Guest commentary: Support Francisco Romero — Todo Poder al Pueblo!

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By Armando Vazquez / Guest contributor

On February 25, 2015 our dearest companero Francisco Romero, one of the co-founders of Todo Poder al Pueblo, will be in a Ventura County courtroom, once again fighting trumped up misdemeanor charges; a victim of a selectively target hit conducted by the Oxnard Police Department.

The conduct of the OPD has been outrageous, petty and illegal from the onset of this foolish episode. The OPD wants nothing more than to intimidate and eliminate the constitutional protected rights of assembly and freedom of speech of activist like Francisco Romero and organizations like Todo Poder al Pueblo in Oxnard.

The sorry events that lead up to Francisco Romero being cited for five (5) misdemeanor traffic infractions was as follows. On October 13, 2013, Todo Poder al Pueblo organized a community march against police brutality, repression and the killing of Alfonso Limon Jr.,Jose Zepeda, Pobert Ramirez Jr. and Micheal Mahoney at the hands of the Oxnard Police Department. This is what the historic march was about the killing of young men in our community by the cops.

By all accounts, mine included, the demonstration was well organized, informed and united. The crowd of about 150 to 200, ranging from young children to adults was well informed, passionate, loud and orderly. In every instance during the few hours long march the designated demonstration leader exercised their many years of local and regional experiences in safe demonstration crowd organizing protocol; safety for all of the demonstrators was paramount. It was a glorious and peaceful local example of the people exercising their constitutional protected rights!

The OPD it has now been revealed, through the power of various discovery motions, to have deployed approximately 91 cops to monitor the peaceful October 13, 2013 march. Tens of thousands of tax payer were needlessly wasted in overtime and supervision pay for the 91 cops. In the videos that have been turned over by court order to the defense attorney, the cops can be heard singling (targeting) out Francisco Romero and no one else in a crowd of 150 to 200 demonstrators. If you look at the videos you can clearly discern that Francisco Romero is doing everything in his power to keep the demonstrators following safely the organized march route.

The OPD leadership, on this singular historic illegal selective prosecution of one of our community leaders, is if nothing else evil, vindictive and hardheaded and its creditability is at stake. But like the proverbial wolf that has been caught by a historically important precedent setting community trap (of their own making) they will rip and tear into their badly damaged “law and order” leg until they pathetically bleed to death. Why do cops take these kinds of boneheaded and repressive positions, here in Oxnard and all over this nation? The answer is as dangerous and chilling as it is clear, they can and they know it!  Who in the community will stand up to their guns, mace, shackles, jails, all their toys, their laws? Todo Poder al Pubelo has and will and therein lays the first conundrum currently facing the OPD.

Cops, the OPD included, are obsessively charged with one job; keep the community safe by exercising professional, objective, lawful, and judicious constraint. The Oxnard Police Department is omnipotent and omnipresent; they are in our public schools from elementary to high school, they are in our gyms, they are in our community meetings, in the entire daily discourse of Oxnard and this is dangerous to our community. The OPD by any objective measure now runs and controls to a large and dangerous degree the recreational and social services programs and agenda of this city.

The OPD now runs and controls PALS, The Recreational Department (by Proxy), and the Family Alliance, City Corp, Cal Grip Programs (by Proxy), City Impact (by Proxy) and the other 16 or so programs that are post on their brag sheets. The Oxnard Police Department now has a yearly budget of approximately $120 million dollars or approximately 33% of the entire city budget and growing every year. In addition, the OPD get money from the city, state, federal government funds like CDBG, CalGRIP, Ventura County Probation, Department of Homeland Defense, and ICE to many only a few of the funding source at the disposal of the OPD. The OPDS has very deep pockets, and lap dogs throughout city hall.

The eternal, and always ignored adage by the bully, is that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely! This then is the second conundrum now facing the OPD and modern policing practices and protocol and throughout America, cops are addicted to power and more power over the community! On a local and national level the cops have lost their way! Here in Oxnard and throughout the nation the cops have militarized and by sheer fire power control our communities. They are at war with youth of color, the homeless, the immigrants, the legions of unfortunates that are caught in the diabolical revolving door of the criminal justice system, and the addicted.

The third conundrum facing the OPD is that is completely shameless and hypocritical in the current power play  that has the OPD aligning itself to become the leading agents of social community building and empowerment engineering of our community. All the while the silence and fear of the lambs in Oxnard and throughout the nation acquiesce to the power of cops as they insidiously morph into becoming our our social workers, counselors, surrogate parents, confessors, therapist, educators and recreational professional. The lambs have forgotten that the wolf is a cop and nothing more.

This, in my opinion, is why the OPD singled out Francisco Romero and Todo Poder al Pubelo to effectively harass, silence and eliminate the only organization in our community that has consistently challenged the omnipotent, omnipresent and much chronicled abusive and sometimes deadly actions of the OPD.

It takes tremendous courage and bravery to stand up to the OPD, and police in general in this city, in this nation, and throughout the world. One misstep can get you killed! This is why Francisco Romero and Todo Poder al Pueblo are so vitally important to Oxnard. When these courageous brothers and sister see, hear or read about OPD abuse and misconduct they are not afraid to investigate it, challenge the abuse and demand justice.

Where would Oxnard be without Francisco Romero and Todo Poder al Pueblo? It is a frightening and sobering thought. So please support the courageous work of Francisco Romero and the Todo Poder al Pueblo collective by showing up on February 25, 2015 at 3 PM, in court room 34, at the Ventura Court Building, 800 Victoria, Ventura, to support Francisco Romero, as he petitions the court to have the OPD’s trumped up traffic infraction charges dropped.

This is a fight between the powers of the OPD and the will and courage of one brave man and one brave organization that love and honor justice in their community. The outcome of this constitutional decision will reverberate throughout Oxnard and the nation for years to come. The singular questions is do the people have the right to free peaceful assembly and freedom of speech, and can the cops curtail, infringe or eliminate (snuff) these rights. Todo Poder al Pueblo, All Power to the People!