Vol. 71/No. 23      June 11, 2007

More than 100 people attended Arzú’s funeral on May 26—along with relatives, local politicians, and others—to condemn his killing and demand the prosecution of police officer Raphael Lora, who fatally shot Arzú on the night of May 18.

“We are tired of pain. We want justice,” said Katherine Arzú, 20, Fermín’s daughter, speaking at the funeral.

Earlier that day, about 100 people attended the weekly morning rally organized by the National Action Network in Harlem, hosted by Rev. Alfred Sharpton. It was a protest against Arzú’s killing. Sharpton shared the platform with members of the Arzú family and Nicole Paultre-Bell, fiancée of Sean Bell, an African American worker who was killed in a hail of 50 bullets by New York cops last November.

Arzú worked as a building porter. At around 11:40 p.m. on May 18, after dropping off his fiancée, Thomasa Sabio, at her apartment in the Longwood area of the South Bronx, Arzú crashed his minivan into a parked car near Lora’s home on Hewitt Place. According to police and press reports, Lora ran out of his home when he heard the crash, without his uniform and with his gun.

The police claim that Lora approached Arzú from the driver’s side and asked for his driver’s license and registration. They say Arzú reached into his glove compartment to search for his documents, then suddenly drove away, knocking Lora down. That’s when Lora says he opened fire.

Several witnesses, however, said the officer never identified himself and that the van was moving slowly when Lora fired his weapon five times at Arzú. One of the bullets struck Arzú in his back and pierced his heart.

“The guy just opened fire, and then he just started running after the car,” said a witness who asked not to be identified, according to the May 20 New York Post.

Marisol Medina, another witness, told the Post she came out of her home when she heard the crash and saw Lora running down the street after the minivan.

“The next thing you know, you see this guy running with a gun,” said Medina. “Everybody was afraid. We thought he was running down to finish him off. He looked like a thug with a gun, in plainclothes.”

“They are saying many things now, that he was drinking,” said María Suazo, Arzú’s niece, referring to a report stating that Arzú had a blood alcohol level of 0.17 at the time of the incident. “OK maybe that is true, but nobody has the right to take another life,” Suazo told the May 26 rally in Harlem.

“Did they think we wouldn’t care because he was an immigrant?” said Sharpton at the rally. “We want the family to know that the community is with them.”

Nicole Paultre-Bell said she was there to support the Arzú family the same way the community came together to support her.

Virtually everyone interviewed by the Militant in the area of the shooting, overwhelmingly workers, opposed Arzú’s killing.

“There is no justification for this,” said Catalina, a worker at a laundromat who asked that her last name not be used. “You can’t kill somebody because they crashed into a car parked on the street. The policeman who shot Fermín should go to jail. This cop is known for such problems before.”

The neighborhood where Arzú was killed is mixed. It includes many African Americans and a growing number of immigrants, primarily from Mexico and Central America. The latter include thousands of Garífunas—like Arzú—descendents of Amerindians and Africans who live on the Atlantic Coast, between Belize and Nicaragua. Most speak English, along with their own Creole, and some speak Spanish too.

Reactions among African Americans were mixed. While most opposed the shooting, some were influenced by anti-immigrant prejudices peddled by the media and capitalist politicians. “There was no reason to do that,” said a retiree, who identified himself only as Edward, referring to Arzú’s killing. He added, “A lot of us can’t get jobs, not even welfare. And they bring all these people, because they can pay them little, and we are left out.”

Clara Monroe Brown, a retired public employee, said Arzú’s shooting was unjustified. She was also somewhat resentful at the “cultural practices” of the Garífunas. She lives around the corner from Dawson Street and Rev. James A. Polite Avenue, where dozens of Garífunas socialize on weekends around a grocery store, a music club, and a park. “Sometimes on weekends many of them hang out by the club and play music, loud,” Monroe said. “One time I called the police on them because they kept going with the music at 2:00 a.m. But the cops did not do anything.”

Others, like Rosalind McCullough, a cook in the military, said Blacks have no problems with the immigrants. “We are in the same boat,” she said.

Outside the bodega at Dawson and Polite, a dozen Garífunas said they have good relations with neighbors. “We come here to work,” said Pedro Suazo, a hotel worker. “We don’t bother anybody. I knew Fermín. He was a peaceful man, just like us. The problem is the police. They treat us like foreigners, like animals, not like human beings.”

Argiris Malapanis and Don Mackle contributed to this article.  
 
 
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