Manuel Diaz: Anaheim Cops Claim Another Victim

With the bulk of national media coverage understandably focused on the horrific mass shooting in a Aurora, Colorado movie theater last Thursday, less coverage was devoted to another victim of unjustified gun violence; 25 year-old Manuel Diaz of Anaheim, California (pictured left).

The circumstances of his death are by now, all-too-familiar to opponents of gun violence and the justified use of excessive police force in poor urban communities from New York City to New Orleans, Houston or Chicago - yet another a young, unarmed African-American or Latino male shot and killed by police. Read the facts.
On the afternoon of Saturday July 21st Diaz was talking with his friend, Jose Gallardo, 30, in the alley behind an apartment building in a working class, mostly Hispanic neighborhood just a few miles from Disney Land. According to Gallardo, two Anaheim police officers pulled up in an unmarked vehicle and Diaz, a known member of a local gang, and others fled. Gallardo heard two shots and ran back to find Diaz laying on the ground bleeding with a bullet in his neck and lower back.

Tensions between police and the local community were already tense, Diaz was the 5th victim to be shot and killed by Anaheim Police this year. Local residents protesting the shooting found themselves attacked by police who fired rubber bullets into a terrified crowd that included women and children. According to the Occupy California blog, one officer at the scene released a police dog that attacked a woman protecting her baby and bit 19 year-old Junior Lagunas in the forearm after he went outside with his girlfriend and 1 year-old child to see what was happening.

Angry protests over the police response and the shooting continued Sunday morning at a police press conference, but after another Anaheim Police shooting on Sunday, the violence escalated into rioting that shook the downtown area on Tuesday.

Outraged local residents watched helplessly as young rioters damaged local small businesses during chaos that lasted for hours. Despite the FBI agreeing to look into the shooting on Saturday and the Orange County DA opening an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the officer's actions leading up to Diaz's death, police are bracing for more protests scheduled for today.

What kind of nation are we living in when "acting suspiciously" or "furtive movements" become abstract legal justifications for using lethal force against young black or Latino males? Manuel Diaz and Trayvon Martin will never get the chance to answer that question haunting the collective conscience of America.