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</font><font size=4>SF police kill teen, Kenneth Harding, as he ran from
them at T-train stop; crowds protest, rallies planned<br>
By Willie Ratcliff <br><br>
San Francisco Bay View National Black Newspaper<br><br>
<a href="http://sfbayview.com/2011/why-should-you-die-for-a-transfer/">
http://sfbayview.com/2011/why-should-you-die-for-a-transfer/</a><br><br>
When police stopped a teenager stepping off the T-train yesterday to show
his transfer as proof he’d paid his fare – $2 at most – he ran from them.
They shot him as many as 10 times in the back and neck, according to
witnesses. For many long minutes, as a crowd watched in horror, the boy,
who had fallen to the sidewalk a block away, lay in a quickly growing
pool of blood writhing in pain and trying to lift himself up as the cops
trained their guns on him and threatened bystanders.<br><br>
This frame from a video shot by a bystander shows the teenager struggling
to lift himself out of a pool of his own blood as a San Francisco police
officer – one of several – aims his gun at the boy rather than trying to
save his life. – Video frame: TheOneNonly457. The teen, Kenneth Harding,
is loudly moaning in pain and crying out for help.<br><br>
Having killed the boy [Kenneth Harding] at 4:44 p.m., according to the
San Francisco Chronicle, [1] in broad daylight at the main intersection –
Third Street between Palou and Oakdale – in Bayview Hunters Point, San
Francisco’s last largely Black neighborhood, the police seemed eager to
terrorize the community. They waited and waited and waited as the
teenager stopped moving but continued breathing before eventually setting
him on a gurney and taking him to the hospital, where the Chronicle
reports he died at 7:01 p.m.<br><br>
“Why should you die for a transfer?” asked a witness known as Tiptoe in
the crowd of hundreds of residents that soon gathered in the plaza at the
Oakdale/Palou light rail stop. “Justice will be brought!” hollered one
man repeatedly in a booming voice as the crowd shouted at the long line
of police in riot gear standing between them and the dying youngster. “I
saw the riot squad fly by me on Palou yesterday – five trucks in all,”
wrote Bayview resident Sherry Bryson on Facebook.<br><br>
As night fell, firefighters washed the teenager's blood off the sidewalk
and police and reporters talked. Rick Hauptman, who posted this photo on
Facebook, noted: "The police seemed almost jolly. I saw many
handshakes among them; I couldn't figure that out. Were they solely
being respectful to their colleagues and to senior officers, or was it
something else?”<br><br>
As usual following police murders, the San Francisco Police Department
came up with an excuse. The Chronicle [1] relayed it: “As the officers
tried to detain the man, he took off running and drew a gun, police
said,” according to staff writer Joe Garofoli. “When the suspect shot at
the officers, they returned fire, fatally wounding him,” he continued,
quoting SFPD Sgt. Michael Andraychak.<br><br>
None of the many witnesses I spoke with yesterday saw the young victim
either holding or shooting a gun and firmly believe he was unarmed.
ABC7’s Carolyn Tyler balanced the police claim that they shot the
youngster in self-defense by interviewing Trivon Dixon, who said: “He was
running. How could he be a threat in retreat? And he wasn’t running
backwards, turning around shooting. He was in full throttle, running away
from the police. I don’t see in any way how he could be a threat to the
police.”</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font size=4>Go to
<a href="http://sfbayview.com/2011/why-should-you-die-for-a-transfer/">
http://sfbayview.com/2011/why-should-you-die-for-a-transfer/</a> for
remainder of article, video and much more!<br><br>
<br>
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