The Board of Supervisors yesterday, December 13, voted 9-1 to create a memorial on public property for Alex Nieto.
He was the young Latino killed in a hail of bullets fired by San Francisco Police Department officers in Bernal Heights in 2014. Corrupt District Attorney George Gascon refuses to press charges against the cops who slaughtered Nieto.
The lone supervisor voting against his memorial was Mark Farrell, who, according to 48Hills.com, said creating it "was the wrong message: He argued that the city hasn’t created memorials for police officers who died."
The Examiner reported: '[Farrell] called the incident 'horrific,' but said he opposed the memorial 'because of the message that it is sending to the men and women of our Police Department who put their lives on the line for us every single day.” Farrell said that the board has focused on victims of police violence but “in turn, we do not recognize the police officers that have been killed or injured in the line of duty.”
This is from SFCurbed.com and it's via our local wire service:
“We don’t recognize the police officers killed or injured protecting residents,” Farrell said to Bay City News. “Somehow we’ve forgotten the debt we owe these men and women and someone needs to stand up for them.”
Finally, here's who the Chronicle quoted:
"In response to the approval of the park memorial, union President Martin Halloran said, 'We believe that we as a city should instead be honoring real heroes, the first responders who made the ultimate sacrifice while protecting our community from harm.'"
What none of the media noted is that there are two publicly-funded marble walls on public property, of names of SFPD officers who've died in service to the City.
Known facts clearly ignored, especially by Farrell, that the Hall of Justice and the new SFPD headquarters each have a version of a wall honoring officers shot while on duty.
I have no idea, as I'm sure is the same for Farrell, how many names are on those two taxpayer-funded walls.
It's about time San Francisco's municipal space and public dollars were equally spent on honoring and remembering the names and lives of civilians fatally shot by a member of the SFPD. Thanks to the Supervisors who voted for the Nieto memorial.
And for the local media, please, get wise to the SFPD's duo of marble slabs serving as memorials that Farrell doesn't know exist. Tell us the news!
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