Vol. 72/No. 35      September 8, 2008

Militant/Seth Dellinger

August 20 rally in Langley Park , Maryland, against killing of immigrant worker Manuel de Jesús Espina by Prince George’s County cop. Speaking (center) is Dorothy Elliot, a leader of the People’s Coalition for Police Accountability.

According to witnesses Jackson beat Espina, beat him with a baton, and then shot him in the stomach. Jackson, who was moonlighting in uniform as a security guard, said Espina had an open alcoholic beverage.

The cops said that Jackson feared for his life, first claiming that Espina, who was unarmed, had tried to take his gun. Later in a media statement they changed their story to say that Espina had tried to take his baton. Espina’s son, Manuel de Jesús Espina Jacome, confronted Jackson over the killing and tried to resuscitate his father. He was arrested and charged with second-degree assault and resisting arrest.

Elvia Rivera, 23, Espina’s downstairs neighbor, witnessed the beating outside her apartment and opened the door out of concern for Espina. “He [Jackson] was hitting him very hard. He was screaming and hitting him,” she said, in an interview with the Washington Post. Jackson and Espina entered Rivera’s apartment where the shooting then took place.

Several workers who spoke at the vigil rejected police claims that Espina had attacked Jackson. They instead described a pattern of police abuse of the overwhelmingly Latino residents of the apartment complex.

One of the speakers to address the vigil was Dorothy Elliot, a leader of the People’s Coalition for Police Accountability. Elliot’s son, Archie Elliot, was shot dead by Prince George’s County cops while handcuffed in the back of a police car in 1993. “Who would have thought this would happen again,” she asked, “only six weeks after the death of Ronnie White.”

White, a 19-year-old Black youth, was found strangled to death while being held in a Prince George’s County jail in June two days after being arrested as a suspect in the death of a Prince George’s County cop. None of the security guards on duty at the time have been charged or arrested in connection with his murder.

“We need justice, but we can’t wait for it. We have to mobilize in the streets,” Elliot said.

Elizabeth Zuniga, one of many local residents who gave examples of police abuse of Latino immigrants, described how she was harassed and then detained for trespassing while waiting for the bus. Another woman who spoke said she was sexually assaulted by three cops.

“They don’t care about us Hispanics,” a construction worker named Danilo Mayorga told the crowd. “They don’t protect us, they exclude us and take advantage of us.”

“My brother has lived in this country for 16 years and never had any problems with anyone. Why did they kill him?” Trinidad Espina asked in an August 23 phone interview with the Militant. “What happened to him has happened to too many people. So we are fighting for justice. And we won’t stop!”
 
 
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