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HUMANITY IN TORMENT
=By= Ana Biocini
A rally for justice for Hernan Jaramillo. Courage Campaign.
“I can’t breathe….they’re killing me,” I heard my brother Hernan scream over, and over, and over again, while I watched police pin him to the ground with all of their weight on top of him, after beating him down on the street and dragging him out to the sidewalk in front of my house in Oakland. I pleaded for them to stop, but the police officers continued until he breathed no more. Click here to demand justice for my brother.
When I called the police for help that day, I never imagined that I was calling the same people who would kill my dear brother in the street just minutes later.
Hernan’s death was all caught on video. But the police hid the tape from the public for TWO AND A HALF YEARS — until it was recently leaked to the media by an anonymous source.(1) If it were up to the police and Oakland authorities, the public might never have known what happened. It’s been over two years, and there still hasn’t been a public investigation into Hernan’s death. There have been no charges against the police who killed him. No major public outcry. Nothing. We don’t even know whether any of the officers involved were disciplined. In fact, the Oakland Police Department refuses to answer any questions about his death at all.
Now that the video of the police killing my brother is finally public, this is our chance to demand justice for Hernan. My family and I can’t do it alone. We need your help, Rowan.
My younger brother, Hernan Jaramillo, worked as a realtor for years, lost his job and house after the economy crashed in 2008, and returned to school. Prior to being killed, he moved in with me and worked as a salesman for a local solar panel company. Hernan was a good, innocent, unarmed man who wasn’t doing anything wrong.
I called the police on July 8th, 2013 for help because I heard noises from his room and thought that someone was trying to break in and hurt him. It was a false alarm, but instead of simply talking with my brother and trying to figure out what had happened, the police officers forced him out of my home in handcuffs — shoeless, wearing just boxers and a tank top — and killed him. Then they kept the truth about his death quiet for two and a half years.
The truth is that the police beat him, threw him to the ground in the middle of the street, and dragged his body 20 feet to the sidewalk. For 15 minutes, an officer pressed his knee into Hernan’s back, while another officer’s hand pressured his lungs — repeatedly ignoring his and my pleas to let him sit up and catch his breath. And eventually Hernan went silent. That’s when one police officer said, “OK now, because you are quiet, you can sit.” But it was too late — they had already killed him. When the paramedics finally came, my brother’s lifeless body was still handcuffed.(2) Click here to demand justice for Hernan.
My brother did not deserve to die. And I am haunted by his death every day. But what bothers me the most is the silence that has surrounded his death, the inaction from Oakland authorities, and the lack of accountability for the police officers who killed him.
If the officers who killed my brother are innocent, why has the police department kept the video of his death hidden from the public? Why are they refusing to talk to the press or my family about what happened? Why hasn’t District Attorney Nancy E. O’Malley even investigated this case? And what is stopping Mayor Schaaf from taking action and holding all parties involved accountable?
These questions keep me up at night, and I can’t fight this alone anymore. I am so grateful to have Courage Campaign and Presente.org now helping with Hernan’s case, but we need thousands of compassionate people like you to join us if we are going to have a fighting chance at justice.
About a year after Hernan’s death, a New York City Police Department officer killed Eric Garner in a shockingly similar incident.(3) If the video of my brother’s death had been made public when he was killed, it would have created an important public conversation about the use of excessive force by the police.
What happened to my brother and Eric Garner are just two tragic examples of the epidemic of police violence against Latinos, Black people, and other people of color in our country.
My brother didn’t deserve to die like this, and neither did Eric Garner, or Michael Brown, or Tamir Rice, and so many others who have died at the hands of police. We must join together, stand up, and demand justice now!
Tell Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf to demand Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley and Police Chief Sean Whent launch immediate investigations into Hernan’s death and hold the officers involved accountable to the full extent of the law.
In honor of my little brother Hernan Jaramillo,
Ana Biocini
1. http://act.couragecampaign.org/go/2529?t=10&akid=2539.2106367.mxa6Va
2. http://act.couragecampaign.org/go/2530?t=12&akid=2539.2106367.mxa6Va
3. http://act.couragecampaign.org/go/2531?t=14&akid=2539.2106367.mxa6Va
The campaign presented here is an email from Courage Campaign.
Additional information: ACLU of Northern California Statement on Hernan Jaramillo’s Death in Oakland Police Custody
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