In LaMarque, ‘right is right and wrong is wrong’
The crowd slowed and briefly came to a stop so La Marque Police would get the message, a message delivered frequently of late in the Houston area.
“No Justice. No Peace,” the crowd chanted, Black Lives Matter flags waving in the breeze.
Then it was on to City Hall, four days after 22-year-old Joshua Feast was shot by Jose Santos — an officer nowbeing investigated for a second time for an on-duty fatal shooting.
“Why are our kids not corrected, they are killed?,” said Kimberly Yancy, who helped organize the march, which despite tensions and some yelling, ended peacefully.
Nearly 120 people, joined by about three dozen others following by car, marched from a local shopping center to La Marque CityHall. They urged change, demanded justice and said his name.
“Joshua Feast,” the crowd chanted as La Marque police monitored traffic and closed streets, but kept their distance.
Organizers, primarily young people from the city with help from local groups, said their focus was four specific requests: Santos’ firing, the resignation of the police chief, commitments by the city to more modern and inclusive policing and release of the body camera footage of the incident.
The lack of transparency in refusing to release the footage was
especially galling, organizers said, demonstrating police are more interested in protecting themselves than providing answers for a grieving family.
“They are not being truly held accountable for their actions,” said organizer Anthony Garner, 20, of La Marque.
The police department has released few details in the Wednesday night fatal shooting. At a Thursday news conference, Police Chief Kirk Jackson did not say what led up to the shooting. He said Santos had a reason to believe Feast was armed, and that multiple firearms were recovered.
Feast was shot near his residence, witnesses said. His mother, Lakeisha Feast, told reporters that she believes her son was shot in the back while running away, based on what witnesses told her.
Santos was placed on administrative leave following the Wednesday night shooting. Feast is the second person that Santos has shot and killed in the line of duty. In December 2017, he fatally shot Gregory Ham, who was suspected in a home invasion, after the man struck the officer in the face with a sword, according to LaMarque police.
The Galveston County Sheriff’s Office and District Attorney’ s Office are investigating Feast’s shooting death.
Critics who attended the march said theyhave little faith in the local leadership to assure a fair and thorough investigation. Feast’s family is being represented by prominent civil rights lawyer Ben Crump.
“Not only did witnesses report that… Santos failed to render aid to Joshua after shooting him, but he also kicked his body,” Crump wrote in a statement.
Though focused on Feast and the details surrounding it, the sour relationship that’s led to much of the distrust dates back further and extends beyond local police to the sheriff’s department, elected officials and local media, march attendees said.
“His death is a manifestation of that anger,” said Yancey, who taught Feast and organizers in middle school and is president of the Dickinson/Bay Area NAACP chapter.
La Marque, nearly evenly split demographically with one-third white, Black and Hispanic residents, doesn’t show that diversity among its police. Less than 10 percent of patrol officers are Black, Yancy said.
Relations between police and the Black community are strained or— after Feast’s death— bordering on hostile, many at the protest said.
“Right is right and wrong is wrong,” one attendee said, refusing to give his name. “You cannot expect people tosit idly by and take it. This isn’t us being violent, this is us being tired of not fighting back.”
It’s a frustration and place Nikita Braziel knows well. Houston Police in 2016 shot and killed her husband Alva Braziel during an encounter in Sunnyside. Police shot Braziel as he waved a gun in the intersection of Cullen and Ward, though their use of lethal force was criticized. A grand jury the following year declined to indict the two officers involved in the shooting.
Since, she has become an outspoken critic of police use of force, firing up Saturday’s crowd with a bullhorn and encouraging them to be vigilant and peaceful.
“We want justice and we want it today,” Braziel yelled to the crowd. “You cannot justify a bullet to the back.”