Vietnam. I know what the assault weapons do to you.”
58:15 “Two Emeryville police officers were there. When we made the request for the autopsy report they laughed at us. ‘You’ll get it when we decide.'”
1:00:30 “The other thing you can do is take a stand on the weaponry your police department has… Some communities have said ‘No, we don’t need this equipment.’ That’s a matter of policy. That’s within your purview.”
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